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I'm Calling BULLSHIT on EA's Lucy Bradshaw

tr1age

tr1age

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DISCLAIMER: I don't have an issue with always online nor an mmo stance on a game. This is not a witch hunt against EA. I play a lot of their games and enjoy them. But what prompted this article to be written is having a problem with false information given to sooth the public outcry.

General manager Lucy Bradshaw began fielding questions via Twitter this afternoon. When asked about an offline mode patch for the future, should the servers go offline in a few years, Bradshaw responded with the following:

We have no intention of offlining SimCity any time soon but we'll look into that as part of our earning back your trust efforts.
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Red Flag number ONE. How many times have we read a post or press release telling us from Quigly or another that the game was built to be ONLINE and OFFLINE could not be a possibility. Ok so to me we have a moment of "Let's (EA) say whatever we can to appease the massive amount of pissed off people". Sure good PR move.. but it continues:

Bradshaw says:
"an online interconnected world has been part of our design philosophy since day one."
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Oh OK. Well that makes sense. Not gonna throw a flag on this play, all seems well... or IS IT!?!?

She continues:
"It wouldn't be possible to make the game offline without a significant amount of engineering work by our team,"
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REDFLAG 2
The game was designed for MP, we sim the entire region on the server so this is just not possible
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So what the hell is she talking about that she will look into it? She just said THERE it is JUST NOT POSSIBLE. That means you CANNOT DO IT. In case you needed another word to mean IMPOSSIBLE.

Now here is where I call some serious BULLSHIT:
Bradshaw added that the game's online only design "is on Maxis," and that EA did not "force design" upon them.
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RED FLAG # 3

Is this real life? I heard a lot of We, Our, Intentions, Etc.. then I hear Keanu Reeves screaming in the distance, DO NOT GO UNDER 40 MPH!!! And there you see little Maxis... trying desperately to connect to home in SimCity, but alas the GIANT BUS with Bradshaw doing a really bad Reeves impersonation in it beats him to it as the servers are once again down and his key just won't connect. As the Maxis guy turns, he sees blurry eyed and on his last breath the side of the Bus saying: EA's Next Title.

Ok extravagant stories aside, what is my point here?
I worked in the gaming industry, there is NO FUCKING WAY any designer is stupid enough to want DRM on their product. Sorry. NO.

For EA to say they had NOTHING to do with the online part of this game after all the quotes above saying "we, us, our" etc that they were involved is TOTAL BS.

But then they follow up with:
You'll be getting more information on the March 18th. And you will have choices.
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Oh yay a free game! Now I am not pissed off anymore that the game I currently own STILL doesn't work. And features I paid to have working have been removed from the game for "an unknown amount of time."

Take articles like this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertc...stizes-company-over-simcity-in-public-letter/

A supposed EA employee posted some very public thoughts on what he thought happened... I will let you read it but here is an idea:
You can’t even pretend that you didn’t know consumers would be angry about this. Common sense aside, consumers complained about this during your public betas. In fact, when one of them posted his criticisms on the forums, he was banned! You tried to silence your critics. The same thing is happening now as users write in to demand refunds. What part of this behavior aligns with our company value to Be Accountable?

What you’ve demonstrated with this launch is that our corporate management does not believe in our core values. They are for the unwashed masses, not for the important people who forced this anti-consumer DRM onto the Sim City team. This DRM scheme is not about the consumers or even about piracy. It’s about covering your own asses. It allows you to hand-wave weak sales or bad reviews and blame outside factors like pirates or server failures in the event the game struggles. You are protecting your own jobs at the expense of consumers. I think this violates the Act With Integrity value I’m looking at on my own coffee mug right now.
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You take that with the multiple EA statements we have seen released to the press and public about the amazing online features etc, and you look at that simple quote from Bradshaw:
Bradshaw added that the game's online only design "is on Maxis," and that EA did not "force design" upon them.
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And you need to really question here, is EA trying to fix the problem, or is EA blowing more smoke up out asses, giving us a free game as a pacifier, shifting blame, and hoping this shit will just blow over sooner than later. Because if it is the latter, ohhhh man oh mannnn, the internet is NOT dumb, gamers are NOT dumb, and god I hope we can wake up and stop being so forgiving, time after time... when nothing changes. Our mystery poster sums it up the best:
Finally I’d like to ask you to follow the last company value on the list in the future: Learn and Grow. When you made this mistake with Spore, the company and all your employees suffered for it. You didn’t learn from that mistake and you are making it again with Sim City.

So please, learn from this debacle. Don’t do this again. Grow into better leaders and actually apply our company values when you make decisions. Don’t just use them as tools to motivate your staff. With the money, talent and intellectual property available to EA, we should be leading the industry into a golden age of consumer-focused game publishing. Instead we’re the most reviled game publisher in the world. That’s your fault. Things can only change if you actually start following the company values and apply them to every title we launch.

Sincerely,

A Disappointed But Hopeful Artist at EARS
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Maxis I salute you for a great franchise that is SimCity. I am just sorry it is getting spoiled due to EA's incompetence. But also as a company in charge of a great game, you too should have put emphasis on what you believed it. Look at the history between Blizzard and Vivendi. Stick up for your ideas or don't publish IMO.


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Sources: http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/9/408...of-offlining-simcity-but-will-look-into-it-to
 
Again, EA is an evil monster that really needs to be destroyed. It does nothing good for the game industry imo.
 
