I Was Right About The New "Simcity"...So Why Do I Just Feel Sad?

In early February I posted about how I could not buy the new "SimCity" because I would feel like I was encouraging its horrific version of DRM (the seemingly innocent sounding "Digital Rights Management"). The plan to make it so that players had to always be online to play SimCity was clearly a disaster waiting to happen, as had been illustrated by Diablo 3 and its launch. I didn't think things would be even worse however. The game is still a wreck even if it is supposedly getting better. I agree that the game, "Is Inherently Broken," and its sad to see it like this.

Thanks to The PA Reportfor this clever image.

I was right in presuming that the launch of SimCity would be a mess, and clearly a game that would work fine offline is sheer havoc when everyone wants to do something as simple as just play the damn game because people have to be connected to the web to even do anything beyond booting the thing up. We were fed all the lines about how this wasn't DRM, it was there to make the player's experience better, and I think more people realize they were being given rotten meat whilst being "informed" it was a feast. now that the meal has arrived we see the truth.

The thing is, people can't "send this back" as it were because EA doesn't want to give refunds to all the people who would rather not own the game because, you know, they want something to actually work. Those who bought physical copies from the "Origin" store maybe can get their money back, but if you live in the US and bought this digitally you are SOL.

The burning buildings represent the usual status of the game's servers.

As I stated, I was right and everything is a mess, so why don't I feel happy? All I feel is sad that my worst fears (and then some) came true and yet again the always-online DRM proved it was a mistake to even have exist. I'm upset that Maxis and EA thought they could fool people and even more sad  for the players who simply want to enjoy their game but can't. I don't feel vindicated when I think about all of this, I just feel depressed.

I still hold out hope EA and Maxis will make it so that the game can be played in a truly single-player fashion, offline. That chance may be ever-so-slim but I hope it will happen because if it does people will actually be able to play a game that is apparently pretty fun when it is functioning correctly. Come on EA and Maxis, do the right thing.