SimCity

Caliane

Caliane

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Tuco_sl said:
IGN put out a review and gave it a 7, which I think is a fair grade since parts of the game as so good and most of the big problems are fixable.

And I'm not sure if the initial high scores are because journalists are shills or because they're under so much pressure to review a game within a very limited amoutn of playtime and release the review at release. I do think that reviewers should feel free to revise their review scores.
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yeah, I don't really see how reviewers could have sniffed out the underlying mechanics and any flaws with their allotted review time. You can't blame bad journalism for that.



Any concern on the impact all these returns on game after game will have on amazon?

I'm glad you guys are getting your money back on this, and a few other games... But it seems like its getting habitual. Buy a game, test it out, return it. People were doing the same for Guildwars2, and others.
Its costing Amazon money, because you guys can't use good judgment before purchase.
 
chaos

chaos

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How the hell was anyone supposed to know that this game would be in the state it has been in? That shit isn't the fault of the consumer.
 
Warrik

Warrik

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Caliane_sl said:
...because you guys can't use good judgment before purchase.
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This is subjective and certainly can't be thrown out as a blanket statement. Buying a game and deciding you don't like it is one thing, buying a game and discovering it has unfinished, broken game elements or severe connectivity issues preventing actual gameplay is quite another.
 
Void

Void

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Caliane_sl said:
But it seems like its getting habitual. Buy a game, test it out, return it. People were doing the same for Guildwars2, and others.
Its costing Amazon money, because you guys can't use good judgment before purchase.
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I get what you are trying to say, even though you're implying the wrong thing (that we are each returning multiple games). However, semantics of the word habitual aside, what makes you think the blame is entirely on us? SimCity is undeniably broken and not the game they claimed it to be, obviously, but let's move to GW2 (the only other game you actually mentioned). I never bought it (so much for habitual), but from reading about it, wasn't a big portion of the problem that they wanted people to pre-purchase for beta access? Not pre-order, pre-purchase, with no hope of a refund. Granted, that might not have been a terribly smart thing for a consumer to do if they weren't sure about the game, but come on, a pre-purchase for beta scheme is nothing but a cash grab and we all know it. They just got pressured into allowing refunds because it was a terrible business practice. I have no idea if the game was worth the money or not, but that pre-purchase thing was fucking ridiculous. Same thing with releasing a SimCity that was touted to be all kinds of things it wasn't.

This isn't all on us, and I don't see returning games becoming the norm as you're attempting to imply, even though perhaps it should be if the game is broken.
 
C

Charles_sl

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If a game is broken and incomplete then why shouldn't it be returnable? I haven't purchased this game, mainly because of their idiotic beta testing system and now the terrible reviews, but I feel that it's more than acceptable for people to return it based on the state that it is apparently in. A company is screwing you over with bad products and deception, why is that acceptable Caliane?

I doubt that Amazon is bearing much of the cost of the returns also, Electronic Arts will be the one losing money. And if EA makes such bad products then Amazon shouldn't even carry them to begin with. Why is it the consumers fault?
 
Tuco

Tuco

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Caliane_sl said:
yeah, I don't really see how reviewers could have sniffed out the underlying mechanics and any flaws with their allotted review time. You can't blame bad journalism for that.



Any concern on the impact all these returns on game after game will have on amazon?

I'm glad you guys are getting your money back on this, and a few other games... But it seems like its getting habitual. Buy a game, test it out, return it. People were doing the same for Guildwars2, and others.
Its costing Amazon money, because you guys can't use good judgment before purchase.
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It's tough to say. On one hand Amazon may likely foot the bill for these returns, on the other hand they're generating a lot of good press and a lot of people are wishing they bought it from Amazon.

Amazon is a fucking giant, but I'm sure they like the profit they make on digital sales as much as any other distributor.
 
Jait

Jait

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Amazon has never had a problem refunding money as far as I know. Been using them forever, never a single argument from them even on shit I realized I didn't need/want a week later.



Watching that was the reason I didn't pick this up.
 
