Thursday Next Posted March 8, 2012 Report Share Posted March 8, 2012 Ok. Not The alternative. An alternative. What's a "complete game" then? If EA release all the currently in development DLC and the base game together at a higher price (taking into account the extra resources poured into developing the extra content) then would you be ok with that? If so why not give consumers a choice to buy the base game at a lower price point and the extra content separately so that they can tailor the package as they wish? If you're saying that the extra content has no value to you and should therefore be given away for free. Then, well, no basically, not gonna happen. It costs money to develop content and EA is a business, they want that money back and then some. While I don't know what the model for SimCity is, I'm sure that some free content will be given away along the line, but if you want packs of 30+ items, or themed expansions with new scenarios and such, then you'll (probably) have to pay for them. As for Sims expansion packs. The Pets pack alone gives you an entire new class of Sim to play with since you can play as the pet. There's a character creator built in, loads of different animals, it's a pretty big product. It's not just a little cat avatar that travels around the house like a bump and go robot. Similarly, the other expansion packs normally contain new areas to explore, new things to do as well as a bunch of new items. The majority seem to think that they get a good deal because these things are crazy popular, from Sims 1-3 EA has sold over 100 million units. Which brings me on to products like Sins of a Solar Empire and Minecraft. They aren't aggressively priced because the creators are altruistic. The creators do it because they have to in order to get a return on their investment. If Sins could sell 12 million copies at £40 a pop you'd have to be pretty terrible at making money to choose to sell it at £15 just to get a couple of people on the internet to say "Awww, isn't Notch nice, doesn't he have a lovely hat." Indies cultivate that approachable hippy image because it's the best way of getting loyalty money from a small fan base. Big companies like EA and Activision couldn't exist on such a small diet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Posted March 8, 2012 Report Share Posted March 8, 2012 So the reason EA DLC is shitty on value is that they can get away with it and people will still buy it. We already know this; I don't think anyone on this forum is under any illusions that EA is doing it solely to be dicks. However, the reason really doesn't make much of a difference to me. If it's shitty value, I won't buy it no matter how much the developer tries to justify it. That goes for indies as well. When indie developers release shitty value DLC (most of the packs on offer for Magicka, for example), I won't buy those either. As for Sims expansion packs: I'm a big fan of The Sims, but the pets expansion adds content I could possibly see myself paying 5 euros for at the absolute highest. It's not a significant game-changer to me, but rather just fluff content. To again compare to Sins of a Solar Empire, those expansions (while costing next to nothing) significantly improves the core gameplay of the title while simultaneously adding in new stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yantelope V2 Posted March 8, 2012 Report Share Posted March 8, 2012 @TN, I understand what you're saying from a business side and I can't argue the profitability of it. Despite the 100million units (I'm assuming that's including every expansion ever sold too) you're still targeting sort of a niche demographic with it aren't you? I know it just comes down to I personally do not like the direction SimCity is going as it does not appeal to me personally but it still bugs me that making tons of money off 15% or whatever of gamers who are willing to buy $200 worth of sims gear makes it so that the other 85% of us gamers have to kind of deal with it. (You might have better % than me, I'm just shooting in the dark.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted March 9, 2012 Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 Depends on how you define "niche" I guess. The Sims market is pretty unique. There are a lot of Sims players out there, but perhaps unlike CoD or Mass Effect or whatever players there are probably a disproportionate number of Sims players who only play The Sims. (I don't have analytical data to back this up, just some anecdotal evidence. If as suggested above you only play The Sims, then you don't really have a clue about what other games would consider "good value". The "value" of a Stuff Pack is really relative. Yes the additions are pretty much cosmetic, but the whole game is cosmetic. Many Sims players love having new things to decorate their homes with and will get literally months of enjoyment from the £9.99 Stuff pack. If you only play The Sims you probably don't have to own all (or indeed any) of the latest expansion packs. You just get the ones that interest you. It's not like CoD or BF map packs where you get left behind in map rotations if you don't own all of them. It's that combination that makes The Sims add ons the way they are. Obviously, yes EA charge as much as they can get away with, but the only reason they can get away with it is because it is embraced by The Sims community. I completely agree with Jonny, if you think that the packs aren't good value don't buy them. That same logic applies to SimCity. if you don't think the base game, expansions, DLC, and so on are worth it don't buy them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2012 So the alternatives are: Release a game with a bunch of DLC clearly planned way ahead of time that could be included in the game anyway, sell yearly iterations of Sim City, or Sell Sim City with all the planned content