Submission + - SimCity Launch Failure: A good case for DRM being bad for business (pcgamer.com)
earlzdotnet writes: "The SimCity release happened, yet there are many people incapable of playing the game. Many can't install the game because the Origin servers providing the downloads are overloaded. This is to be expected. But, one cited reason for this is because they didn't allow preloading of the game at all. Even if you decided to buy a disk set instead of download it, you'll still have problems installing it because it still needs a few files from their servers that wasn't provided
One of it's primary features is multiplayer support. However, single player support appears to have taken a back seat. So, now even the lucky few that have managed to get it installed are having to wait in a queue to play the single player game because it requires a slot on their servers.
Although it's a best guess at this point, but one of the probable causes of all this happening is because they were trying really hard to prevent piracy. It's not easily possible to pirate a game if all the logic goes through their servers. However, by doing it in this manner, they have (like most DRM schemes) harmed the paying customers primarily. As a result of these failures, many people are steering clear of buying the game and even requesting refunds from EA."
One of it's primary features is multiplayer support. However, single player support appears to have taken a back seat. So, now even the lucky few that have managed to get it installed are having to wait in a queue to play the single player game because it requires a slot on their servers.
Although it's a best guess at this point, but one of the probable causes of all this happening is because they were trying really hard to prevent piracy. It's not easily possible to pirate a game if all the logic goes through their servers. However, by doing it in this manner, they have (like most DRM schemes) harmed the paying customers primarily. As a result of these failures, many people are steering clear of buying the game and even requesting refunds from EA."