SimCity will require a constant internet connection, outage might lose game progress

The biggest issue, and that fans are most worried about, are whether their progress will be lost once the internet goes out, since there is no way to save your city to the server. If it's a short outage, Maxis says they can "recover gracefully," however for those whose internet might go out for longer periods of time, might be out of luck, since it doesn't look like cities are saved locally on your computer.

[Snookies12]

Hah... Hahahaha. Um, that would be a no for me then.

[Bimkoblerutso]

Yeah, I'm not buying into this bullshit again. D3 was enough to convince me that "always-on" gaming is absolutely terrible and unnecessary outside of online multiplayer.

[FriedGoat]

Indeed, screw them.

[dedicatedtogamers]

Didn't EA learn from Spore? Why do these games NEED to be online all the time? I understand it for a game like Diablo III, but why SimCity?

[Somebody]

"Why do these games NEED to be online all the time?"

...all because of the social interaction crap + free to play micro transaction. They're used the social gaming feature to justify a lot of the games they are forcing to be online all the time.

Forcing people online all the time because it's your DRM? Expect gamers to rebel instantly. Look at how gamers reacted toward Ubisoft games before 2012 and Spore. Total chaos and a costly endeavor for the developers.

Forcing people online all the time under the pretense of social interaction? It's a thin line and gamers not sure how to react it. Look at how people reacted towards MechWarrior Online, Command and Conquer Online, Silent Hunter Online, Call of Duty Online and Ghost Recon Online. Gamers are not sure whether to rebel or support it.

So what happens after they got all those gamers under a social heavy game like this? They start to trade stuff among themselves. After that EA will squeeze in and offer to be the middle man to handle the trades while offering items of its own.

Simcity = always online DRM+Diablo's Auction house+micro transcation.

It's not just about lost sales to piracy anymore. It's about squeezing every last drop of money from gamers in a closed garden of their own.

[SkullBlade169]

Not buying then.

[Sarcasm]

Lost a sale from me too

[KrisButtar]

well its a no buy for me, my gaming rig is not hooked up to the internet, and besides i only have dail up, its also not excalty stable either. its also the reason i missed out on anno 2070 :(

[HK6]

I can understand this being a problem if you opted to play online with other people, however, there should ALWAYS be an option to play offline for games like this.

[barb_wire]

I won't touch it then. Over this constant online DRM.

[f789790]

Considering my internet goes out from time to time, I guess I'll get the fully functioning pirate version.

[Soldierone]

Wow I was EXTREMELY hyped to jump back into SimCity, and now I've lost all interest entirely....

My internet is always randomly shut off then turned back on. The company does "maintenance" without telling anyone, and its enough to kick you off and lose connection, then turns back on. Sometimes it off for hours at night.... and I'm up playing PS3 to notice it.

Really stupid to also assume everyone plays at home. What about those of us with laptops that want to play at schools or need public wifi to play? (Not during class, during that 3 hour break your stupid school person gave you in your schedule) My old college blocked anything gaming, couldn't connect to steam, couldn't check authentication on popular games, couldn't play onlive, nothing.

I'll just wait for the pirated version. Go buy it, then just download the pirate version. Kinda sad to look at pirates to fix stupidity, but oh well.

[mynameisEvil]

That's what I do. For Steam games, I buy them on Stea, but pirate them so I don't have to deal with Steam (sorry, I just don't like Steam. It's DRM to me, is all). It's not like I'm missing out, since I pretty much don't ever play any game online except maybe Killing Floor, Blacklight: Retribution, and Gotham City Impostors.

But this? Nah, I'm not buying this, nor pirating it. I'm just boycotting this crap just as I did Darkspore and Diablo III. Damn DRM.

[Soldierone]

I'll probably do the same. After reading this I kept thinking about it, and now I'm like "meh don't care anymore" So many other games coming out so I wont have money anyways now.

[Mathew9R]

Blame the Pirates, Not the company's ;)

[Snookies12]

If anything, this will only make people pirate it more out of spite that they're doing this. DRM does nothing but hurt the people who actually BUY the dang game. They're punishing those who pay for it, rather than just realizing that people are going to pirate no matter what.

[Mathew9R]

@Disagree's

For god sake... Stop being so cheap and buy games.

200 Games on Steam and still counting.

[darkpower]

1. Your comment was really easy to disagree with. Not hard to see that you didn't know what you were talking about.

2. Companies do use the "piracy" bug as an excuse to get away with things like this because of people like you who will blindly buy into it, even when piracy is clearly not the reason. They use piracy as a way to absolve themselves of any blame for doing this always on thing.

Cycle goes on over and over again, and no one ever catches on to the machine of complaining about pirates and never think of drawing a line in the sand somewhere of what they will or will not tolerate of how companies deal with pirates.

When you have greedy companies like EA and Activision and THQ and Ubi hearing these complaints and thinking "let's exploit this and see how we can use this to get away with cheap tactics to squeeze out a few more bucks out of people", and when you have consumers stupid enough to buy into the crap, cheer it on, and/or buy the damn thing anyway, then you get the situation of nothing in the status quo ever changing.

Want something to change? Stop supporting this crap by making it clear that certain ways to thwart pirates will not be tolerated because you know full well what they really are doing. This is not rocket science.

[mynameisEvil]

@DarkPower
THQ and Ubi? Ubisoft's finally cut their stupid DRM down to damn near nothing and THQ...

What's THQ done? Tons of DLC for Saints Row: The Third? The company's about to go bankrupt and nobody's buying anything BUT Saints Row. Hell, they gobbled up the DLC, too. But who bought Red Faction: Armageddon? Who bought Darksiders/Darksiders II? Stacking? Very few people, indeed, sir. Far too few. :/

[KillerPwned]

Well the number of copies that will be pirated probably just sky rocketed.

[unchartedxplorer]

Bullshit!

[chasegarcia]

honestly why would they do this. history has shown that pirates will get around it.

-I think the best anti piracy thing to do is to add awesome online features.

[vinniects]

I always enjoyed the old sim cities and was planning on enjoying this one but, I just went through three weeks with no power due to hurricane sandy in new york. If I spend months dedicated to buliding a city to loose it because of some hurricane or winter storm for a day or weeks is a horrible design

[Kennytaur]

I've got reasonably stable internet, so I'm still interested. But this is a very bad move, it won't stop piracy.

[MadMen]

LAME

no longer interested in this game

[majiebeast]

Well thats a pass goodjob EA your not making it very hard for me to pass on your games.

[aiBreeze]

And they wonder why people turn to piracy? Support the company voted worst in America and be forced to play with an internet connection or download the game for free and play it the way you want.. it's a no brainer. I was actually looking really excited to play this game however I won't support decisions like constant online.

[kenoh]

they lost my support too and yes I was one of the people to lose power during hurricane sandy and my building has a shitty power line and will lose power even in the smallest thunder storms. "A Pirate life for me..."

[Wikki]

yup... not buying the game then. Congrats publisher, you just lost more money from stupidity.

[BlackIceJoe]

I can sadly say I am going to have to pass on this game. I remember spending hours on this and Rollar Coaster Tycoon in the 90s. So I was looking forward to play Sim City again but not anymore.