by acrum on 3/9/13, 4:09 AM with 71 comments
by jader201 on 3/9/13, 5:01 AM
> I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.
To me, this seems insulting. They know most of their upset customers want a refund -- for now -- to feel like they've not quite been screwed over as much vs. forcing them to keep a broken product, and offering them a consolation prize.
I don't know why Maxis doesn't realize that if SimCity is really as great as critics claim, then the best way to redeem themselves is to offer full refunds, no questions asked, knowing that customers will return once the game is back up and running.
Not only would this show a little bit of class, but it may restore a little confidence and credibility to Maxis/EA, and their poor choices up to this point.
And again, if SimCity is really that great -- and aside from the DRM/always online aspect, and the current broken state, the fundamental game sounds solid -- then customer will come back. These early adopters are the true enthusiasts, and ultimately just want to play a functional SimCity.
So the net results will be the same -- and EA/Maxis redeems a little of what is left of their credibility.
Maybe Maxis would refund them and EA won't let them?
by kevinconroy on 3/9/13, 5:12 AM
by bryogenic on 3/9/13, 5:12 AM
by socialist_coder on 3/9/13, 5:01 AM
And still no acknowledgment for the people that either don't care to play online or can't maintain a stable internet connection. Want to play while travelling? Want to play while in the military & deployed? Fuck you!
by jmspring on 3/9/13, 5:22 AM
People are upset with the game -- sounds like it is unplayable Most of those people paid with credit card. I understand the desire to want to play the game, but if EA is being a sh*t, why not go the charge dispute route?
by pilif on 3/9/13, 7:18 AM
Isn't one of the big advantages of cloud computing the ability to scale your hardware with demand? Why only scale up by 130% when there's still people having problems? Why not scale until everybody has a good experience?
I don't even think it's going to cost all that much: after the initial onrush, the number of concurrent sessions is likely going to drop rapidly, at which point, they can easily scale down the infrastructure (maybe forcing regions to be consolidated, but as a player I'd rather suddenly have a new neighbor city than a ghost town because my neighbor stopped playing).
If you can scale up by 130% in one week, you can also scale up by 500%. Or however much it takes.
Them not doing this, leads to twoconclusions: 1) they don't care about the current ire among gamers. If the game is good, the rocky start will be forgiven when in two weeks time load normalizes and it will be forgotten within a month. And 2) having overloaded servers due to "unanticipated demand" is in the long run good news to give, increasing the perceived value and quality of the game.
by citricsquid on 3/9/13, 5:25 AM
by scottchin on 3/9/13, 5:30 AM
I can't help but think of the "20$ off your next purchase" pre-order bonus. Which, if you read the fine print, must be used within 2 weeks, and from a select list of really old games, and only applies to a purchase of 30$.
by Tzunamitom on 3/9/13, 5:23 AM
by Kiro on 3/9/13, 7:04 AM
by zobzu on 3/9/13, 7:37 AM
Well, yay for DRM all the way.
by jorts on 3/9/13, 5:04 AM