EA giving us a free game is apparently a bad thing.

So, originally I’d planned to ignore the hate and garbage going on surrounding the new release of SimCity. Every one and their grandmother knows that EA borked the launch of the game. Though i think anyone not expecting that borked launch really should have looked at the recent gaming history, Diablo 3 anyone?

The game itself has a few very annoying issues, for example the traffic never flows properly. You can have the best transit system in the world and your city will still have deadlock, added to this you have the emergency services bug. This is where you can have say multiple fires in you city, you think you’ve got good  coverage with your trucks, but for some reason they ALL head to the same fire. This means you lose property because they don’t get to the other fires in time, which of course means lost taxes. Also if you make a casino city your screwed, as they were nerfed before release and have yet to be restored. Though those are planned for upcoming updates.

In all fairness this sort of sloppy work is becoming the norm, and has been for several years. Publishers are of the opinion now it’s better to get the game out on schedule despite it being broken. The reason of course being they know they can fix it after release through patches. Some of the best examples of this are Sword of the Stars 1&2, and Legends of Pegasus.

Sword of the Stars 1&2 launched in an unplayable format, though over many months and numerous expansions they were fixed. SotS 1 is in fact now considered one of the best 4X games ever. SotS 2 however has a long way to go, though it’s getting there. Legend of Pegasus was released in a totally unplayable format, but before it was fixed the developers went bankrupt meaning the game will forever be unplayable. While these are extreme cases, it is fast becoming the norm to release games that aren’t quite finished at release.

okay, now that’s all out of the way lets get into what prompted me to write this post.

Naturally it’s started off in the Steam Communities, those pieces of garbage Valve are trying to pass off as forums. A poster there posted a link to his site on the free game being offered by EA. His opinion was that it was a garbage move, and went on to lambast EA some more. Normally i ignore these trolls, but after reading his post over on TechReviewsandHelp.com.

So lets dissect this post:

Before the launch EA has assured everyone with the following comment.

 If you regrettably feel that we left you down, you can of course request a refund for your order.

While that sounds like something where they will refund you if you don’t like what you received. It turns out to be careful and politically worded way to manipulate a potential consumer in trusting in them. In return for consumer trusting them, EA said they couldn’t give a refund to anyone with a digital download from EA/Origin. The following is what they said to many paying customers.

It is also the our discretion to process a refund.” “If you choose to dispute it, your account will be banned.

The first bit is deffo something to collar EA on, they originally said refunds would be given, but then changed their tune. However, EA’s Origin store has the same clauses in the user agreement as Steam. this states that all sales are final and non-refundable. With pre-orders being the main exception, and those in the EU are protected by the distance selling laws meaning they can request a refund at any point within 14 days, so long as the game hasn’t been downloaded. This is the same policy you’ll find on Steam, GMG, and GG.

That last comment the guy deliberately takes out of context. We know it’s deliberate since the event sparking this took place a week ago, and was clarified pretty much straight away. So in this case we have a guy who demanded a refund on SimCity, and was reminded of the no refund policy. He then promptly told the rep he was going to do a chargeback to get a refund, and the rep responded that if he did that his entire origin account would be closed.

Originally it was understandable why people raged over this, since most people didn’t understand that a chargeback was a HUGE thing with heavy consequences for the company involved. What’s more like the refund policy, pretty much every download site has a policy of banning accounts that do chargebacks.

Now EA is giving away a game off of a short list for those who they “stole” from.

• Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition)
• Bejeweled 3
• Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition)
• Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition)
• MOHW (Standard Edition)
• NFS Most Wanted (Standard Edition)
• Plants vs. Zombies
• SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition

The problem with the list is Plants vs Zombies and Bejeweled is a free mobile game. Also, most likely you already played all the other games. If not, the chances of someone actually want to play them now will be low. Most of those games have been out for a very long time.

Can you say hyperbole? I pre-ordered SimCity, i did so knowing that the game had the potential to suck beyond belief. Anyone who pre-orders a game without understanding they’re taking a gamble, shouldn’t pre-order. As for those that bought the game after it’s release have no right to complain because they should have done some research on the game. EA didn’t steal your money, you GAVE them your money freely. You CHOOSE to buy the game, so you’ve only got yourself to blame if you feel you’ve been ripped off. In future wait research your game before you fork over a huge chunk of cash.

As for the games, it’s not quite what was promised, in the original post:

And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.

I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.

I read this as EA giving us a game for free from their entire origin store. I was really interested in this since i would have picked up Tomb Raider, a game i was interested in but was put off buying cause i hate platforming and puzzle solving.

However as posted above EA opted to have only a few games from their catalogue, but i think they picked a good range.  So onto his comments, Plants V Zombies and Bejeweled are NOT free mobile games. Rather they’re F2P games with micro transactions. As for the other games, with the exception of Medal of Honor, they’re all pretty good games. I all ready own Dead Space 3 and Mass Effect 3, both are great games worth playing. I know many people who didn’t get DS3 because they were concerned over the micro transactions, but who are now interested in it since it’s free. The same applies to ME3, a lot of people listened to the net rage over the ending and didn’t buy it, but are now looking to use the free game voucher to get it. Frankly i think ME3 ends in a pretty awesome way, mechanically it was a bit ‘meh’ but story wise it was awesome.

Battlefield 3 is a game I’ve been considering since it was released, since i loved Bad company 2. I’ve not picked it up though because it was so expensive, with a ton of DLC. The same applied to Most Wanted, part of me didn’t want to get it because I’m a huge fan of the original MW game, Also I’ve been really disappointed with the past few NFS games, but at the same tie I’ve wanted to get it because it’s a NFS game.

Sim City 4 is a great addition, since it gives people who liked the new one but never played the original a chance to play it. It also means they get some context on the problems of Sim City, since in Sim City 4 it has a number of problems even now.

I know a lot of people who have picked up games from the list that for varying reasons they haven’t picked up already. I myself picked up Most Wanted. SimCity 4 and Bejeweled are also given to those who are underage users of origin.

I won’t bother getting into the CEO of EA standing down, since in the guy’s post he quotes someone from Forbe’s as saying it’s nothing to do with SimCity but to do with the fact EA hasn’t reached it’s targets. Which makes sense since it’s now the end of the financial year.

Conclusion:

Firstly the guy who wrote the post, Craig Bennett II, is a total idiot whose grammar and spelling is worse than mine. He apparently can’t even spell ‘Admin’ correctly. EA giving a few game to people is a good thing, it means that we can get a game we’ve wanted but haven’t for one reason or another. the fact they put up new releases, such as Dead Space 3 is a good move on their part. People need to stop taking things out of context, making mountains of mole hills, and stop looking that gift horse in the mouth!!