SimCity 2013 - Oh how you sucker punched me in Love!

[Melbosa]

Free Stuff named: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/03/18/ea-reveals-free-simcity-apology-games, http://www.ea.com/news/for-our-patient-and-amazing-mayors---a-free-pc-download-from-origin-?sourceid=Origin_AFF_LS315&c=TnL5HPStwNw&LSsiteID=TnL5HPStwNw-SETyfdVTzXpXuOC_zYDJBg

[Thorin]

Best comment:

Originally Posted by zomgbbqftw:

So if the game detects you are offline it starts a 20 minute countdown, if you are not online before then it will force you to quit.

Removing this line allows indefinite offline play.

So wait... let me get this straight... You are telling us that this joke is essentially true:

Originally Posted by Septimius: 

Today someone will find this code snippit:

Code:
allowOfflinePlayMode = false;

[Mr. Analog]

Hahaha, golden

[Mr. Analog]

And EA CEO John Riccitiello gets the boot

http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=749234

Maybe voting with your dollars actually works?

[Thorin]

Officially they "mutually agreed to part ways".  I knew a guy who got "mutually agreed", and anyone who heard the details of how the meeting went knew that it was a firing with no real cause (other than the owner/CEO was an asshat and the person "mutually agreed" wasn't the ass-kissing type.

[Mr. Analog]

The part that disturbs me the most out of this press release is the outright naming of Popcap Games

In case you didn't know Popcap was a successful indie publisher responsible for Bejewelled and Bookworm Adventures (it employs Stephen Notley aka Bob the Angry Flower author) that was acquired by EA in 2011.

In 2012 it closed PopCap's Ireland studio.

Not sure what the deal was there but it reminds me of a capital holding company that took over a consulting place I worked for and started nonsensically removing business areas and employees it didn't see short term gains from.

Either way, the CEO is gone, a message has been delivered, however I feel EA has STILL not learnt the lesson here.

[Thorin]

Here's the actual letter of resignation:

http://www.sidequesting.com/2013/03/ea-ceo-john-riccitiello-resigns/

[Mr. Analog]

Talk about reality distortion field:

The progress EA has made on transitioning to digital games and services is something I?m extremely proud of. However, it currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued in January, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. EA?s shareholders and employees expect better and I am accountable for the miss.

Emphasis mine, obviously.

But it reads to me like "our game's been rumbled I'm outta here before things get really messy"

[Thorin]

I dunno, I get the feeling he got told he can either quit or get fired, and he decided it looked better if he quit.

[Mr. Analog]

At that level the choice is obvious, no one is ever fired but I'm sure the writing was on the wall.

[Lazybones]

At that level he was given his choice of Golden Parachute.

[Mr. Analog]

Heh, exactly.

[Tom]

Or:

[Mr. Analog]

hahaha accurate!

[Darren Dirt]

That's the real key, and it has nothing to do with providing great gameplay...

It doesn't seem like a great leap to imagine the reason for this architecture was to:

• Dissuade Pirates

"Everybody is a pirate, so fix the SYSTEM" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDZGuANKQaQ