SimCity suffered from a number of launch woes due to the lacking level of preparedness of the servers that were supposed to support its always online nature, but former Creative Director Ocean Quigley, still feels that the feature has a bright future and is hugely beneficial for users.
Some games force online-only measures onto people. It sucks! Especially when some titles, like these seven, 100% didn't need it.
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of The Secret History of Mac Gaming, “Simulated.”
EA has something of a reputation when it comes to awkwardly handling much-loved franchises. Here are 7 that Screen Critics feel they ruined.
Need for Speed as well. Here's to hope that the new one will be a return to form for the franchise.
It has less user benefit than it does publisher/developer benefit. And oft times, what benefits publishers or developers does not benefit gamers.
It benefit the developer and publisher but not the person who buying the game
That may actually be true, but Simcity was not an example. Besides how publishers could and likely will abuse it.
I actually think there is a potential benefit for users by going online for many games but it there needs to be a balance. An always online game needs a very clear reason why it needs it as Sim City, Diablo 3, etc could had been just as good or better going a traditional route.
Personally I think the whole reason D3 went online only was the market as easier to control and limit possible cheating (as some would find hacks to use while offline and then log on and sell seemingly "legit" items). Still wasn't a perfect system though and I would had traded the market for offline play in a heartbeat.
I still believe in always online games though as MMOs and other more multiplayer centric games are fine for it. Its the ones that are singleplayer heavy where it becomes a problem as practically none have shown a good enough reason to warrant the inconvenience thus far.
If its required that's fine but by doing so devs/pubs should be required to support it fully and not simply by overpriced micro transactions or dlc. A few games that require it that are still to be released at least seem to understand there needs to be some worth to it and not be an arbitrary requirement but are likely still the minority.
broken, unplayable, and glitched are now benefits according to EA. good to know.