Your rhetoric exhibits the same false ideas about modding as I’ve attributed to EA. Modding increases value, it doesn’t reduce it. You suggest EA “could” abandon profits by allowing modding but it’s far more likely that they will abandon profits if modding is blocked.
If you want customers to buy products from you in the future then making customers feel like they’ve gotten a good deal with your current product is an excellent way to encourage them. How many people feel like SimCity was a good deal? How likely are they to buy the next version of SimCity? If mods address concerns and desires that the base product has not fulfilled and as a result people have fun with the game, won’t that make people more inclined to buy a sequel or expansion pack? The value of the franchise was definitely lowered.
With SimCity, EA has poisoned the well. Modding can act as an antidote. EA may have a legal right to prohibit mods (I’m not certain about that as I’m not a legal expert although the books and movies comparisons look like a stretch) but it goes against their own best interests to do so.
Edit:
It’s true that EA is evil or at least not fully competent, but please note that throughout this discussion I’ve talked about making SimCity more valuable and how EA can profit from that. Modding creates content from which EA could benefit at zero cost to EA.
What this is more akin to is a fan fiction alternative ending. Modders don’t (generally) distribute the entire game code and assets; they distribute files that apply changes to specific areas of the code and assets of normal versions of the game installed elsewhere, allowing others to experience their differentiated view of the possibilities. Out of all the defenses you can make of EA’s position, this is one of the weaker ones.
Much like most of the awful decisions in Diablo 3, all of this stems from their decision to go online-only, and by doing so, they’ve produced a thoroughly broken, forever-imperfect game that has ensured I’ll never so much as touch another Maxis product and means I’m unlikely to buy anything else EA has interacted with unless I get the opportunity to get it for $0.05 via a Humble Bundle deal just so they understand precisely how much their efforts and consumer vision are “worth” to me.
Of course EA decided to impose the modding rules barring gameplay changes. Because of this:
A modder reversed engineered the communications between the server and the client and found that the other regions are frozen in time and not simulated by the servers at all. All the servers does is to send you a fixed number for each region you connected and they don’t change unless you play them again.
So what he did was to create an local server does does exactly that. And voila, simcity now works offline! To get that working, he modded some dll.
The fact that he can do that indicates 2 things. It illustrate the glaring lies about how offline can’t be patched in. And it illustrates the shitty client and server security in communications employed by the devs.
If you want to lie, make sure you hide it damn well!
PS incidentally he also found out that the game client does the simulation and all the server does is to accept the values submitted (it does perform some checks for “realistic” numbers), no simulation of your city is done at anytime by the servers. Which was why the mod can be create at all.
You can google some more about this before EA sues to remove such info from news sites and such. They have already cleaned up their forums. According to the modder, He is banned and all his threads deleted, including all his other mods that did not involve dll hacking.
I think it’s just short sighted and wrong of EA or anyone to think modding reduces the scope for monetizing expansions/DLC/sequels. I’d say quite the reverse. I know this from my own experience. Extra races for GSB are in most cases just data, with zero code changes, and anyone could dd one. Many people did, but it didn’t stop the multiple race expansions selling like hot cakes. People who install mods are generally hardcore enough to buy all the official expansions anyway…
robc04
1925
Even if it is a bad customer relations move and bad for their business long term, it is within EA’s right to block modding. I can understand people getting mad about their crappy product if they spent their money on it, and even getting mad about ruining a well-loved franchise.
I honestly thought everyone had learned ages ago that mods further rather than restrict sales and profits. I guess I was wrong.
Yeah, I just want to chime in and say I disagree with everything jbg said at a fundamental level. I think his view is the same view that leads to consumer-unfriendly practice. His novel example is the most telling. You can’t own an idea. Once it’s out there it is out there. It’s up to the companies to play nice with society because the same laws we grant them to protect their revenue streams from bad actors can also be used to smash honest derivations and discussion. The fact that these laws have led someone like jbg to think that the honest stuff should be shut down just because the laws allow it is exactly why we need to go ahead and pull back some of the rights we have granted these companies. There is far more abuse in this country from the corporate over-protective side than there is from the criminal copying side.
