As if it wasn't enough that SimCity 5 has had one of the most horrendous debuts of any anticipated game, now it appears they have been lying about the game's capabilities.
Ever since SimCity 5 was announced, much noise has been made over the online requirement for playing the game. Devoted users cried foul, stating that this was only done to prevent piracy of the game and had nothing to do with maintaining its purity and playability.
SimCity 5 developer Electronic Arts (EA) has always maintained that the game was designed this way in order to promote the social aspects that go along with online experience. So far they've been definitive in their assertion that the game can't work without server connection because of the "significant amount of calculations" required. Well, a skeptical modder has them eating their own words.
The modder's name is UKAzzer, and he just made a bad situation much worse for Electronic Arts and the Sim City franchise. UKAzzer was able to enter the debug mode normally reserved for developers of the game. By entering that mode on the consumer version he was able to gain access to all aspects of the game while not having to connect to the network to play it.
That's right, Electronic Arts hasn't just created an unfortunate version of a classic game, they've been lying right to customer's faces. It's one thing to create a game that tries to ensure nobody pirates it for free, that's fine. But creating intricate lies to save face and make it seem like you're on the side of the gamers? That's bound to go over poorly in the future.
The only catch with this modder's solution is that players must save the game online or else they will lose all their progress. Unfortunately for EA, that does little to help them save face and they still must account for why they felt it was necessary to lie to players. They have yet to give a formal statement since the fix was first found a few days ago, but when they do, it goes without saying that their already disgruntled customer base isn't going to be very forgiving.
