SimCity is back, gaming is dead, RIP gaming.

[sickrubik]

Online DRM has been a fact of gaming for 5 years now, you would've thought some of the bigger review sites would oh I dunno catch on to this and oh I dunno preemptively warn people that this might very well be an issue.

Oh wait, that would imply not getting a preview copy and/or bribe money.

Polygon calls that out specifically, though.

[Paelos]

The DRM offers no service, therefore it has no reason to exist. If you want to require online activities, they must work, be non-intrusive to the customer, and provide some sort of benefit for participation.

[Sir T]

I thought the IGN review was ok. They made it clear it was a review copy and stuff, and aside from gushing over the "OMG I CAN FOLLOW A SIM AROUND ALL DAY" I thought it was a fairly reasonable peace.

[sickrubik]

Just as a point of clarification, I'm not arguing for or against DRM.

[Malakili]

I think the server issues can't be separated from the gameplay issues honestly.  

The gameplay issues people have (small cities, over-dependence on other cities in your region, particularly if you aren't making a private region, simplification of things like utilities) are all a result of the always online part.  I do not think for one second that someone was sitting around and though "This is the best way to do a Sim City game."  I think that always online DRM was stipulated as necessary, and the rest was shoe horned into to try and justify it.  

[Paelos]

That's exactly the egregious point. They've shoehorned in DRM, it's caused a shitastic launch, and they are now fighting both refunds and even more brand damage. And for what? Piracy protection? YOU HAD THEIR MONEY ALREADY.

[Sparky]

So, two questions, because I'm honestly curious. So, let's try to have this conversation without devolving into "BECAUSE 10" or "LAWL DEVWHORE".

What did they not put in the review initially that we wish they did? The server issues? -- Keep in mind, when they reviewed it, they HAD a stable server to play on before launch. They do mention the Always On stuff and what it means, if that's also an issue.

Tiny cities surrounded by vast acres of nothingness both looks crap and limits creativity, wonky traffic/agent AI that looks particularly silly with convoys of buses or emergency vehicles, stuff fans of the series will miss like farms(would've been perfect for filling that nothingness) & many mass transit options.  Things people have been bitching about for ages.

Secondly, would you not want them to revise their review as a warning to consumers?

No problem in principle, I acknowledged it could be second thoughts.

[sickrubik]

Tiny cities surrounded by vast acres of nothingness both looks crap and limits creativity, wonky traffic/agent AI that looks particularly silly with convoys of buses or emergency vehicles, stuff fans of the series will miss like farms(would've been perfect for filling that nothingness) & many mass transit options.  Things people have been bitching about for ages.

I've seen other reviews mention the city size, but mostly it seems to come down to it being a weird image to see the large nothingness, but in the context of simulating the city itself, neither of those things truly affected their experience.

A lot of that is goign to be the long term aspect of the game. It's something that has come up before with MMOs like WoW. A lot of reviewers have talked about a "Revisiting the game" kind of thing where they may re-review the game based on age.

The other stuff, sure, would be nice to know, but none of those scream "devwhore" at all to me... just perhaps not the greatest review.

[Yegolev]

Since most of the game processing is done clientside, it is theoretically possible that there will be a pirate server set up that allows play before the EA system is wrinkle-free.  Which would make me grin.

[tgr]

Online DRM has been a fact of gaming for 5 years now, you would've thought some of the bigger review sites would oh I dunno catch on to this and oh I dunno preemptively warn people that this might very well be an issue.

Oh wait, that would imply not getting a preview copy and/or bribe money.

Polygon calls that out specifically, though.

While Polygon does have a blurb about it, it still kind of glosses over it and clearly hasn't taken the lessons learned over the increasingly escalating "war" of suck between publishers and gamers (like what happened with AC2 and Diablo 3 etc) to heart. I mean, they gave it a 9.5, even though there were a fucktonne of warning signs that it would be bad.

