If that's the case, and I have every reason to believe you, why alienate people like me? I'm in the demographic where I don't tend to pirate anything - the cost of a game is so small compared to my disposable income that I would rather have the product with a manual, box and it be fully updateable etc.
But people respond to incentives. The pirate supply chain already have a good incentive - all games for free - but they have 'disincentive': your game is crippled (can't be simply patched, multiplay content not working). So if they then go and cripple the paid for version of the game - must be online all the time, which is not feasible for a lot of people, there is very little reason for people to not go for the better incentive of a free version of the game that actually will play offline (assuming it gets cracked of course).
I do like to be able to play my games on the move, as a business person I spend a lot of time abroad, in airport lounges, on planes, and I cannot be sure of quality Internet access. My desire to play SimCity is high, therefore it's a no brainer that if an offline playable version of the game is available I shall get it. If EA manage to supply it great, if not, then I'll naturally get it from the alternative supply chain. I am surprised no one in EA is sharp enough to work this out.
I just cancelled my Simcity preorder at Game after reading about online DRM. I fly a lot, I don't always have Internet connections of good quality. I was looking forward to playing this in 12 hour flight at the end of March.
Guess I'll just have to find a supplier who provides an 'offline' version of this game. I would have bought it but if it does not meet requirements, someone else will supply one that does.
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Re: Simcity
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simcity/user-reviews?dist=negative
Re:
But people respond to incentives. The pirate supply chain already have a good incentive - all games for free - but they have 'disincentive': your game is crippled (can't be simply patched, multiplay content not working). So if they then go and cripple the paid for version of the game - must be online all the time, which is not feasible for a lot of people, there is very little reason for people to not go for the better incentive of a free version of the game that actually will play offline (assuming it gets cracked of course).
I do like to be able to play my games on the move, as a business person I spend a lot of time abroad, in airport lounges, on planes, and I cannot be sure of quality Internet access. My desire to play SimCity is high, therefore it's a no brainer that if an offline playable version of the game is available I shall get it. If EA manage to supply it great, if not, then I'll naturally get it from the alternative supply chain. I am surprised no one in EA is sharp enough to work this out.
(untitled comment)
Guess I'll just have to find a supplier who provides an 'offline' version of this game. I would have bought it but if it does not meet requirements, someone else will supply one that does.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Squicker.
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