@AgentMothman95 2:50 onwards, the part where those white orbs are knocking things over is gameplay and it is like an FPS, only you shoot ghostly energy orbs.

EA are way smarter than most people give them credit for. They're not interested in core gamers who buy a game and don't spend another dime on it. They want folks who dollar by dollar end up paying twice or thrice the price of a retail game. the sort of folks who are not even aware of problems with SimCity even though they're playing it, sort of folks who have no idea what DRM means.

@Scynt EXACTLY! But then, little bit of common sense never stood a chance against flamewars.

@Alexk91 @SuperDutchy Alexk91, you must be new to internet. Everything has to end up as a flamewar.

Is there anyone who actually believes all the stuff being said by EA/Maxis? If yes, please PM me, I got really sweet deals on Pyramids, Taj Mahal and Great Wall. For as little as $1000 you can own [well, actually lease] them for a year.

@waffleyone @Malicx I think the concern here is, with music you have the license to USE as long as disc is there. With always online or "software as service" model, you lose the freedom/right to "USE" to the publishers. Like how you can always buy and then sell your car, but you can't use your car to make copies of it and then sell it under that brand name.

@gralvader About 10 years from now "Renting the license" will be the norm. Publishers [games and software alike] realize that they retain better control that way. Why do you think Outlook went for cloud model? Folks are lapping up services like DropBox etc. 10-20 years from now people will not know what it feels like to actually own a software product anymore coz all software will be service.

@Occams-Razor Nice analogy, but wrongly being made. Think of it as an early adopter buying a flying car that doesn't fly and keeps crashing. Sure, couple folks crash horribly, but there are others who've bought it but since flying car doesn't have a "Drive on Road" option, it is just sitting in their garage. The point here is, early on when tech is not perfect, having support for offline play [drive on road] becomes more important. It is not that folks should not try to push technology, but should be aware of limitations and be prepared for failures.

I bet even R* wishes they could get away with annual releases the way CoD does. I mean, who won't want to earn more money?

@MinerAvatar Exactly. I mean, sure, GTAV will break GTAIV's records when it comes out and even beat MW4. But, CoD beats GTAIV's records every year. Each CoD beats previous entry's record every year. Only argument against annual release is franchise fatigue and thanks to all the "fanboys" there is no sign of CoD fatigue. So why should Activision stop pumping them out?