I can understand being surprised at how bad, because even I'm surprised at just how much they've fucked this launch up, but it was blindingly obvious to me the instant they mentioned that the game would be a "singleplayer online hybrid" that it would suck dicks during launch week.

Seriously. Nine point five!

[luckton]

I don't know where the IGN hate is coming from on this.  They have YET to publish a final review/score.  When they do, and if it is some frivolous 9.0+ Editor's Choice thing, then hate on.  But their live blog review isn't painting that pretty of a picture so far.

[koro]

Not really sure what the hate on Polygon is about. I kind of feel the same about IGN, but I don't visit that site for non-review issues. From what I've seen/heard from a lot of the staffs, they're solid.

A lot of people don't like Polygon for a variety of reasons.

The first impression they ever gave was an incredibly shitty one. The Polygon website initially existed for months as a blank page of almost nothing except a pretentious-as-fuck masturbatory "documentary" about their development and launch of the site. They were rendered a laughing stock for months, but of course, that's long forgotten now. Oh, and despite all their crowing about integrity and being free from influence, they received a hefty sum of money from Microsoft in order to even launch the site, staining their rep from the word "go".

Their founders and senior staff are like a "who's who" of suck, all gathered in one place. The former EICs of Kotaku (Brian Crecente), Joystiq (Chris Grant), and The Escapist (Russ fucking Pitts) by themselves should have been enough. But then you throw in Arthur Gies, an utter asshole who speaks very forcefully about topics he knows nothing about since he began working at 1up, and who couldn't even hack it at IGN, as well as Justin McElroy, one of the most infamous rumor-mongers and click-grabbing flamebait shitposters on Joystiq's masthead, and it's even more reason to stay away. All the staff they've added since could be the best, most fantastic journalists ever to set fingers to keyboard, but as long as those guys up there are where the buck stops, I can't muster the slightest care.

Their website design is nigh-unnavigable shit that makes Gawker look fantastic in comparison. Their articles are frequently unreadable thanks to the artsy background images they like to throw up that often blend in with the text.

Despite their "ethics statement" which states that they will never run "advertorials", they were caught, immediately  after the "Doritogate" kerfuffle, running a barely-reworded press release from Microsoft and Pizza Hut advertising Halo 4 shit. After an edit to the page and a "we're sorry you were offended" non-apology, they just kept on truckin'. Also, that "we can change review scores after the fact" policy doesn't amount to shit when that new review score will never be reflected on aggregate sites, which are all businesses really give a shit about besides sales. That 91 for SimCity will be on the Metacritic review page forever, regardless of what the actual review text's score is changed to in order to appease GAF.

Fuck Polygon. They're the same shit games journos have always been, but with a prettier website. I do not know what people like TotalBiscuit like in them.

[sickrubik]

Online DRM has been a fact of gaming for 5 years now, you would've thought some of the bigger review sites would oh I dunno catch on to this and oh I dunno preemptively warn people that this might very well be an issue.

Oh wait, that would imply not getting a preview copy and/or bribe money.

Polygon calls that out specifically, though.

While Polygon does have a blurb about it, it still kind of glosses over it and clearly hasn't taken the lessons learned over the increasingly escalating "war" of suck between publishers and gamers (like what happened with AC2 and Diablo 3 etc) to heart. I mean, they gave it a 9.5, even though there were a fucktonne of warning signs that it would be bad.

I can understand being surprised at how bad, because even I'm surprised at just how much they've fucked this launch up, but it was blindingly obvious to me the instant they mentioned that the game would be a "singleplayer online hybrid" that it would suck dicks during launch week.

Seriously. Nine point five!

The original comment implied that they did not say anything about it. They did. That was the contention.

The initial review is not about being surprised or not, it's based on the experience they had with the game, which happened before all this.

Regardless of us agreeing whether the game deserved that score, that does not mean it was "paid for". I get not agreeing with the score. I have no idea if I would agree with it as I haven't played it yet. It just seems to me that the reviewer enjoyed the game.

