You know what? I'm just a little bit annoyed with some people saying that everyone should just "accept" this as the norm and deal with it. For an online game, of course, but for a game with a singleplayer component? There is no good reason it should require an always-on Internet connection.

I'm always connected, but out here in the backwoods of Vermont my connection is a mini nightmare. It drops out at least once or twice a day. Not for more than a minute or two, just a little hiccup really, but when that means I get ejected from my game? It's like Pheace said: One Saturday two weeks ago, my Internet connection dropped maybe six times in the space of an hour. I was merrily playing away at a game I purchased from this site and only noticed it after the fact. I can only imagine the frustration if I had been playing a game that requires an always-on Internet connection.

For me, if a game comes with an online activation I'll roll my eyes but I wouldn't say no. If a game requires me to have a stable constant Internet connection, I'll say no thanks and spend that money elsewhere.

I think that this the "facebookialisation" of gaming that is en vogue currently. Will see if it sticks. Wouldn't be the first gaming fad that comes and goes. Anno 2070 used those features very decently, would have to check how they do it here.

Which sadly is possibly going to make it susceptible to 'Online experiences may vary'. I guess this'll be on hold till reviews roll out.

I do much of my PC gaming on my M11x on the metro to and from work with no hope of internet access even via cell.

Therefore publishers demanding "always connected" can shove their game even further up their chuff-hole than the ones demanding I activate them.

That definitely sucks, luckily I was only "cautiously" interested by the new Sim City so it won't be to hard to skip it.

Sadly I expect more and more single player game to have always-online "features" forced into them in the future with excuses having various level of phoniness.

No, no one has to "accept" always online. It's always a "CHOICE" to accept it or not. No one is forced to buy a game that requires always on line.

And if enough gamers CHOOSE not to accept that, and refuse purchase, then they WILL change their policy. That's the way the whole customer/businsess relationship is supposed to work. The consumer decides what they'll let the business get away with, and the business will then go as far as they can until it's no longer profitable to do so.

So, if you CHOOSE to "accept" always online as a requirement, then you're enabling the publishers to go ahead and make that the norm. There is nothing inevitable about it at all. If they try this for more and more titles and see their sales drop drasctially, they will drop the idea. If they try this and see their sales mostly continue unabated, then they'll continue and consider other possibly more intrusive measures. The end result is not inevitable, and it is not up to the game sellers to decide that ultimate outcome. It's up to every game purchaser out there to decide it.

Me, I wouldn't purchase it even if I had the most reliable and free internet service in the world, because I know my actions would help determine that always on does become the end result and that will harm others.

You're free to choose as you wish. But you're not free to claim the end result is inevitable when it's not.

That's been VERY carefully engineered by the suits in these companies to deceive you that way; to soften the blow.

Cities made by other players as your neighbours is awesome enough to stay online all the time ;)

Will not support this and if i didnt get handed a copy of D3 free i would have never bought that... im making a generic login and crap so i can just toss the D3 account away after i get my fill of it... i'll buy the console version when it drops..

as for SimCity5 this pisses me off... i wanted so badly yo play it but i'll never buy a single game on origin.... its because of origin ive started to accept and acknowledge steam as a viable alternative... origin is terrifying...

The "nice" thing is gamers don't have to buy such games. I have hundreds of games and can do without another Sim City, frag, I can just play the original on the PC via GoG or my Commodore 64 copy, or my "Steam" copy of Sim City 4 Deluxe.

We'll see how many people are willing to buy the game with that DRM, and no I won't pirate it either.

There are some games, and even some potential types of games that may only be possible in an always online format like MMO games. In such instances its fine to tack the need on as a requirement because it is intrinsic to an experience which can only be had under said condition.

However, adding the requirement for the simple sake of doing it, or heaven forbid, altering the gaming experience just to force people to get the experience isn't progress. Its a wholly unnecessary requirement that serves to truncate the shelf life of a game for no consumer friendly reason. If the world goes up into some weird upheaval and the gaming market tanks (or time just marches on), it will be the offline games that keep working.

I agree this sucks, but to be honest it's something that i am willing to put up with to play the next installment of Simcity. Blizzard has got away with it, why not EA? I hope this changes, but i don't see that happening anytime soon.

How much is Simcity still evolving after all these years? Seems like it would have peeked a long time ago. I bought an older one for my wife to try from the 10$ bin thinking it might be something she would like. I remember thinking, this is a lot more complex than the SNES one I played as a teen. Complex enough that she didn't take to it.

Hmm let's see:

Two weeks ago I was visiting my mother for a few days (I do that time to time), and I got my laptop there too. Even though I had my 3G USB netstick with me there, it is almost useless there, usually being able to connect only with a very slow 2G GPRS connection. So while it barely let me access the net forums, it was pretty useless for e.g. downloading yet another big update for TeamFortress 2, let alone play it.

Every summer I take the same gaming laptop also to the summer cottage, for rainy days and shit. Same problem there, the 3G connection barely works there so I don't even keep it open all the time, and the connection breaks quite often.

One year ago we were also one month in SE Asia. Same thing there, the internet connectivity there was abysmal. I bought a prepaid net sim there to be able to access the net at all, but it was horribly slow even for 2G GPRS, broke frequently from our motel, and was almost useless even for web surfing, let alone online gaming.

And let's not also forget that fact that e.g. Steam does not work from behind proxies. So even if I am connected to high-speed corporate network, Steam client can't connect from there. So just "being online" is not always necessarily enough.

So I'd say that I'm quite often offline, at least as long as gaming connectivity goes. Did that answer your question?


Only people who never visit outside their home town have a luxury of saying that. Try sometimes going abroad and feel the roaming charges.

Yes, most of the "free wifi" hotspots all over the world are pure crap and quite useless for anything. There's a reason why they are "free".