There is nothing ‘wrong’ with the gaming industry per se however there are a few areas pertaining to the areas of consumerism and corporatism that require attention.
Earlier this month the latest remake of the popular Simcity dropped. In fact when it dropped one might say it kept on falling because of those who picked up this game very few were able to actually play it owing to launch difficulties. These difficulties involved the overpopulation of the servers used to handle the game. Needless to say fans were disappointed in this remake, the game receiving fairly good reviews despite this.
I would like to elaborate on the launch issues but I wont because most people seem to know of them. But I will say this as it is pertinent to this article. The always on Digital Rights Managment required to play Simcity is degrading for the fans. Most if not many people seek a solo experience when playing Simcity and it was something I was looking forward to as a gamer. I didn’t care for the multiplayer aspect that was the ‘vision’ of the maxis developers. I would like to challenge them if a rapidly depleting fan base and broken game was part of this ‘vision’. To date the game still has key features patched out to deal with the server load such as ‘cheetah’ mode which enabled the player to speed game time up substantially.
Now that is said I will continue with the main point of this article. EA and Maxis released a game that consumers didn’t demand, couldn’t play and wanted altered (offline play). How could a company lack this foresight? They don’t they just don’t care. Because that unfortunately is the nature of a Monopoly. The seller sets the market. Hell EA could have released Battletoads 2 and slapped a sims logo on it and sold a million units. They didn’t but they might as well of. Its all good to have an original idea but when you congest it with, online DRM and no singleplayer offlinemode for what is by all means a predominantly singleplayer series you are selling a lie.
The problem remains, that the consumer no longer has the power in the market. Back in the early 90’s if a game developer wanted to make a successful game they required the backing of the consumer, because come release if they didn’t want it the seller went home at a loss. Now however major corporations can supply linear reconstituted titles without batting an eyelid because they now use consumerism to their advantage, that is the compulsive acquisition of goods we see time and time again whenever a game like battlefield or call of duty drops. The difference is back in the 90’s the consumers demanded a quality product by banding together.
What can we do about it? Nothing. Petitions? They wont listen to.
There is irony in all of this. Because the very DRM they implemented will be there downfall as pirates from all over flock to illegally acquire this title, some out of pure spite and determination, others so they can simply play the game how they want the game to be played.
Pooley's Gaming Blog 