To much fanfare, Electronic Arts (and Maxis) released the latest iteration of its storied franchise on Tuesday, titled simply SimCity. One feature that got a lot of attention prior to the launch day was its “always-on” Internet-connected mode: to prevent piracy, the game was intentionally designed to prohibit playing offline.
Good luck trying to move into the new SimCity.
Ever since the city management game launched on Tuesday, countless gamers have found themselves battling error messages and random disconnections that prevent them from experiencing what SimCity was supposed to deliver in the first place — fun. In response, publisher Electronic Arts says it’s working around the clock to try to fix the problems and add more servers so people can play without worry.
Now, an allegedly disgruntled EA employee has sent an open letter to his company, railing against its DRM debacle:
What you’ve demonstrated with this launch is that our corporate management does not believe in our core values. They are for the unwashed masses, not for the important people who forced this anti-consumer DRM onto the Sim City team. This DRM scheme is not about the consumers or even about piracy. It’s about covering your own asses. It allows you to hand-wave weak sales or bad reviews and blame outside factors like pirates or server failures in the event the game struggles. You are protecting your own jobs at the expense of consumers. I think this violates the Act With Integrity value I’m looking at on my own coffee mug right now.
On behalf of your other employees, I’d like to ask you to fix this. Allow the Sim City team to patch the game to run offline. If Create Quality and Innovation is still a core value that you believe in, then this shouldn’t be a hard decision. Games that gamers can’t play because of server overload or ISP issues are NOT quality. Be Bold by giving the consumers what they want and take accountability for the mistake.
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