# Fuck you EA! Thanks for stealing my money and ruining Simcity **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 8, 2013, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425 "2013-03-08T20:30:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/21 "2013-03-09T00:17:11Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > What I find endlessly curious about this is that nobody else has ever made a good, generic city building game. > > A few have tried; CitiesXL apparently had its good points but every version was plagued by an endless series of bugs. There used to be Caesar and Pharaoh, which were pretty neat but those are old. > > No version of SimCity since the original has quite hit the mark, really. SimCity 2000 was awesome, but the economic system has huge holes in it (specifically, you couldn’t afford power plants, except to cheat and create waterfalls just to have hydro power.) SimCity 3000 was awesome in many ways but felt like they’d missed a lot of great opportunities. SimCity 4 is arguably the best but is a brutally hard game. > > Now with SimCity 5 they’ve decided to make it really more a “The City of The Sims” than SimCity; the cities are really small and you’re sort of required to play the game in cooperative mode to make it work, and that’s on top of the server issues that they inexplicably failed to anticipate. > > Given the immense demand for a game like this, I’m kind of stymied as to why no one’s said “I’m going to make a non-themed generic city builder and actually make sure it’s not a bug jar.” The way I see it there are two extremely large hurdles to overcome. I’m going to lump together some overlapping genres to make my point. **1. Graphics and interface.** I’ve tried very hard to get into LinCity-NG, OpenTTD, and Freeciv. Their stock graphics packages are not even comparable to the artwork included in the commercial games that they clone. They make it much more difficult to get immersed in the game. Now obviously, objectively speaking, SC and SC2K have worse graphics than LinCity-NG, but those were still immensely enthralling games at the time. But we’ve been exposed to so much better since then. Often games with shitty graphics just can’t hold my interest when I could be playing a current-generation game instead. Gameplay itself may wax and wane across releases but that’s the way it is - once you have played, e.g., SC4, SC2K and OpenTTD will have an uphill battle keeping your interest, or that of any average gamer. The interface for those clones is also stuck in the 1990s, a la the old shovelware _Xyz Tycoon_ games. That’s a problem in a department overlapping with graphics. **2. City simulation is computationally challenging.** SC4 was a beastly package back when it was first released, and running large cities on it is often tediously slow. It’s still known as a way to turn your computer into a radiator (although part of this has to do with inability to take advantage of multi-core processors). I can’t speak to the simulation on SimCity 5 because I haven’t played it, but from what I have read, they’ve traded off large city size in order to more realistically model more variables. The next-biggest hurdle is probably that there just isn’t that big of a market for simulation games. There’s only room for the one AAA franchise. And then there’s not much incentive for people to buy any lesser competitor (like Cities XL) when SC4, the current gold-standard, is over a decade old and on sale for $10 in bargain bins across the country. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/22 "2013-03-09T02:01:15Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > But then, we’re apparently long past the days when satire was expected to be funny, implausible, or both. Right. At this point, the main comedy to be gleaned from satire is laughing at people who fell for it, regardless of how much the satirical piece sounded like a real news story or that person’s honest opinion. On the plus side, _The New York Times_ and the BBC are now occasionally publishing satire in a completely deadpan, plausible, and, therefore, _hilarious_ fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/23 "2013-03-09T03:30:41Z")
> [@drew870mitchell](#): > > **2. City simulation is computationally challenging.** SC4 was a beastly package back when it was first released, and running large cities on it is often tediously slow. It’s still known as a way to turn your computer into a radiator (although part of this has to do with inability to take advantage of multi-core processors). > > I can’t speak to the simulation on SimCity 5 because I haven’t played it, but from what I have read, they’ve traded off large city size in order to more realistically model more variables. But SimCity 4 is more than ten years old at this point. So surely it’s possible to make an amazing simulation using modern processors? ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/24 "2013-03-09T05:54:39Z")