That being said EA does have the right to say no one can mod their game in the way it interacts with their servers, and you have every right to change the local part of the code that runs on your machine. It’s also a bad idea for them to do that. I am still curious why no one has stepped up and released a competing game that outdoes SimCity though. Have I missed a kickstarter?
I honestly thought everyone had learned ages ago that mods further rather than restrict sales and profits. I guess I was wrong.
You both obviously believe strongly that mods enhance games’ profitability, and EA has reached an opposing conclusion. Absent sophisticated market data, I don’t see how you can claim they are wrong, especially since they have a powerful incentive to get it right.
You are defining “idea” far too broadly. While it’s true that ideas are not protectable, expressions of ideas most certainly are. And all of EA’s graphics and code – which any mod would have to use and modify – are expressions of ideas. Similarly, the text of a novel is protectable, even if the idea behind the novel isn’t.
I am still curious why no one has stepped up and released a competing game that outdoes SimCity though. Have I missed a kickstarter?
It’s harder than it looks. :) There was a kickstarted that profited heavily from the Simcity debacle, but as expected it is still vaporware.
When is this going to hit 5$ already?
deanco
1931
Even at 5 bucks, it’s ever so slightly overpriced.
I believe you. But 5$ is impulse buy territory.
KWhit
1933
Seriously, this game is too expensive at $0.00 because it’s not worth the time you spend on it. Find something better and spend your time with that.
Looking back on it, I’d have been better off spending that time learning a new skill like “cutting off my own leg” or “dying horribly of ebola.”
You can have a powerful incentive to get it right, yet still not do what to most would be the obvious thing, for whatever reason, including personal politics, or plain incompetence. I don’t see any evidence of modding damaging profitability, and we have stellar examples where modding has dramatically enhanced consumer value, leading to increased sales. EA could have said “we’re not going to officially support modding, but here are some basic tools and go crazy” but they’ve decided to be giant corporate dicks instead. Well, to be accurate, they’ve decided to remain giant corporate dicks.
It’s too bad people in this thread (like many online) derive such secondary gains from piling on a game they clearly haven’t played (or, at least, since the initial patches improved things dramatically). It’s an aspect of psychology I wish we didn’t have. Hell, even if you did play it, all this vitriol is discouraging.
You can have a powerful incentive to get it right, yet still not do what to most would be the obvious thing, for whatever reason, including personal politics, or plain incompetence. I don’t see any evidence of modding damaging profitability, and we have stellar examples where modding has dramatically enhanced consumer value, leading to increased sales. EA could have said “we’re not going to officially support modding, but here are some basic tools and go crazy” but they’ve decided to be giant corporate dicks instead. Well, to be accurate, they’ve decided to remain giant corporate dicks.
Obviously, you realize that just because you have “seen” evidence of a mod that “dramatically” enhances consumer value and increases sales, that does not mean all mods improve all sales for all games, right? I mean, this is sort of basic, but I just want to be sure.
And again, you are the one throwing around insults (“corporate dicks”), and other people here have made insane comparisons of EA to pure evil – all because they won’t open up a videogame they spent millions of dollars making to modders who – in their estimation – will reduce their profits and adversely affect their business. It’s their creation, and their creation is fully protected by long-established laws that aim to spur innovation and increase incentives. Who is the real dick here?
It appears I’m wrong and you’re the giant dick.
Razgon
1939
I can tell you’ll fit right in here!
I’m sure you have an argument in mind that isn’t an insult, but you have not produced one yet. This is one of the problems with lashing out against “dick corporations” and “the man” – it’s very easy to do (who doesn’t hate rich and successful entities?) but harder to justify. This notion that everything a corporation creates should be available to all to manipulate and redistribute is really legally unsound and fundamentally unfair.
I can tell you’ll fit right in here!
This is also sarcasm in lieu of an argument, unfortunately.