It just seems to apply fault to a party who doesn't deserve it. EA fucked up here. The reviewers job is to review the experience of playing the game. The score is about the gameplay. They can't base a score on something that may or may not happen to an individual player at some point in time.

That's why I think they've done a great job by revising their score and posting lots of information about the situation.

[Yegolev]

Seriously. Nine point five!

I agree, but I think it's been quite a number of years since the dumbass-meter matched the review content (assuming the review does hit on the negatives).  Way back when GameSpot had black backgrounds, in fact, I stopped looking at the number and instead just read the review text.  If it listed a handful of crap designs and one or two cockstabs, I'd just ignore the 4.5/5 rating; besides that, sometimes a negative from a reviewer would be a positive for me.  The overall number was once for dumbasses, but now is for marketers and executives, and if you know any of those people you can verify that when it comes to games they are generally dumb as a sack of hammers.

High-five.  You had me at "Crescente".

[sickrubik]

The first impression they ever gave was an incredibly shitty one. The Polygon website initially existed for months as a blank page of almost nothing except a pretentious-as-fuck masturbatory "documentary" about their development and launch of the site. They were rendered a laughing stock for months, but of course, that's long forgotten now. Oh, and despite all their crowing about integrity and being free from influence, they received a hefty sum of money from Microsoft in order to even launch the site, staining their rep from the word "go".

I understand where they came from. It's one of the sites I visit. The video was nicely done, and I can't really see much wrong with it. It was a bit self servicing, sure.. but that's exactly what it was. Not nearly as good as the video content shit that used to be put out by the Area5 guys in the 1up Days, of course.

The only thing I am not aware of is the claim about Microsoft. If you could provide information, I'd love to see it.

Their founders and senior staff are like a "who's who" of suck, all gathered in one place. The former EICs of Kotaku (Brian Crecente), Joystiq (Chris Grant), and The Escapist (Russ fucking Pitts) by themselves should have been enough. But then you throw in Arthur Gies, an utter asshole who speaks very forcefully about topics he knows nothing about since he began working at 1up, and who couldn't even hack it at IGN, as well as Justin McElroy, one of the most infamous rumor-mongers and click-grabbing flamebait shitposters on Joystiq's masthead, and it's even more reason to stay away. All the staff they've added since could be the best, most fantastic journalists ever to set fingers to keyboard, but as long as those guys up there are where the buck stops, I can't muster the slightest care.

I couldn't care less about Crecente and Grant. Athur Gies for the most part seems fine though. I've never really had a problem with him. It may be in part we have several shared interests, so I may have some bias there. There are times when I do want to smack the shit out of him, but that's true of anyone. McElroy. Eh. He just seems like a goof, and I can just laugh most of that off.

Their website design is nigh-unnavigable shit that makes Gawker look fantastic in comparison. Their articles are frequently unreadable thanks to the artsy background images they like to throw up that often blend in with the text.

I wondered if this had something to do with it. I generally like their design quite a lot, so that's just going to be a major disagreement. A difference in tastes. But I'm also a design nerd. Mind you there are times when I want to yell at them at certain choices. But that happens.

Despite their "ethics statement" which states that they will never run "advertorials", they were caught, immediately  after the "Doritogate" kerfuffle, running a barely-reworded press release from Microsoft and Pizza Hut advertising Halo 4 shit. After an edit to the page and a "we're sorry you were offended" non-apology, they just kept on truckin'. Also, that "we can change review scores after the fact" policy doesn't amount to shit when that new review score will never be reflected on aggregate sites, which are all businesses really give a shit about besides sales. That 91 for SimCity will be on the Metacritic review page forever, regardless of what the actual review text's score is changed to in order to appease GAF.

I had not heard about the press release thing. Again, is there a source that you have handy?

The Metacritic issue, though, is the fault of Metacritic though, purely.

[sickrubik]

Thank you for the information. That's the kind of shit I wanted to hear besides just LAWL DEVWHORE. I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I'll look up the stuff you mentioned, but hoping you might have a handy link or two. Truly not me being lazy, just at work and fending off a bit of a cold.

