Look you knew it was coming. I’ve been analyzing game careers for awhile, and then EA dumps a big pile of SimCity follies in my lap. Of course I was going to write about.
If you didn’t hear what happened with SimCity 2013, here’s the skinny: EA’s latest version of the game required a persistent internet connection (yeah, DRM any way you slice it). The downloads, the server load, etc. caused all sorts of outages that in turn made it awful hard for people to actually play the game they paid for.
Of course they were mocked understandable across the internet. EA added more servers and offered a free game to early adopters – after removing the supposedly so-critical features that required an always-on-internet connection. Marketing was apparently suspended. Amazon pulled downloads. There’s a petition to just yank the DRM, and a Kickstarter for a DRM-free competitor.
And so, here I am, looking at the bizarre mess trying to figure what to say. So first, let me get to my analysis.