Simcity 5!

[Roxas65]

Well, to be fair, I don't mind the online passes. They're little more than incentive to buy games new, which I find to be alright. Having to buy an online pass when buying a used game doesn't raise price a whole lot, does give the publishers a bit of money despite the game being bought used and if the buyer feels he doesn't need the multiplayer then he doesn't have to pay for it.

The used games market is hurting the game industry anyways. That's why I always buy new.

To be fair, the only reason that the used game market is hurting the industry is because of GameStop, and associated companies.

They keep all of the proceeds from a used game sale. Now you might think "Well, maybe that company no longer exists." You'd be right, however if you buy a used version of [Brown Shooter 2013 #76] then GameStop keeps your money. They do not give any of it to the company that made the game, which is a bit ridiculous. I may not care for the thousands of samey-shooters, but I still think that the company that made the game, new or used, deserves to get at the very least some of the money.

And as for Online Passes? I got left behind in Space Marine because I had no idea there was an online pass required. I generally play the campaign/story mode first, so as to get a feel for the game mechanics, plus I just like the story as well. So, after I had beaten that, a friend asked to borrow it. A week later, when he gives it back, I discover that there is a pass required for online. That little shit of a friend had used it, and in fact never paid me back for it.

Personal story aside, I really do think that Online Passes are bad. Companies would not need to do that, especially for consoles, or at least the 360, which you pay to play online as it is, if they got some proceeds from used games. It's just ridiculous.

Well, yeah. But publishers can't make stores like gamestores pay them for it. I don't blame them for implementing a solution to this problem that isn't too much of a hassle if you don't get backstabbed by a friend. At least I never had the slightest issue with any online passes thus far.

[Harmonic]

Well, to be fair, I don't mind the online passes. They're little more than incentive to buy games new, which I find to be alright. Having to buy an online pass when buying a used game doesn't raise price a whole lot, does give the publishers a bit of money despite the game being bought used and if the buyer feels he doesn't need the multiplayer then he doesn't have to pay for it.

The used games market is hurting the game industry anyways. That's why I always buy new.

To be fair, the only reason that the used game market is hurting the industry is because of GameStop, and associated companies.

They keep all of the proceeds from a used game sale. Now you might think "Well, maybe that company no longer exists." You'd be right, however if you buy a used version of [Brown Shooter 2013 #76] then GameStop keeps your money. They do not give any of it to the company that made the game, which is a bit ridiculous. I may not care for the thousands of samey-shooters, but I still think that the company that made the game, new or used, deserves to get at the very least some of the money.

And as for Online Passes? I got left behind in Space Marine because I had no idea there was an online pass required. I generally play the campaign/story mode first, so as to get a feel for the game mechanics, plus I just like the story as well. So, after I had beaten that, a friend asked to borrow it. A week later, when he gives it back, I discover that there is a pass required for online. That little shit of a friend had used it, and in fact never paid me back for it.

Personal story aside, I really do think that Online Passes are bad. Companies would not need to do that, especially for consoles, or at least the 360, which you pay to play online as it is, if they got some proceeds from used games. It's just ridiculous.

Well, yeah. But publishers can't make stores like gamestores pay them for it. I don't blame them for implementing a solution to this problem that isn't too much of a hassle if you don't get backstabbed by a friend. At least I never had the slightest issue with any online passes thus far.

Problem is, games are one of the most expensive medias. Movies, shows, books... they are all infinitely cheaper than a brand new game. Re-selling anything these days isn't that frowned upon, because you get the initial buy, and -usually- it works out in the favor of both the consumer and the seller. In this case-- so many people buy/sell used games because let's face it, they are really damn expensive. 60+ bucks for a console game? I could use that to feed myself for a week.

I honestly don't think gaming companies hurt as bad as they say they do, they just have some hard competition to go against. And it's a risky business, especially with new IPs. Know how many great game ideas die all the dang time? It's because sometimes it doesn't fit what a lot of people want. Now a days, you can't rely on the same tactics you could twenty to thirty years ago.




An example? I find it hard to play games with little user customization, or "unlocks". Granted, some stuff will keep my attention for a while, but.. I've become such a pampered gamer I cringe at a lot of games that have you playing underdog protagonist number 58, you know, the guy with the nice hair, beard stubble, and the chiseled jaw?

It's more fun to me these days to have a bit of creation in my games.

Back on topic? SimCity seems to have limited that in so many ways. Go figure, more steps backwards.

[Thoradin]

One of the issues I see a lot with SimCity5 is that they have seemed to remove parts of previous games.

You never remove stuff from a game, you only improve on it. Like when a lot of people got a bit mad over Skyrim and the fact that there's no spell-making/custom enchantments.

EA has a track record of simply whisking away things from a previous installment because of frivolous comments. For instance, Mass Effect 1. They removed about a dozen features, maybe a little less. Most of them were along the lines of "Well, it was a little bland." So instead of improving the Mako and planetary exploration, they removed it whole-sale and gave you a planet scanner. Yeah, they tried to make up for it with the Hammerhead and the Firewalker/Overlord DLC's, but still. They also removed the elevators, with those juicy bits of dialogue that had windows into your companions, to replace them with load screens.

Then there was Dragon Age 2, where they scraped that ingenious Tactics System for hack-n'slash, among other things.

And I understand with SimCity5 they removed the offline aspect, even though modders almost instantly found out a way to play it offline. The extremely small cities with massive populations, as if every city would be a tower on a Hive World in 40k. And whatever else, I might not know about.

To reiterate, you never remove a feature from a game. You always improve on it.

[Harmonic]

They also removed the ability to mod the game, instead offering DLC and the "DELUXE EDITION" that featured types of buildings that in the past fit in the core game, and charged people 80 bucks for it instead of the standard 60.

[Thoradin]

They also removed the ability to mod the game, instead offering DLC and the "DELUXE EDITION" that featured types of buildings that in the past fit in the core game, and charged people 80 bucks for it instead of the standard 60.

[Alpharius]

One of the issues I see a lot with SimCity5 is that they have seemed to remove parts of previous games.

You never remove stuff from a game, you only improve on it. Like when a lot of people got a bit mad over Skyrim and the fact that there's no spell-making/custom enchantments.

Look at world of warcraft. With the intro of cata and panda, they gave us a different landscape, but took away half of our talent tree, and then limited us to the use of two instead of having the ability to do whatever we want with it, and then panda comes and the talent tree isn't even a tree, it's more of a catalog. Devs today are either giving us more of the same, or taking away core game features because the publisher wants to save time on game development, and then charge us money for the content that was already being worked on, and just label it DLC. This is most in part of the publisher unnecessarily interfering with game development and constant drive for profit. Vivendi and EA are horrible examples of this (Vivendi owns actiblizz, and activision calls all the shots at blizzard.)

In short, publishers are to blame for why most games are crap.