Former SimCity Creative Director Feels Always Online has “Potentially Huge” User Benefit

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.

[DragonKnight]

It has less user benefit than it does publisher/developer benefit. And oft times, what benefits publishers or developers does not benefit gamers.

[dedicatedtogamers]

Exactly. If publishers can use it to the benefit of gaming, people will play it. Think about MMOs. It's a huge world that *technically* could be played offline and single player, but you're forced to be online.

You know why no one complains? Because the MMO model brings so many perks to the table.

I think a game that is "always online" or "mostly online" would be awesome, but devs need to be flexible and not use it as a form of DRM.

[Fireseed]

Well between The Division, Titanfall, and the like we're going to be seeing more and more games require you to have a connection and for those games it's understandable.

[Abriael]

That's a false equation. User benefit and publisher benefit can easily go hand in hand. Most prominently, the more users benefit, the more they will buy a product.

[DragonKnight]

"User benefit and publisher benefit can easily go hand in hand."

Key word being CAN. Publishers typically don't care about what benefits a user. Case in point, the existence of DRM of any kind. It is made to "prevent piracy" but actually only ends up hurting legitimate users and publishers couldn't give a damn.

[Abriael]

@DragonKnight: if you think all DRM do is hurting legitimate users you're quite naive. When DRM didn't exist or were just a table that could easily be photocopied almost everyone pirated games. DRM defintely do stop a part of piracy.

[DragonKnight]

@Abriael: "if you think all DRM do is hurting legitimate users you're quite naive."

When more legitimate users are having troubles with DRM than pirates are, then you're damn right I'll believe that all DRM does is hurt legitimate users. DRM is a temporary measure at best. It doesn't stop piracy, it slows it.

"When DRM didn't exist or were just a table that could easily be photocopied almost everyone pirated games."

What? This sentence makes absolutely no sense.

[Abriael]

@DragonKnight You're most probably too young to remember. When games were on floppy and pirating was as easy as to simply copy the disks and photocopy the code (that at times weren't even there), the percentage of those that actually bothered to buy the games was minimal, because copying stuff didn't even *need* pirates do do their dirty job.

DRMs raise the bar for piracy, if you think having no drm would not increase piracy exponentially, again, you're quite naive.

[DragonKnight]

@Abriael: No, I'm not too young to remember, your sentence just didn't have enough information for me to know what you were talking about.

"DRMs raise the bar for piracy, if you think having no drm would not increase piracy exponentially, again, you're quite naive."

I think you're the naive one. A large number of pirates pirate because they feel there's no compelling reason to actually buy the game. Gamers want to support developers, but they need a reason to. But when you get publishers like Ubisoft who spearheaded always online DRM with AC2, you're going to be hardpressed to find anyone that thinks that that adds value to the game and thus entices a purchase.

There will always be cheapskates. But just like pro-gun lobbyists will say that gun control laws won't hurt the criminals, DRM won't hurt the pirates.

[MrTrololo]

It benefit the developer and publisher but not the person who buying the game

[Godmars290]

That may actually be true, but Simcity was not an example. Besides how publishers could and likely will abuse it.

[Eldyraen]

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.

[modesign]

broken, unplayable, and glitched are now benefits according to EA. good to know.

[Ogygian]

Look at his moustache. He's clearly an evil villain trying to deceive us.

I don't see how always online can benefit a user who only wants single player and has enough hardware to run high-spec games.

[CEOSteveBallmer]

Please do explain how it has "Potentially huge benefits" to gamers?? I have said this multiple times. "whatever an online game/device can do, an offline device/game is also capable of doing it" example, with the ps3/360, I can connect "anytime" and "be connected as long as you want" just like an always online will do. So whats the advantage?? its nothing, it just "forces" you to go online as opposed to you can go online anytime for possibly an unlimited amount of time.

[CEOSteveBallmer]

Also to add another point. Maybe he never heard of the word "OPTIONAL"?? where if i want to connect online for 24hours or so I can! or if i don't feel like connecting and play single player I can too!. Man, developers should know better

[titans9999]

Face it, DRM sucks ass! I hate it, period!! I won't buy any DRM game, so go suck it!