Wolf’s Wicked Words: SimCity or Sin City?

Since the release of SimCity I don’t seem to recall a single positive article regarding the game. I haven’t played it myself and I’m not sure if I will ever do so. You see, the main reason why I moved to console gaming was the lack of monthly cap to play games on PC that requires a constant internet connection. Never mind the mountainous updates that accompanied almost every game after a while. Nothing against the PC gaming crowd or Steam or anything of the sort; it’s just that I do not have the necessary amount of monthly internet data to play games that requires at least one third of the actual game still to be downloaded.

With rumours going about that the next generation of consoles will require a constant internet connection; I cannot seem to utter anything other than a trembling whimper consisting solely of unease. That’s not what I’m here to talk about today. I merely wish to speak about the train of thought that developed due to the SimCity calamity.

Trains of thought haunt me daily with so many aspects in life, but we’re here to talk about games. Glorious games. Like I mentioned above; SimCity haven’t had the best of luck since its release. Although I don’t know if I should blame it on something like luck or the lack thereof.

Not all, but most gamers complain about the game being completely unplayable. The very first questions that came to my mind was: “Why did EA / Maxi’s ship a game in this state?” and “Why aren’t the servers ready to handle the massive clump of gamers wanting to play?”

Did they send the game to be pressed knowing that the servers will not be able to handle the quantity of copies being processed? Seeing as how they were aware that a majority of your assets are stored on the servers, why weren’t they ready?

We live in a world where money rules everything and there is very little time for the creative and daring to receive funding. We know that publishers can be a terribly greedy bunch of soulless husks people, but are they so damn greedy that when they know a game or the name attached to said game will sell like a cake made from all kinds of delicious assortments, that they’re willing to jeopardize so much all for the sake of money and nothing else?

I honestly don’t know what to think about all this and I’m not even one of the guys (or gals) playing or trying to play it.

We’ve read about one gamer wanting a refund while his Origin account were to be closed if he continued to pursue that very refund. Seriously, why did gaming turn into a chore? (Not just referring to the always connected DRM.) Why did gaming become a cesspit specifically for the money-hungry publishers? What happened to the days when your most agonizing part of gaming was to blow the dust out of your cassettes?

I’ve read and heard a few times that it is about gaming growing up and being more focused on profit. No, just no.

Think about it. You come home from a long day at work or you’ve just finished up your studies for the day, only wanting to unwind and shoot a few monsters in the face or slice an airborne chopper into 257.9 pieces while it is being flinged at your gender-defining parts, but wait! You cannot do that! Please download 5.89GB before proceeding and while you’re at it please pay for “downloadable content” that’s already on the disc you’ve paid for. That’s not unwinding, that’s a considerable amount of steps closer to an unavoidable aneurysm.

Ken Levine said in an interview regarding BioShock Infinite about players playing the game the way they want to, because it is their game. The very thought of owning BioShock Infinite is wondrous, but recently it’s starting to feel like this when looking at other games: “Here’s 56.217% of the game on a disc all yours. What’s that? You want the rest? Oh, don’t be silly, that’s not yours. We’ll keep it on our servers and you can play to your heart’s content when we feel like it’s alright to have them active. We wouldn’t want you to enjoy yourself and unwind while the servers do all the hard work. So, please, don’t expect us to get up from our comfortable pile of money.”

I really do not tend to be cynical, but I cannot for the life of me relax about the future of gaming while it turns into a soulless corporate mess. It’s supposed to be a perfect mix of technicality and creative ideas.