‘SimCity’ Players Reporting Numerous Problems; Always-On DRM to Blame
0
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A developer announces always-on DRM will be a requirement for their game, fans lambast them for the decision, and on launch day things go horrible wrong. It happened most recently with Diablo 3 , and now SimCity has become the newest victim.
While the level of problems haven’t been nearly as numerous as those that plagued Diablo , many gamers are still reporting plenty of issues. Among them are download problems, games locking up, full save files becoming corrupted, and several other weird goings-on.
Beyond begin a necessity for multiplayer, SimCity also requires an always-on Internet connection to perform the simple act of saving. And that’s there where the real issues lie.
Servers get throttled during the first few days of a game’s release, and it’s common for connectivity issues to arise. But when connectivity and saving are inextricably linked, that is a huge problem. And the fact that SimCity had two major beta testsbefore launch only makes things worse.
There have also been reports of 30-minute (or longer) wait times in server queues just to play the game. That isn’t to join another player’s city, or to interact with their city, mind you; that is just to build a private region.
To be fair, I have experienced no problems with SimCity thus far. I was able to download the game from Electronic Artspromptly at midnight, and the download took less than an hour.
Since then, I have not encountered any problems constructing a cityor saving a game. However, connecting to another player’s region hasn’t been nearly as easy. Mostly the game, which runs on EA’s Originservice, tells me specific players are not available when they clearly are. Not a major annoyance, but still something to point out.
Obviously, there are some problems with SimCity , and the case against always-on DRM continues to build. Sure, it’s a great anti-piracy measure but it comes at the cost of player enjoyment.
At the same time, players that are experiencing these problems have already given EA their $60, which further pushes the issue into a grey area. Hopefully problematic launches like SimCity and Diablo 3 ‘s will leave publishers and developers thinking twice about DRM.
Have you encountered any problems playing SimCity ? Do you think that publishers will ever wise up to the always-on DRM issues?
Source: Kotaku