Scandal! Anger! Absolute hate! For those of you who have been living under a rock, March 05, 2013 was supposed to be the day EA gave us the next thrilling chapter in everyone's favorite city building saga, SimCity. Instead it has turned into a nightmare of epic proportionss. So bad, EA had to pony up a free game to smooth things over. But it hasn't stopped the landslide of epic hate that has been flowing from the Internet since the day of release.
The funny thing is, didn't we go through this a year ago - you know, with Diablo III? Granted, I think Blizzard Entertainment handled things about 1 million times better than EA has - plus Diablo III has a very respectable reviews whereas SimCity has been slammed by players and critics alike for being, well, pretty terrible. If you're going to pull this kind of crap to make people be online, the least a company can do is make a game that people actually enjoy playing.
I myself didn't really have that big of issue with Diablo III - my connection was dropped a couple times (two times too many as far as I'm concerned) but I did like the game. But I also have a pretty amazing Internet connection - unlike the, you know, 19 million people who don't even have access to broadband internet service (based on 2012 statistics). Granted - many of those people could probably care less about video games, but I'm sure there are still plenty who love playing games as well.
There are plenty of rumors floating around the the next incarnation of the Xbox (Durango or 720 or whatever they decide to call it) will require it to be online all the time. If they decide to go through with this madness - I can foresee nothing but disaster. Microsoft certainly has enough money to make sure their servers are ready - but something is bound to go wrong some time. I mean, if people are getting this up in arms about not being able to play one game - imagine how it will be to not play any of your games.
The other thing is, servers aren't going to be around forever. If I want to play an old PS1 game - I can plus in my PS1 and play a game. But the thing is, if you rely on servers, that means at some point you won't be able to play your game anymore. For most games, that means that multiplayer is no longer an option - but if a game has to be online all the time and servers go offline - it means the game is essentially a useless artifact. A nice coaster or paperweight - nothing more. It would render an entire generation of games useless.
Of course, I can't say everything about SimCity is a disaster - hey, at least we have this amazing fan-made Game of Thrones homage to fall back on:
As for always online games? Fool me once - shame on you. Fool me twice - shame on me. And, as former President Bush so eloquently put it "Fool me — you can't get fooled again." You would think SimCity would convince pretty much any company that this always online thing is a terrible idea, but George Santayana is still correct - those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it and I have a feeling we're going to go through this whole debacle again.