[tgr]

The original comment implied that they did not say anything about it. They did. That was the contention.

I'm not going to dispute that too hard, but the thing is that the original comment was more of a general comment on gaming press who, more often than not, gave the game very, very positive reviews and said very little about any potential online issues. The only reason I'm now focusing on Polygon is because you're focusing on them.

The initial review is not about being surprised or not, it's based on the experience they had with the game, which happened before all this.

In my mind, that particular initial review should still take into account things which they can think of would have an effect on whether or not the game is any good. And by that I don't just mean "the game, when it works", but "the game, full stop". This includes things like anticipating always-on DRM sucking dicks because the publisher or developer or whom the fuck ever are shit at anticipating load or writing stable server-side code or whatever the problem is, and tempering the review accordingly. Why? Because history has shown that this shit can and will happen on launch day/week. The only question is how badly it will crash and burn, and how much it'll affect your enjoyment down the road in, say, 2-5 years time if you still desire to fire the game up and EA has decided to shut down the server because it's "economically unfeasible to keep supporting old games".

I realize I'm asking a lot here, but this shit has been riding up my ass ever since Spore began this shitstorm of a failtrain in PC gaming, and I'm pissed people reviewing games still aren't giving publishers more shit for this than they are, pre-sales.

Regardless of us agreeing whether the game deserved that score, that does not mean it was "paid for". I get not agreeing with the score. I have no idea if I would agree with it as I haven't played it yet. It just seems to me that the reviewer enjoyed the game.

It just seems to apply fault to a party who doesn't deserve it. EA fucked up here. The reviewers job is to review the experience of playing the game. The score is about the gameplay. They can't base a score on something that may or may not happen to an individual player at some point in time.

EA fucked up by demanding Maxis structure the game the way they did, and the reviewer fucked up by not taking history into account and realizing it not just might happen, it will happen.

I'll repeat myself, 9.5 was his initial score. It's now at 4. EA isn't the only one who fucked up here.

That's why I think they've done a great job by revising their score and posting lots of information about the situation.

I'll give them the deal with revising their score, but for a lot of people that's way, way too late. Most game copies are sold within 2 days of launch, and the score was tuned down from 9.5 to 8 on launch day, and from 8 to 4 after 2 days.

[sickrubik]

I'm not going to dispute that too hard, but the thing is that the original comment on gaming press who, more often than not, gave the game very, very positive reviews and said very little about any potential online issues. The only reason I'm now focusing on Polygon is because you're focusing on them.

That's fine. there's plenty of reason to have concern, granted. But, of course, we have to be fair when we make any claims. It's not going to do anyone any good to toss bad information about.

In my mind, that particular initial review should still take into account things which they can think of would have an effect on whether or not the game is any good. And by that I don't just mean "the game, when it works", but "the game, full stop". This includes things like anticipating always-on DRM sucking dicks because the publisher or developer or whom the fuck ever are shit at anticipating load or writing stable server-side code or whatever the problem is, and tempering the review accordingly. Why? Because history has shown that this shit can and will happen on launch day/week. The only question is how badly it will crash and burn, and how much it'll affect your enjoyment down the road in, say, 2-5 years time if you still desire to fire the game up and EA has decided to shut down the server because it's "economically unfeasible to keep supporting old games".

How much about the fact that online services have issues is a "fallacy of the maturity of chances"?

The way I look at it, the review should be about the game. I will grant that a boilerplate text of "keep in mind, the DRM may mean you don't get to play it in 5 years", that's something I wouldn't mind seeing. But, ultimately, I don't have a personal problem with them posting a review of the game experience, and then using other posts to talk about the problems with DRM, which seems most of these sites do.

EA fucked up by demanding Maxis structure the game the way they did, and the reviewer fucked up by not taking history into account and realizing it not just might happen, it will happen.

