The SimCity Social Blog is primarily about SimCity Social, but we sometimes veer to discuss other SimCity news. Since I emailed you a couple weeks ago about pre-ordering SimCity, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you this reader-submitted article.
Andrew Hesketh emailed me the other day about the problems occurring with EA’s most recent PC version of SimCity. He feels that since there are some parts of the game that aren’t immediately working as planned with the EA servers, that pre-ordering SimCity was a bad idea.
Personally, I love video game pre-orders. I don’t think that some temporary issues with the EA servers really means that pre-ordering was a bad decision. They will have the problem resolved soon enough, and there are plenty of aspects of the game that you can still enjoy until then.
I’m curious to hear what you have to say. Take a look at Andrew’s article and let us know in the comments what you think about pre-ordering SimCity.
Enter Andrew…
People have been complaining that they aren’t able to receive a refund from EA after requesting one because of all the issues and server downtime that’s been occurring over the last few days. This is blatantly because if you pre-order a game, you are able to get a refund if the game HAS NOT BEEN RELEASED. If it has been released, and you have been given the game or received the code to play it or it’s been added to your account. You are not refundable after this, and that’s in the Returns and Cancellations on the official EA website.
If it’s a physical product, then you have a 14 day unconditional guarantee which allows you to return the game within 14 days of its delivery for a prompt refund without questions asked but as far as digitally, there is a no refund policy. I think people expect more when they have seen an amazing trailer and the game is going to be exactly like the trailer… this isn’t how this generation works because most trailers are done to high CGI standards which graphically will be better than the actual game when it’s released. You don’t see any bugs, server problems or other problems in a trailer.
When you preorder a game, you are going by what they are showing you, what they are advertising to you… I mean it’s understandable that people expect a full working game with no issues but due to the high capacity of gamers flying onto one game such as SimCity, its causes problems on both sides. In this case, the problem was completely on EA’s side because they obviously didn’t beta test the game before its release properly otherwise they wouldn’t have had this problem.
Maybe people should learn not to preorder games because when it’s released it might mean having to run down to the shop to try and get a copy early so you are guaranteed to get a copy. At least when it’s released, you can find out everyone’s opinion on the game rather than game critics who are probably paid off by the companies or are completely biased to a game they don’t like on either side of opinions.
We have fan boys who preorder games and don’t let anybody doubt them and this is mainly because they were expecting an amazing game but because they have realised it’s not up to expectations they can’t allow anybody to doubt it and realise it’s a time wasting and money wasting game to the genre.
Going back to SimCity, people are defending the game and saying it’s amazing because the servers are finally working. But they don’t realise they have convinced themselves that the game is good, and all signs are pointing to it saying that it’s not a good game and people point that out and those who have bought it expecting it to be amazing are trying to defend something that it’s not just for a sake of an argument and the sake to try and persuade themselves that they haven’t wasted their money and pre-ordering the game was a great idea because… you know? They pre-ordered a game they couldn’t even play when they received it! What kind of nonsense is this? Truthfully, if you feel any doubt or have any doubt. DO NOT PREORDER THE GAME, wait and see what it will be like, don’t fall into the gaming business and be defeated by spending your money on something that you have just got, and want to burn and destroy already. Be sensible, and think.
(Source: Metacritic & Amazon customer reviews) This source proves my point that the people who gave it 5 star and 4 star and have posted why they have gave it that rating can’t admit that they have wasted money on a in creditable game. Example some guy quoted that he gave it 5 star just to give EA some peace, what kind of review and rating is that? A guy who can’t admit he made a $60 – £45 mistake!
Plus, Amazon have suspended all sales digitally for SimCity due to the high concentration of negative feedback to the game and hatred that users are putting out which are displaying on Amazon’s site. (Source: BetaBeat) [Note from SCSB: Digital download has been restored to the Amazon listing, along with a warning about the server issues.]
So, What are your thoughts on pre-ordering SimCity? Or any other game for that matter.
Leave your comments below.
