I respect your opinion, but that's the kind of apolgist excuse that empowers them to do things like this. I don't care what the technical and legal reality is. If I pay for something there is a reasonable expectation that it will work. Period. I patently reject any argument to the contrary, and I will never, ever accept any argument to the contrary.

Legal =/= right. I do however agree that consumers continually agreeing to buy these games are directly responsible for the proliferation of these practices.

It being the norm and to be expected now =/= right either. People should exercise better judgment, but the companies doing it cannot be exonerated from all responsibility. That just isn't right.

We're talking about Sim City of all things. A staple of PC gaming for decades. And people can't even play single player and have to wait in a queue like it's an MMO. Seriously. Come on now. Acceptance of this is unthinkable to me, frankly.

EDIT: This will probably sound stupid to most here, but I just found out Percy Pringle aka WWE's Paul Bearer (former Undertaker's manager) just died. A very kind man in real life and like many I'm very sad now, so I don't want to get into a protracted argument about the videogame industry. I respect everyone's opinions and am going to head to bed now and leave it at that. Peace.

I avoided titles with online DRM like the plague until one that I couldn't resist came on the market (Damn you Anno2070!!). Unfortunately I had the worst experience with it as the server was down more times than I can remember turning my game into a reduced functionality 'demo' so to speak. Because of this the expansion pack received the middle finger from me and no matter how tempting a title it may be I will never purchase any games that support always on DRM.

Why companies continue to put punishing DRM mechanics for their paying customers eludes me. Maybe I'm the only one that didn't return after I was bitten once. I don't know.

I could be wrong, but I think Heavenfall's point was, it is our (the customers) fault because we keep buying games with these damn DRM methods. The only way to really stop companies from putting those invasive types of DRM in, is to NOT buy the game at all!

I apologize to HF if that was not his point, nonetheless it is my opinion.

I wish I hadn't bought it.  I should have known better, shit, I did know better. 

Ouch, I'm sorry to hear that i was quite disappointed when i found out that the game was a wreck. While Tropico 4 doesnt replace sim city with all the DLC it's pretty fun.

Umm, isn't Steam a form of online DRM, which SD is using to distribute Rebellion?

You have to be online to install and you have to be online to switch to offline mode. I have heard that if you lose your connection while playing, it switches to offline mode, but I cant verify that, and have read people still have problems with it with a lot of games.

Biggest issue I have is Steams TOS, read it, you will be shocked at how far they help bend you over before ramming it to you.

hehe, thanks for the chuckles 

I posted this b4 and here it is again

Like:
http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

6. USER GENERATED INFORMATION

"User Generated Information" means any information made available to other users through your use of multi-user features of Steam or to Valve or its affiliates through your use of the Software or otherwise. User Generated Information may include, but is not limited to, chat, forum posts, screen names, game selections, player performances, usage data, suggestions about Valve products or services, and error notifications. Subject to the Valve privacy policy referenced in Section 1 above, as applicable, and except as otherwise specifically addressed in any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use, you expressly grant Valve and its affiliates the non-exclusive, irrevocable right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly display and perform the User Generated Information and derivative works thereof in any form, anywhere, with or without attribution to you, and without any notice or compensation to you of any kind. For any content for which you take advantage of cloud storage provided by Valve, you grant us a license to store such information for you, and you represent and warrant to us that you have sufficient rights in such content to grant us this license. You acknowledge and agree that we may place limits on the amount of storage you may use.

C. NO GUARANTEES.

NEITHER VALVE NOR ITS AFFILIATES GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE OR SECURE OPERATION AND ACCESS TO STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS(S) OR ANY INFORMATION AVAILABLE IN CONNECTION THEREWITH.

C. Termination by Valve.

Valve may cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time. In the event that your Account or a particular Subscription is terminated or cancelled by Valve for a violation of this Agreement or 
improper (<-- WTF is that    ) or illegal activity, no refund, including of any Subscription fees, will be granted.

 

Adding "(<-- WTF is that     )" to that could be 'improper activity', GoodBye

EDIT: or check out the steam forum, there was a bunch of posts about their TOS, the moderators closed them all and stated only a curtain thread will be allow to discuss the TOS, then they close that thread.