included at a much higher price than normal? If so why not give consumers a choice to buy the base game at a lower price point and the extra content separately so that they can tailor the package as they wish? That would be nice, but it doesn't happen. Currently the lowest price EA/Origin is selling this for is £45. Which is not only ridiculously expensive as far as a PC game is concerned, but expensive even by console pricing too. It would be nice to see a £20 "Basic Edition" of the game, but this is EA, the basic edition will be £40, or maybe £35 brought physically, with the Origin exclusive stuff unavailable to you. Also did I ever tell you of the time it was cheaper for me to buy DA:U through Steam than to buy the DLC from EA Bioware? It was cheaper to own the game twice than it was to buy DLC on it's own. Just to throw this out there but CitiesXL, the game that provided a stop gap on the Sim City decade long hiatus, includes the IRL buildings in the base game (And retialers for £15 less) Yes I know it costs money to develop a game. It doesn't cost half the budget to develop a bunch of IRL buildings. (The British/French/German sets are the bonus items in the £65 Digital Deluxe.) And while Sims may have moved 100million units across it's base games and many many expansion packs and DLC trinkets etc, what works for one game doesn't instantly mean it'll work for any other game. Just cos "Sim" is in both game titles the market base doesn't instantly overlap. It's a bit worrying that $40 is what EA consider as "aggressively priced" for a PC game (Though they knock off $10 if you own prior games, which I guess is hard to do with the long gap since SimCity 4). Minecraft is priced lower than most because it's a much cheaper game to make and for a fair while it wasn't the complete game (which sold at half the price). Though it now has profits in the 99% range which I'm sure is something that'd pop boners in the EA boardroom. Though as the EA business model is pretty much stuck in "Sell it for as high as we can, and sell as much of it as DLC as we can" I've a feeling they'll continue to piss folks off and harm the bottom line even more. Looking at everything in purely a business perspective and not at a "How can we look like good guys" aspect is not the way to do it these days. You don't need to have played a few tycoon games to know that if your expenses is more than your income then something has cocked up. I completely agree with Jonny, if you think that the packs aren't good value don't buy them. That same logic applies to SimCity. if you don't think the base game, expansions, DLC, and so on are worth it don't buy them. In other news, meant to post this yesterday but wasn't going to leave a response to TN hanging: http://www.hardwarec...m/tags/GlassBox It's camera footage thought, so not really that brilliant but it's all we have to go on atm. edit: Forgot about this point - What if say a friend has the Digital Deluxe edition, and I just buy the "complete" game. Will my friend be able to send over help in the form of superheroes, or will it block that action because I only have the complete game and not the complete game with benefits? Just like COD, this game is now running multiplayer. And if you have content on available for one person then those with just the base game will more than likely get locked out of hanging out with their buddies. Edit2: There's also this AMA on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/qmi0w/iama_maxis_development_team_on_simcity_amaa/ But it's not the best way to get information tbh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 Demo of the new engine. I'm not actually minding the graphics at all so if that's "not final graphics" the final game should be pretty damn good. (oh wait just gotten to the later part of the video with "agents") 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyRan Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 HHNNNNGGG I NEED THIS GAME. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 (edited) It's cool that they're actually simulating stuff at such a micro level. Weird that water is represented by agents though, since water doesn't really travel through pipes in discreet packets (I mean, I guess there are water molecules...) *Edit* - Before I wasn't too interested, but that video really kicked it up into "DO WANT" territory. Edited March 20, 2012 by TheMightyEthan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyRan Posted March 20, 2012 Report Share Posted March 20, 2012 What I really love is the fact that if a city's thriving, you'll SEE it. In every other SimCity, your only visual feedback of a thriving city is static nice-looking buildings, with a shitty city having a bunch of static abandoned ones. With this you'll be able to see varying degrees of city activity, making the difference between a city bustling with activities and a rundown bum town that's dead in the water. They're not arbitrary animations either, each of these looks like it has explicit implications in how well that particular building is doing. Fuck. Yesh. All this info without looking at a single spreadsheet. This is an amazing idea to keep the complexity of previous Sim City titles without alienating people who aren't that hardcore on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yantelope V2 Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/28/first-look-simcity/ The idea of every sim looking for a new job and a new home every day sounds pretty crazy. I wonder how much of this stuff is marketing speak and how much of it will really impact the game but it does sound pretty cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Requires always-on net connection :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Requires always-on net connection :/ Yep. http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/28/simcity-requires-internet-connection-to-play-will-be-sold-outsi/ Guess I won't be buying this after all. They try to spin it as being required by the regional multiplayer stuff and the player driven economy, but if that's the case just don't let me make use of those things if I'm in offline mode. Hell, they could even make it so when you start the city you have to decide if it's an online or offline city. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Yeah requiring always-on due to the multiplayer component is balls. Especially since they stated upon announce that the MP was mostly a nice addition, not the main focus of the game. As RPS have pointed out though it's still a long way from release so enough time for Maxis/EA to get the hint and remove the requirement. Come on, even Ubisoft learnt not to be this retarded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Yeah, but it took them about 20 games to figure it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yantelope V2 Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Okay, Boycott! Really though, will you guys not buy this because of the always on DRM? Even if it's only $5 at some point? For me the always on DRM stuff decreases the game's value. What was a $30 purchase now becomes a $10 purchase. I would have preordered BF3 for $60 but because of the origin stuff I only got it later for $30. I don't really care to boycott but DRM does influence how much I'll pay for a game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 When it hits £5 that'll be when Sim City 6 is around the corner, in which case the servers will be turning off in a few months anyway. The always-on DRM is a bother, if your internet goes down, or EA's go down, you're fucked, you can't play a game. At least a fully local game the only thing getting in the way of playing a game is if my PC is completely bust and that hurts all games no matter what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yantelope V2 Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Yeah, well hopefully by that time there will be a crack to play offline too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 But cracking it also means you can't play with your friends (unless you fuck about with stuff like tunggle). I'd like to be able to play collaboratively with friends, but I'm not going to be playing with friends all the time in the game. I like playing Civ V with friends, I'm still spending 90% of my time playing on my own. It's not a multie-player game like..say Tribes or WoW is. There's no need to have it always-on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Yeah, I won't buy it at any price (unless and until they get the message and patch the DRM out like they did for the AC games) because I don't want to support the practice. Now, if they change their tune and remove the requirement before release I will preorder all over that shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/29/simcity-always-on-clarified-will-need-internet-for-every-launch/ So apparently it doesn't require a constant connection, just requires one to launch. While less draconian, that actually makes less sense. Saying "you must always be connected to the internet because of our deeply integrated online features" at least provides a plausible explanation other than DRM, but requiring a connection only at launch means it doesn't matter if you lose access to those features, which means its only purpose is DRM. But whatever, I can deal with connect-at-launch requirements. No longer boycotting this game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madbassman39 Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 Actually, requiring internet at launch could be (not saying it is) deflected by saying that it just updates the neighboring cities (which are cities that other players created) so that their affect on your city is felt. Lets say someone built a coal mine on the boarder of your city last night, the game connects, see this, and puts the effects into your game until the next launch to see how things have changed. Still, I think its purely for DRM, but it could be the spore thing, player created content imported to your game. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 Good point, actually. Still think it's stupid to absolutely require it rather than just saying it's a cool bonus of playing online, but that would be a possible non-DRM justification. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 Actually, requiring internet at launch could be (not saying it is) deflected by saying that it just updates the neighboring cities (which are cities that other players created) so that their affect on your city is felt. Lets say someone built a coal mine on the boarder of your city last night, the game connects, see this, and puts the effects into your game until the next launch to see how things have changed. Still, I think its purely for DRM, but it could be the spore thing, player created content imported to your game. It should still be optional. This is a stupid move imho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 29, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 You know it's a fucked up move if even the EA guy calls it stupid instead of going along with the potential spin Yeah it's messed up. It's not an MP game, the MP is optional. It's basically stupid, restrictive DRM. It's the stuff that makes it fun to play GFWL games. Oh no online? Well let's not boot up your save then 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyRan Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 Well, I was pretty excited for this but this news really pulled me back down to earth. For a while there I almost forgot EA was publishing this. Good thing they quickly reminded everyone of that, though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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