EA tries to atone for atrocious SimCity launch with free game offer
Everybody knows this PR dance by now. Large company screws up (in this case by being willfully misleading about the extent to which SimCity had to be “always online,” then failing to have the server capacity to actually cope with that,) large company showers free gifts on customers in the hope that they forget about it.
EA is no stranger to the process, having incited customer ire more often than most publishers in the past few years. This apology-proficiency is shining through in the list of actually-quite-good games being offered to SimCity players as recompense for the shoddiest of shoddy launches.
Anybody who has activated a copy of the new SimCity or will activate one before 26 March at 06:59 AM GMT (that’s just before midnight on 25 March in PST-land) will get an email before 22 March explaining how to claim one of the following titles on Origin for free:
- Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition)
- Bejeweled 3
- Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition)
- Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition)
- Medal of Honor: Warfighter (Standard Edition)
- NFS Most Wanted (Standard Edition)
- Plants vs. Zombies
- SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
Throwing SimCity 4 in there as an option is a neat punchline to this whole debacle, I must say.
When you do receive the email about claiming your game, you must do so before 31 March. Otherwise the PR apology dust that brought it to you will take it away again.
So, SimCity owners, is this apology enough?
EA is trying to forcefully impose the worst kind of DRM. This is no excuse, they are on track, it’s a preparation for future titles. The only way to stop them is to stop buying their products. That’s the only thing they know. Counting money!
They aren’t forcefully imposing DRM on you. You have a choice to not buy the game which is clearly advertised as requiring the player to be online.
The offer they have made is really generous, Blizzard made no such offer with the troubled launch of Diablo 3.
You still don’t get it. If we don’t stop buying their games, this will keep on!
Oh I do get it. I understand the power of the consumer. I’m just saying that I have no problem with DRM and they haven’t forced it on me. I bought into it when I bought the game. Forcing implies there was no freedom of choice.