Failure with the latest Sim City.

[Technical Ben]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21712910

The "service" EA offered for software, that does not need an online component in the first place, completely failed. What's worse than the company offering something it cannot deliver and also taking customers money, is the Stockholm syndrome I've seen. The amount of people claiming it's the companies right, it's ok to not deliver a product paid for, or it's "wrong" to ask for a refund is really sad.   

[Niall]

I've bought this. Not got around to playing it yet. I'm suddenly addicted to FM2013 and am currently on a 24 game unbeaten streak

[Technical Ben]

Lol. That's ok. But just imagine if you could not play FM2013. How annoyed would you be? So it's silly for EA to shoot themselves in the foot like this.

[zappaDPJ]

I suspect this DRM fiasco will set the standards by which all other DRM fiascos will be judged! It's somewhat ironic that the only people hurt by these kinds of issues are those that are willing to pay for their entertainment.

[Technical Ben]

Sad really, I got a different game over the weekend, was playing it in around 10 mins (thanks fast internet from IDNet! ). If I wanted to give my money to SimCity, I could not. Well, I could if I wanted hours up on hours of annoyance and broken services. Basically, it's the Tiscali in comparison to IDNet of gaming. 

What's really strange is, it looks to be a wonderful game (except for the bits "forced" online/social to make it DRM friendly). They could have made their money easy. Probably even on pre-orders. Why they thought they needed to ring fence it with the worse DRM and online service ever, I've no idea. 

[pctech]

That's what all this cloud business is really about.

I've used hosted e-mail since 2004 and such services have existed since the beginnings of the Internet but what software companies are now seeking to do is to reduce what they say is a piracy problem (stoked by the ridiculous prices charged for their product) by taking the code out of the hands of the purchaser and putting it on a server and making the code that has to run locally depend on that.

This also means that they can at some stage introduce a subscription model to earn recurring revenue as that worked for Blizzard though even they are now coming unstuck.

[Technical Ben]

I'm not the kind to avoid moving from the cart to the car. I will however avoid wearing the £100 trousers that hang around your bottom because it's "cool". Basically, while no doubt so many people will fall for it that the business continues to trade, I'll not be buying.

When there is nothing left but cloud PCs (fat chance), I'll use one for typing I guess. But just like the rubbish on TV I no longer watch, I'm happy to skip. It is sad to miss out on a good game, but I can always return to the original (which there is no guarantee you can even do today with the new one. ).

[Niall]

Lol. That's ok. But just imagine if you could not play FM2013. How annoyed would you be? So it's silly for EA to shoot themselves in the foot like this.

I had a go yesterday. A quick go turned into 5 hours

It's a decent game. The servers went down again at 1pm ish and I went back to FM2013. Wrexham in the championship, won the league, won the carling cup, won the super cup, I'm in the final of the FA cup and semi final of the euro cup. I haven't even been in the premier league yet. ALL my youth players that didn't get bought by Man U, Chelsea and man city have come good. My rotation system is just about keeping me afloat although most of my players conditions are about 85% before a match kicks off. I need more players

Oh yeah, and I'm losing about 4 million a month but the cup runs are paying the bills! Hope I get more sponsors next season so I can buy more players

[Niall]

Thought I'd let you know, Wrexham won the FA cup and Euro cup last night

I rock