I'll repeat myself, 9.5 was his initial score. It's now at 4. EA isn't the only one who fucked up here.

Repeating yourself doesn't do much. You don't agree with the initial score. Oh well. I get that. I can't really change your mind on that. You don't like that score. I don't really CARE about that score. However, What is the problem with the fact that it is now 4? Should they have not changed it? Or is it you would prefer the original score to be a 4 based on experiences they didn't have?

I'll give them the deal with revising their score, but for a lot of people that's way, way too late. Most game copies are sold within 2 days of launch, and the score was tuned down from 9.5 to 8 on launch day, and from 8 to 4 after 2 days.

The review came out the day before the release of the game. How many copies that were bought on launch day were pushed by these reviews, any reviews. The revised scores protect those that HAVEN'T bought the game yet.

[Fabricated]

I do not know what people like TotalBiscuit like in them.

Because TotalBiscuit is a complete fucking tool as well? He pretty much got ran out of the WoW board on SA.

[jakonovski]

I enjoy TB, think he's a bit of a dork and a total drama queen, but getting into a fight on an internet forum isn't really indicative of much.

[Merusk]

I do not know what people like TotalBiscuit like in them.

Because TotalBiscuit is a complete fucking tool as well? He pretty much got ran out of the WoW board on SA.

Anyone who watches TB for actual reviews instead of snarky funny tipping of sacred cows is an equal tool.  The guy has only one or two genre of games he likes and everything else is 'garbage.'  I certainly wouldn't buy or not based on his reviews because his taste isn't mine. 

Which is ALWAYS the key item people forget about reviewers and why 'celebrity reviewers' or 'genre reviewers' like game mags/ sites use have never made sense to me.  You have to find someone with the same tastes as you and go from there.

[Sparky]

TB introduced me to numerous fun indie games I'd have otherwise missed with his "WTF is" series so for that I like him.  Even if he does have a strange hard-on for options menus.

[koro]

The only thing I am not aware of is the claim about Microsoft. If you could provide information, I'd love to see it.

My mistake, Microsoft bankrolled the Polygon "documentary" to the tune of $750,000, confirmed by Gies. Either way, the relationship is there.

I had not heard about the press release thing. Again, is there a source that you have handy?

The GAF thread that initially shined a spotlight on it, and the Polygon page in question, now heavily edited. Note that for a good long while, the article's largely negative comments were deleted.

[tgr]

How much about the fact that online services have issues is a "fallacy of the maturity of chances"?

The way I look at it, the review should be about the game. I will grant that a boilerplate text of "keep in mind, the DRM may mean you don't get to play it in 5 years", that's something I wouldn't mind seeing. But, ultimately, I don't have a personal problem with them posting a review of the game experience, and then using other posts to talk about the problems with DRM, which seems most of these sites do.

And the way I look at it, the review should be about the expected experience of playing it, and this includes potential fuckups with online resources. Otherwise they could've just released a gameplay video taken in ideal situations where nothing goes wrong, and said that's the review.

If Sim City had been a game where you could play both offline and online in some fashion, whether that is through EA's servers, setting up their own private servers, then not putting as much emphasis on the online aspect would've been fine, since that would've been an additional feature. It isn't, it's one of the core aspects of the game (that is, until someone releases some sort of proxy simulation hack), and it needs to be treated as such by the reviewer. It wasn't, it was mostly glossed over, despite having seen the effect of multiple online activation/always-on drm schemes launched by multiple companies over the last 5 years, and the problems they've almost always had the first couple of weeks.

Repeating yourself doesn't do much. You don't agree with the initial score. Oh well. I get that. I can't really change your mind on that. You don't like that score. I don't really CARE about that score. However, What is the problem with the fact that it is now 4? Should they have not changed it? Or is it you would prefer the original score to be a 4 based on experiences they didn't have?

I would've preferred if he'd have called them out harder on it pre-launch day. He didn't, he mentioned it as a sidenote and mostly glossed over the whole problem.