Thinking about this a little more–even beyond the question of what happens when EA decides to pull the plug is what happens when some of the people stop playing? For example, the typical MMO launch has the first couple of days with overloaded servers, then the company opens a bunch of new ones to spread people out, then a bunch of people quit after a couple months and half the servers are ghost towns leading to server consolidations and such. If I’m following the threads and other game play descriptions correctly, the towns here are smaller and more specialized so that everyone is pretty dependent on others in the cluster. But of the, what, 16 or so plots in Cecilville, I bet that even if EA gets the servers to run perfectly as of tomorrow, in 3-6 months half of them go away just from normal gaming attrition. So what happens when the guy who decided to make his fortune in regional trash collecting has enough? Where does the casino-city guy send his crap? ---
**Author:** ![Askthepizzaguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askthepizzaguy/32/9405_2.png) [@Askthepizzaguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askthepizzaguy)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/25 "2013-03-09T06:01:41Z")
I have stopped buying new video games. I sensed quality slipping away from the formula and more “stuff” being packed in. The stuff ended up being mostly: graphical capabilities and complexity. However, a dazzling and complex piece of shit is still a piece of shit. I can play a game from back in the 90’s and have fun, even though the game is simpler and less sparkly. The difference being, the end product had to be playable and enjoyable, otherwise it wouldn’t sell. Now games can sell and be broken and not fun. See what happened to the Civilization series. See what happened to the SimCity series. See what they did to the Resident Evil series. All I want is a game I can play and enjoy. And when 15 year old kids with zero money and free software can design playable and fun games that you can also get for free, and companies with huge staff, millionaire CEOs, and insane experience and capabilities turn out steaming piles of monkey crap, I officially resigned from being a customer of the commercial video gaming marketplace. I am still playing my old games, and still having fun. It saddens me to watch companies like Nintendo and EA who used to be the generators of great games completely go off the rails. But my loyalty has always been to a good game, not a name brand I respect stamped on a piece of shit. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/26 "2013-03-09T06:24:16Z")
The essence of fun of any Simcity is the god like power a player has over his own little personal world, multiplayer interaction is absurd anyway, requiring it is moronic regardless of connection issues. This really seems like a fundamental DRM issue the developers wanted to build into the ‘game experience’. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/27 "2013-03-09T06:43:10Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > More like Sim_Shitty_, eh? Yeah, I’ve been saving that one! > **[Why herro there Welcome to shim shitty](http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3tardc)** > > Click to Enlarge... write a comment or recaption! Stealing stuff from Reddit. From _Reddit_!! So, its come to this, has it? At long last, its come to this. We shall try to remember you as you were, once upon a time… ---
**Author:** ![pope\_hentai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@pope\_hentai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pope_hentai)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/28 "2013-03-09T07:26:48Z")
Ive had a beef with EA since they bought and shelved a COMPLETED game i was looking forward to, literally weeks from its release date, years ago… for them to do something stupid now doesnt surprise me at all. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/29 "2013-03-09T08:12:25Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > The real question is this: > > What happens when EA inevitably shuts down the servers? Yes, I know it will be an older game by then, but people are still playing the earliest versions of the game. Will this cripple it? How will that affect EA’s bottom line when they sell the Sim City: Ultimate Edition to squeeze the last bit of blood from that particular stone? > > They are going to have to patch this so it can be played offfline. It’s inevitable. D3 hasn’t been patched like that AFAIK, what did happen is that there’s similar games out there which actually happen to be playable offline. I’d hug my copy of T2 but it was a download… ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/30 "2013-03-09T08:37:00Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > Welcome to the world of Diablo 3! … i have given up on EA ever since they pulled the third instalment of Mass Effect from Steam. i love SimCity but know nothing about this latest one. Blizzard justified its actions because D3 is about loot, and they want all loot to be tradeable on its $$ auction house. what’s the justification for SimCity? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/31 "2013-03-09T12:43:33Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > [Why herro there Welcome to shim shitty - Misc - quickmeme](http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3tardc/) > > Stealing stuff from Reddit. From _Reddit_!! So, its come to this, has it? At long last, its come to this. We shall try to remember you as you were, once upon a time… I’ve deteriorated, no question. Guess I should’ve known a gem like that was too precious a child to be born of one mind alone. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/32 "2013-03-09T13:29:52Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > All I want is a game I can play and enjoy. And when 15 year old kids with zero money and free software can design playable and fun games that you can also get for free, and companies with huge staff, millionaire CEOs, and insane experience and capabilities turn out steaming piles of monkey crap, I officially resigned from being a customer of the commercial video gaming marketplace. I’ve been throwing my hope (and money) behind projects launched on Kickstarter, so small- and mid-size game companies can get money to fund their project early in the development cycle and not have to rely on some giant faceless company like EA to offer them enough money to get by then force all kinds of changes and DRM and other crap on them. (Notable hopes right now - [Torment: Tides of Numenera](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera) by inXile, a “spiritual successor” to Planescape: Torment, and [Project Eternity](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity) by Obsidian Entertainment.) Edit: Apparently EA is now admitting that maybe people have a right to be irked, and are offering something about a [free downloadable computer game from their catalog](http://consumerist.com/2013/03/09/ea-admits-its-own-stupidity-will-give-away-free-games-to-people-who-bought-simcity/) as an apology. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/33 "2013-03-09T13:33:42Z")
> [@shijinn](#): > > what’s the justification for SimCity? They need the processing power for each individual Sim and their vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/34 "2013-03-09T13:39:38Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > What I find endlessly curious about this is that nobody else has ever made a good, generic city building game. > > A few have tried; CitiesXL apparently had its good points but every version was plagued by an endless series of bugs. There used to be Caesar and Pharaoh, which were pretty neat but those are old. There are a few threads over on Reddit pointing out that Steam has just put Tropico 4 and all DLC on sale for 75% off. Lots of good reviews. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/35 "2013-03-09T15:12:41Z")
> [@pope\_hentai](#): > > Ive had a beef with EA since they bought and shelved a COMPLETED game i was looking forward to, literally weeks from its release date, years ago.. for them to do something stupid now doesnt surprise me at all. Just curious but what game was this? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/36 "2013-03-09T15:18:31Z")
_Teenage Vampire Lesbian Sluts from Outer Space vs Zombies_ ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/37 "2013-03-09T15:35:15Z")
> [@hrhomer](#): > > There are a few threads over on Reddit pointing out that Steam has just put Tropico 4 and all DLC on sale for 75% off. Lots of good reviews. Thanks for this. I am severely pissed off about what EA has done with the SimCity franchise. I guess I’ll give Tropico a try, because there’s no way in hell I’m giving any money to EA. I don’t care how good the game supposedly is; I’m not paying for something that can be yanked away from me at any time if the company decides that maintaining the servers isn’t profitable anymore or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/38 "2013-03-09T16:17:52Z")
I would recommend _Dark Souls_ to you if you are of preternaturally calm disposition and entirely immune to fits of controller-hurling rage. Otherwise, no. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/39 "2013-03-09T18:04:07Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Just curious but what game was this? My guess is that he’s talking about _Ultima 8: The Lost Vale_. It was an add-on (stand alone?) to _Pagan_. EA canned the game after it went gold but before it was released… and then promptly threw everything in the trash without archiving anything so there’s nothing left of the game., unless one of the developers had a spare copy sitting around. Their reasoniong was that they figured they’d hav the same market pentration as previous expansion poacks, and _Pagan_ was so bad that they basically didn’t sell jack squat. And it was so bad because the game was horrendously rushed out the door on EA’s orders… when then also happened to Ultima 9. _EA: Screwing ourselves by screwing you!_ ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425/40 "2013-03-09T20:11:22Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Just curious but what game was this? > [@elucidator](#): > > _Teenage Vampire Lesbian Sluts from Outer Space vs Zombies_ Are you sure it wasn’t the sequel to [Leather Goddesses of Phobos](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather_Goddesses_of_Phobos)? Man, I HATED the catacombs, and I always used the cheat code to get through that bit. And yes, I played and replayed the game in every permutation, male and female, tame, suggestive, and lewd modes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-you-ea-thanks-for-stealing-my-money-and-ruining-simcity/652425.md?page=3)