Zakis said:
Oh constructive? Its tough because they have their hands in everything, but general boycotting of their games would be a start.
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This is something that won't happen. They own some VERY large IPs, would be nice however to see some of the upcoming ones getting picked up by other publishing companies as a bid for quality rather than quantity.
 
I can't say I didn't anticipate something like this, which is why I was never hyped up about Simcity, despite my love of Simcity 2000. All I can suggest is, next time you see this online-only DRM crap, be as cautious as I was. Now you've been burned too.
 
Diremongoose said:
I can't say I didn't anticipate something like this, which is why I was never hyped up about Simcity, despite my love of Simcity 2000. All I can suggest is, next time you see this online-only DRM crap, be as cautious as I was. Now you've been burned too.
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I'm not burned by the always online, I am burned by the BS attached to it. Week or two whatever they need it will be resolved. But that is a week or two wasted on that shit instead of bug fixes which the game REALLY needs.

Had this game NOT been online aka multiplayer I would not have purchased it. That was the allure for me.
 
The CAPACITY for online multiplayer is not the same as the REQUIREMENT, as we see in the difference between D2 and D3, and the bullshit attached to D3's own rocky launch and auction house issues.
 
Diremongoose said:
The CAPACITY for online multiplayer is not the same as the REQUIREMENT, as we see in the difference between D2 and D3, and the bullshit attached to D3's own rocky launch and auction house issues.
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True. Can't argue :) 1 for 1 you and me today haha
 
The Diablo 3 launch, as many have said, was a disaster. But it made money. Lots of money. That really is the only motivator for EA. The game developers may care about making a game and building a new and fun experience for the consumers, but the publishers care about profits. And there will always be people willing to buy their games, because they keep buying up all the developers. It effectively becomes a monopoly, since- though there's more than one- all the big companies are massive cash whores.
 
I made the decision not to buy Simcity based on my D3 experience (and a little bit from Spore). That's one lost sale, and I am not going to be alone in this regard. After this latest disastrous launch, still more future sales will be lost, providing diminishing returns from an ever-growing base of cautious consumers.

And lets not forget the review score beatings Simcity is taking from these issues - which also influence sales from people on-the-fence about buying.

Yes, ultimately games like this will always do well BUT the amount of money gained will be even bigger when they try to address detractors comments. Enough detractors ARE a market force and EA has listened to them in the past. Regardless of what you think of it, ME3 fans changed/expanded/clarified the endings of the game. Time, money, and development spent to make the game (IMO) better. All from fan reaction.
 
At least EA is admitting they screwed up and offering some kind of compensation. Gamers can turn their nose up at it if they want, but it's more than what we got from Blizzard.

I don't get the EA hate and I don't buy into it. As long as they produce games I want to play, I'll keep buying them.

The better news is that we are fast approaching an era of gaming that will not be dependent on mega-companies to provide great games. New game console ideas, like the Ouya, and innovative funding strategies, like crowd-funding, are opening up the industry to Indie developers who don't want to deal with corporate masters. It's only a matter of time before companies like EA and Blizzard will be forced to compete with developers that are not beholden to them or any other corporate structure. I think this will be very healthy for the industry and result in better, more gamer-centered products than are currently available.
 
Keleynal said:
At least EA is admitting they screwed up and offering some kind of compensation. Gamers can turn their nose up at it if they want, but it's more than what we got from Blizzard.

I don't get the EA hate and I don't buy into it. As long as they produce games I want to play, I'll keep buying them.

The better news is that we are fast approaching an era of gaming that will not be dependent on mega-companies to provide great games. New game console ideas, like the Ouya, and innovative funding strategies, like crowd-funding, are opening up the industry to Indie developers who don't want to deal with corporate masters. It's only a matter of time before companies like EA and Blizzard will be forced to compete with developers that are not beholden to them or any other corporate structure. I think this will be very healthy for the industry and result in better, more gamer-centered products than are currently available.
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Except to compete with Corporate Masses they will have to get the funding of a corporate master :p Even Blizzard started out as an "indie gaming company" with 5 guys and grandma's money. Back when blizzard was called Chaos Studios. And when Blizzard released Lost Vikings and Rock and Roll racing.

What Blizzard has done that other companies have not though is kept their internal structure at ALL COSTS and told their publisher NO. We are the team, YOU are the publisher, take it or leave it.

Smart move. Now we need to see more people take from that example and not sell their good work short.

Fame can kill the little man, they just gotta make sure it is a clean needle on the way up :p
 
Glad i bit my tongue and held off at launch. This really sucks for all the players at launch and its bad for EA. Hopefully they will get things fixed.


"It wouldn't be possible to make the game offline without a significant amount of engineering work by our team,"


^^This pissed me because it feels like they are saying we don't want to pay our employees to fix the game, we will just tweak it so it gets by

EDIT:Looks like a fun and great game. After they fix it i will probably pick it up
 
They've made their bath water and now they need to soak in it.

In the long run, I don't think this is going to hurt sales or reputation enough to stop them from requiring DRM in future games.
 
I had my doubts, so the game's apparent failure, and the resulting disappointment hasn't hit me too hard. I had the good sense to avoid Diablo 3, altogether. I was, of course, excited to play a new Sim City title,... but now I only hope Maxis, and the franchise survive this debacle to get it right next time. I think people might be so fed up with EA, at this point, that a boycott may become a reality. I know I won't be buying another always online DRM game from them, unless it's an MMO first, before any other genre.
 
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