[ed. Addresses the concept of ownership and what it means when computers and software are more dependent on cloud-based computing: music, books, games, etc. Be sure to click on this link.]
It was a disaster for EA, its distributor. Within hours the game blogs were humming, and the comments sections were humming even more. People had paid for the game; many people had pre-ordered it. Everything should have worked. People were angry. The problem quickly became obvious: SimCity’s Always-On DRM was gumming up the works. To clarify: the game requires a constant internet connection to play, with the game syncing to the servers every twenty minutes or so. The servers were overloaded. When people were able to connect, the game was frequently unplayable. Some games simply didn’t unlock on time.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t anywhere near the first time this very thing has happened. Games with primarily online components have often run into server problems at launch, with the issues resolving within a few days, after everyone has calmed down a bit. No big deal, people have said. This is just the new face of gaming. It’s growing pains. Things will sort themselves out.
Then other things started to come out. EA released statements to the effect that the game would be nigh-impossible to reengineer to run offline, because “with the way that the game works, we offload a significant amount of the calculations to our servers so that the computations are off the local PCs and are moved into the cloud.” Gamers responded that this was probably ridiculous bullshit, but we didn’t have proof of this until the last twenty-four hours, wherein a modder was able to run the non-regional version of the game offline without any significant issues. A Maxis insider has confirmed this. Clearly a “significant amount of engineering” isn’t actually required in order to make the game playable without an internet connection. The DRM that was presented by the game’s distributor as a fundamental part of the game’s function is not fundamental, practically speaking.
So either EA was misinformed by Maxis, or they’re lying.
Why should we care about this? Most simply, because it’s a continuation of an ongoing trend: The recategorization of technology owners as technology users, of the possession of private property transformed into the leasing of property owned by others, with all the restrictions on use that come along with it. And what’s most worrying about this are all the ways in which we as owner-users are being encouraged to view this as a normal part of our relationship with our stuff. When the very concept of “our stuff” is up for grabs.
by Sarah Wanenchak, Cyborgology | Read more:
Image: uncredited