EDIT2: I am also on limited bandwidth, so these 'developers' are essentially making ME pay to prove I am not a pirate, and making ME pay so they can collect and share any and all information about me. Well, fuck that.

And this is the part that I don't understand, before the steam requirement, you just go to wherever and buy game, get home and boot her up, bar any problems. And have a grand ole time. Now, guys like myfist0 who have bandwidth caps, having steam to download is cost prohibitive in some cases, especially if you go to verify who you are just to play a single player game.

Why not charge a little bit more for the CD-ROM's. This way, people will have a choice versus the only option of going to a 3rd party just to get permission to play a game...

Sorry for ranting but me and Stant, who has been screwed by Steam. Are maybe literally the only ones who don't play Rebellion because of Steam...

This is actually no longer true. Now if your internet connection goes, it can go into offline mode without you being online, and you can still play your games.

Granted, I'm sure you need to reconnect to steam servers eventually, but it really helps those with unstable internet connections or those on trips away from internet access.

I now only oppose Steam for being a monopolist with its steam works policy. As a platform I think most of the evils that I used to hate it for as a user have mostly been fixed.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2013/03/simcity-5s-multiplayer-blues/4860/

A big vanilla-flavored scoop of excerpt:

"On December 14, seven Maxis developers hosted an "Ask me anything" thread on Reddit. For public figures from President Obama on down, the AMA is a surefire publicity generator. But it can backfire, too. The top-rated comment on the thread, which clocked over a quarter-million page views, was a compendium of 81 users (the text limit had been reached) attacking the game’s Internet requirement. "Deliberately preventing players from saving their cities offline," wrote one, in one of the less profane remarks, "is insulting to a long-standing, dedicated and loving fan-base that deserves more respect."

"The uproar – AMA turned WTF, as TechDirt put it – was only partly SimCity’s fault. Perhaps nothing stokes more fury in the gaming world than the restrictive licensing of games, of which the “always-on” Internet requirement is, so far, the most extreme example. Traditionally, games -- whether on CD, cartridge, or hard drive -- have been possessions that could, once purchased and properly maintained, last for several decades. SimCity 5, by contrast, is a service that remains dependent on its provider.

"Typical complaints are as follows: Remote play (for soldiers, say, or travelers) is impossible. The technology is an impediment aimed at stopping piracy rather than a feature. If Electronic Arts, which owns Maxis, goes under or cuts support to the servers, the game and its history cease to exist. (EA has a reputation for abandoning server support after a few years.)

"Online play touches a deeper nerve, too: the paranoia among PC gamers that single-player games – like the legendary SimCity 2000 – are slowly being phased out. Frank Gibreau, the president of Electronic Arts, once boasted that he was leading the push to eliminate single-player gaming. "I have not green lit one game to be developed as a single-player experience. Today, all of our games include online applications and digital services that make them live 24/7/365." He later walked back that statement, but could not quell the concern that social play is encroaching on a medium enjoyed, as often as not, as an escape."

Depends on the company and the game. One of the major complaints I've read about Simcity 5 is that you can't play the singleplayer game without connecting to the servers after a specific period of time. Otherwise, you'll lose all the progress you've made.

From another piece, this time from VR-Zone:

"While fans have known from the beginning when SimCity 5 was announced that having a persistent Internet connection was going to be a requirement in order to play the game, we didn't realize just how much of a requirement it was going to be. When word first leaked about this it was thought that the connection requirement would only be for the multi-player portion of the game however thanks to a recent AMA (AskMeAmything) on Reddit with the game developers we found out that this will apply to even the single player portion as well.

"One of the questions in the reddit thread asked the developers in regards to the connection restriction was what about players who were "experiencing connection problems" while playing the game. In other words would the game still be playable if the player's internet connection goes down and then reconnects. he response from the Maxis developers only added fuel to the fire when they said that players would be allowed for as long as their game state could be preserved and remained within a time period of "minutes". What this really means is that players who lose their connection for anything longer than "a few minutes" would be in danger of losing any game progress."