Actually, scratch that, I would've preferred it if the entire industry would call out anyone doing the always-on drm bullshit much harder than they are now, before the games are released. I mean, how many times do we have to see this bullshit happen, time and time again, before the industry as a whole goes "you know, maybe we shouldn't be this consumer hostile?".

The review came out the day before the release of the game. How many copies that were bought on launch day were pushed by these reviews, any reviews. The revised scores protect those that HAVEN'T bought the game yet.

Again, last I checked most purchases are done in the first 2 days after launch (preorders muddy this a bit, but preorderers most likely aren't going to heed any reviews the day prior to launch. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd find the most adament defenders in that group.

[Fabricated]

I enjoy TB, think he's a bit of a dork and a total drama queen, but getting into a fight on an internet forum isn't really indicative of much.

It's a bit more than being a kooky internet celeb. I don't have my helldumpish log of stuff on him at my fingertips but he's pretty much a complete prick.

This is just coming from seeing the guy interact with people elsewhere on the internet besides his youtube channel though, so I guess if you just watch his videos you don't need to care. I kinda don't touch anything involving the guy anymore because I think he's an asshole.

[Paelos]

We're suddenly SB'ing the fuck out of this thread. Good grief.

[Modern Angel]

It's a bit more than being a kooky internet celeb. I don't have my helldumpish log of stuff on him at my fingertips but he's pretty much a complete prick.

I can vouch. On the EJ benefactors boards he lasted about a week and a half. He immediately (and I'm not exaggerating on the time frame there) launched into, "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"  and it was well, well before he broke... well, whatever "big" in internet vidya game nerd terms is called.

He's not even particularly good at what he supposedly does well.

[veredus]

An accurate review if you're interested.

http://www.jonathancresswell.co.uk/2013/03/review-simcity/

[Sparky]

In rubbernecking news, EA have told affiliates to stop trying to sell their game: http://www.slashgear.com/ea-tells-affiliates-to-stop-actively-promoting-simcity-08273116/

You know things are really bad when Electronic Arts is actively suspending all of its marketing efforts on SimCity. The publisher has sent an email to its marketing affiliate partners asking them to “please stop actively promoting the game” until further notice. Specifically, EA’s Origin says they have “deactivated all SimCity text links and creative,” and they’re asking affiliates to remove all promotional material from their websites.

What next for SimCities of our lives I wonder!

[Fabricated]

Ahahahah. The best launch.

I legit feel sorry for the CJs in charge of the servers, but otherwise, hilarious.

[HaemishM]

Jesus. When even EA stops whoring its own game, you know shit just got REAL.

[Simond]

I enjoy TB, think he's a bit of a dork and a total drama queen, but getting into a fight on an internet forum isn't really indicative of much.

Well, he basically got forced to leave after he was shown to be a massive hypocrite. I don't know if you you know this but he stopped reporting on WoW with a big "I'm quitting WoW because casuals run everything and Blizzard should cater to us hardcore gamers" rant (back when Blizzard started tuning the Cataclysm heroics to be slightly less "fuck this shit" arbitrarily stupid and tedious). The WoW forum goons found his main - no raids, maybe half a dozen heroics run total (six months into the expansion), gear a patchwork of blues and greens.

He stopped posting at that point.  

[Phred]

But of course, we're wrong again..

EA bribing review sites to hype up the latest release in an ongoing, once-beloved, series which is actually terrible and franchise-destroying?
But that never happens.

Hard to believe but EA put on a press event where only the press got to play before release. That's what the good reviews are based on. The fact that reviewers and their editors blindly accept that crap is more boggling than the high scores.

[Fabricated]

[Phred]

hontention.

The initial review is not about being surprised or not, it's based on the experience they had with the game, which happened before all this.

Regardless of us agreeing whether the game deserved that score, that does not mean it was "paid for"

I think attending a review event where you know you are playing on a server reserved for the press is pretty tantamount to having the review paid for? Was mtn dew and cheetos served?