Regular readers will know that I HATE games that require a constant online connection. While this is needed for online multiplayer games but this idea has increasingly weaseled its way into single player experiences.
EA Games is the publisher of Sim City announced that the game would release on March 5th and would require a persistent online connection, even for the single player experience. EA claimed that this wasn't for DRM* (digital rights management) purposes but because of all these awesome features such as leader boards, community interaction, and more.
Fast forward to today March 8th.
Sim City has released. However, unless you are either very persistent or very lucky (or perhaps both) you still aren't playing the game. Gamers that are able to play are reporting that they are constantly being disconnected. As this is an online only game, being disconnected means you aren't playing.
You can get a run down of the full story from a better source than me here:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/08/simcity-burning-a-warning-to-microsoft-sony-and-all-publishers-on-the-dangers-of-always-online-drm
EA has tried to fix this problem, by getting rid of every feature that they earlier claimed was the "real," reason they wanted the game to be always online.
The bottom line is, this is all about DRM, and that seems unfair that players have to suffer.
*DRM is a fancy term that is all the rage today. In the olden days when you bought a game it was yours and you could do anything you wanted to with it. Today DRM means that the publisher of the game owns it and when you buy a copy you are purchasing the right to be able to play it but you don't own anything.
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