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sebur

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Caliane_sl said:
yeah, I don't really see how reviewers could have sniffed out the underlying mechanics and any flaws with their allotted review time. You can't blame bad journalism for that.



Any concern on the impact all these returns on game after game will have on amazon?

I'm glad you guys are getting your money back on this, and a few other games... But it seems like its getting habitual. Buy a game, test it out, return it. People were doing the same for Guildwars2, and others.
Its costing Amazon money, because you guys can't use good judgment before purchase.
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I personally don't like amazon so I could give a shit if it is costing them money. At the end of the day, if they allow people to return it...then it is there fault they are losing money...they could always say no....
 
Downhammer

Downhammer

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To me the return issue is tied to the DRM. DRM is supposed to be this wonderful thing that ensures you have to pay to play. If you return your copy you can no longer play. The whole no returns on music movies and software is because in a non-DRM world you could install/copy your media with no loss upon return. Anything that needs an always on internet connection or other DRM-like licensing should allow returns similar to any other physical product. Software companies shouldn't get it both ways.
 
S

sebur

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Ya I understand that...I mean I allow returns all the time of open software that has serial numbers...as soon as I hit that serial number in the system it is deactivated so it doesn't hurt me any.
 
Void

Void

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Well, I don't necessarily agree with returns on everything, and I get what Caliane and others are getting at. The DRM = returns logic works for some games, SimCity being a perfect example because it will probably be played multiple times in the coming years (assume it isn't shitty for this example), so if you return it and lose access that sort of makes sense. But if always-online DRM were slapped on a game like Mass Effect 3 (haven't played it so perhaps it is), most people aren't going to play that game more than once. Good or bad, the majority of people would return it after finishing it if they knew that option were available, and wouldn't care if they lost their access to ever play it again.

So I get why every game shouldn't be returnable. And that's part of why I haven't even tried in over a decade. But in this case I felt it was warranted, and it would suck if Amazon paid the tab for it, but EA can go fuck themselves and I hope it falls on them.
 
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Osiris The Everliving_sl

shitlord
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On that note I wanted to take a moment to address a question that's been coming up: the persistence of our Sims. The Sims in the game are persistent in many respects. They go from a home to a workplace or to a shop and back each day. Their happiness, money, sickness, education level, etc. are also persistent and are carried around the city with each Sim as the simulation unfolds. But many aspects of the Sims are not persistent.They don't own a particular house or have permanent employment.We also don't track their names, their clothing, gender, or skin color. We did this as in attempt to increase performance so that we could have more Sims in the city. Ultimately we didn't feel that the cost of adding in that extra layer of micro detail made the macro game play richer. Game design is filled with tradeoffs and compromises like this and we are constantly evaluating these (and many other) decision
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Sigh , this is sad.Well at least they are admitting shit now. See how they fix it i suppose.
 
M

Morbeas

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Hehe, that actually looks promising. What's the consensus on Anno 2070? (I just looked around and the reviews are mostly positive.)
 
earthfell

earthfell

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Jait_sl said:
Amazon has never had a problem refunding money as far as I know. Been using them forever, never a single argument from them even on shit I realized I didn't need/want a week later.



Watching that was the reason I didn't pick this up.
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holy crap that game looks like they just took The Sims 3 and plastered it onto SimCity. The music, the UI, everything about it screams Sims 3. That one giant monster in the video looks like they copy and pasted it from Spore.
 
Falstaff

Falstaff

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Osiris The Everliving_sl said:
Sigh , this is sad.Well at least they are admitting shit now. See how they fix it i suppose.
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Clothes, gender, and skin color I could give a fuck about.

We'll see how they fix traffic, but the "go to closest available job. go to closest available home" mechanic needs to go away... Could they just write an algorithm that, at a certain time of day, all Sims that are workers get a randomly assigned job anywhere in the city? Same thing with home... even that would better than find the first available and park.
 
I

Itzena_sl

shitlord
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chaos_sl said:
How the hell was anyone supposed to know that this game would be in the state it has been in?
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Next question?

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