SimCity

Tuco_sl said:

After reading Bradshaw's latest pile of shit if I bought it from Origin and could easily get a refund I would. Not going to stick it to Amazon though.

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Does Amazon pay refunds out of their pockets? I sort of assumed games were distributed and distributors got a cut on sales. Do they actually buy the games for resale, and if they don't sell, they're fucked out of that money?

If it works anything like normal retail...the producers aren't getting shit. Amazon is out right buying the product from them. The only way this would be different would be if there is some special deal or agreement that they entered in to for vendor support. A good example would be video games in major retail boxes. Generally they carry them to carry them because they sell the systems, they aren't making anything but a few dollars if that off a game being sold. A lot like sometimes retailers lose money off selling certain laptops and hope to make it up via accessories etc.

So I heard people liked traffic jams....

Haha Oh wow.

Though the guy does look to have what 6 ferry docks all stacked up.

Ya, but if you look, it is kind of hard to tell but, I don't think I see a boat at any of his ferry docks except the first one.

sebur_sl said:

If it works anything like normal retail...the producers aren't getting shit. Amazon is out right buying the product from them. The only way this would be different would be if there is some special deal or agreement that they entered in to for vendor support. A good example would be video games in major retail boxes. Generally they carry them to carry them because they sell the systems, they aren't making anything but a few dollars if that off a game being sold. A lot like sometimes retailers lose money off selling certain laptops and hope to make it up via accessories etc.

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Bingo. I worked management in video game retail for a few years.

Generally speaking, new games were purchased from the distributors at $2-$3 less than the new sticker price. Very, very rarely was there a situation where we were able to return unsold, sealed new product for credit. Accepting returns on new product that couldn't be resold as new product was a straight up loss for us, which was somewhat offset in the event that we could turn around and sell the copy as used (If someone purchased a new game and wanted to return it because they simply didn't like it, we would exchange it at the used price and turn it into used stock).

Tangentially, new systems were generally sold at a slight loss (purchased from distributor at MSRP, plus shipping and overhead) just to provide the convenience of having the units available. The only real source of profit for new goods was on some accessories. Beyond that, any money made was done so in used product (which is why Gamestop and the like push used product so much - that and preorders, which are essentially free interest for them - but fuck Gamestop). We did have an interesting agreement with magazine distributors, however - when the new batch of printed goods arrived, we returned the barcodes of unsold issues from the previous month for credit.

Always loved getting new magazines when I worked at Gamestop. Rip the cover off of the previous months, return it for credit, and take the magazine home. Was basically a free subsciption to every good video game/PC mag back in the day(plus all the demo disks, back when that was big).

Honestly at Gamestop, we were always told to just re-sell returned merchandise unless it was obviously defective(giant scratch on a disk, or missing parts). I'd say at least 75% of the time that someone returned something as "defective" it was just user error or they didn't like it and thought they had to claim it was broken to return it. We'd just shrinkwrap the game again and resell it.

List of free games is as follows:

Battlefield 3
Bejeweled 3 (lol)
Mass Effect 3
Dead Space 3
Medal of Honor Warfighter
Need for Speed Most Wanted
Plants vs Zombies
Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition

source:For Our Patient and Amazing Mayors - a Free PC Download from Origin

I'm thinking I'll get Battlefield 3 since it has online play. I have Mass Effect, Sim City 4, and Plants vs Zombies (on my phone).

Anyone that has played those have a recommendation? IMO, just pirate SC4 if you want to try it.

If I'm reading the legal disclaimer correctly, as long as you buy Sim City and activate it on Origin by March 25, you can get one of these games for free.

How is mass effect 3 multiplayer?

SimCity 4 is good but like Agraza said you can definitely get it via other means. I am going to be picking up Battlefield 3 personally, already have it for the PS3 but want a PC copy.

Sim City 4 Deluxe is pretty regularly on sale on Steam for under 15 bucks.

Hatorade_sl said:

How is mass effect 3 multiplayer?

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Dope. Lots of free DLC for it and plenty of people still play it.

Hmm not seeing any news on a patch or at least some kind of fucking info besides that blog on the traffic fix being tested. Where the real meat to please the fans with an actual emphasis on the fucking game that we bought.

Did anyone else have problems yesterday with their cities randomly becoming unsynced and requiring "Rollbacks?" Had this happen three times and it was god damn annoying.

Here's the email for anyone curious:

"Our SimCity Mayors are incredibly important to the team at Maxis. We know we messed up and want to sincerely thank you for staying with us. The good news is we have solved most of the major issues and players are really enjoying the game. We're getting great feedback from our fans and know that many of you are having fun and are exploring this whole new expression of SimCity.

As a small token of our appreciation, we are offering you a free EA PC game download on Origin*. Mayors who have authenticated their copy of SimCity on Origin by March 25 can select a free game through a redemption portal inside the Origin desktop client later this week. We'll be opening up the redemption portal country-by-country so some of you may see it a little sooner than others. The portal will be live worldwide for everyone to select their game by March 22.

We don't want any of you to miss out your free game, so please note that you must register your copy of SimCity before March 25, 2013 at 11:59 PM PST and you must claim your free game by March 30, 2013 at 11:59PM PST. For more information, including instructions on how to get your free game and a list of eligible games, please read our FAQ. We've included some of the hottest games in the EA portfolio, so pick one and add it to your Origin library on us!

Sincerely,
Maxis"