SimCity 5: “Error 37” Strikes Again

Written by: Summer Walker (@Summer_Sal) | March 6, 2013 5:14 pm

32 Comments

Download Problems and Server Queues Plague SimCity 5 Launch

Tuesday was a tough day for fans of SimCity 5. The much anticipated Sim game suffered delays in downloads and playability—largely due to the controversial always-online component of the game.

At 12:01am SimCity 5 was supposed to unlock to be able to download. A quick download would enable the launcher, which would in turn download the rest of the game. The final download should have taken a while, but not too long. Then everyone should habe been able to start building epic cities.

Trouble started right at launch. Those trying to get into SimCity 5 experienced download failures that prevented them from even passing the first step. Once they got over that obstacle, it would take hours and hours before the launcher finished and you were able to play. This was all due to server congestion.

Something that had nothing to do with server congestion was that Origin never unlocked for a ton of people who pre-ordered the game. Let me say that again: If you paid for SimCity 5 in advance, there’s a good chance that you weren’t able to play it on launch day. Those who really wanted to play it could re-buy it and the launcher would start just fine, but that seems a bit severe. Everyone’s favorite Diablo 3 YouTuber, Francis (warning, language), had this to say:

“Not only can I not log in…but I can’t even download the (#%*) thing. Haven’t you ever heard of (#%*) preloading like everybody else in the entire (#%*) industry does?”

Speaking of Diablo 3, once the launcher finished downloading (if it ever did), potential users were greeted with ~~an error 37~~ a message letting them know they had to wait to play. “SimCity sever busy” boxes told everyone that they were in a queue, and that “the play button will become active once space is available.” The thing is, it wasn’t really a queue. There was a 20-minute timer (some people had 30 minute-timers) that would allow the user to try to get in again… kind of like a queue to get in a queue. MMO players used to queues for getting onto busy severs waited the 20 minutes to push the button again and were greeted with… another 20 minutes. Even if you could get onto a server, chances are the client would crash–deleting your sim build entirely.

Tuesday’s SimCity 5 mess has confused reviewers about what to say. Should they take the launch into account when scoring the new game? Most reviewers seemed to like the game when played under controlled circumstances. However, always-online gameplay doesn’t offer many controlled circumstances.

Penny Arcade compared the situation to being a movie reviewer in a theater that has just burned down so nobody who bought tickets could actually see the show:

“The film hasn’t changed, has it? Do the critics need to go back and change their review of the movie?”

That’s a pretty good point. Early reviews of SimCity 5 were positive. People liked the game and the public was excited to play it—so excited that they naturally wanted to play it right when in came out.

A potential reviewer at Joystiq made a different comparison while waiting for his game:

“Comparing this to the restaurant industry, the game is the food and the internet-required connection is the table service…What we’ve seen following the launches of Diablo 3 and SimCity are people paying money to walk into the restaurant on opening day and not being served a meal. In a restaurant there would be immediate and dire consequences for such poor customer service. In the video game industry, there’s no shortage of apologists justifying the outcome.” Alexander Sliwinski

The heart of the issue is that SimCity 5 has forced users kicking and screaming into the always-online world. We are used to it being a single-player game, but they are now marketing it as some kind of MMO. People said the same thing about Diablo 3 because we were used to it being a single-player dungeon crawler. D3 turned out to be pretty fun to play with friends, but if you didn’t have kick-ass internet service, the game was unplayable… and still is.

It’s no argument that the tides are turning us to always-online gaming. There will be a time when all of us are always online anyway. Internet will be flowing through our streets like the air we breath and this conversation will be moot. Games like SimCity 5 and Diablo 3 might be pioneers in the industry, but until all the homes in the world have the magically fast interwebs and every game company decides to have enough servers to handle the load, it’s just gonna piss us all off.

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Leonid Feldman

I played the beta and really liked it so I was on the fence about buying it.
After seeing the shit storm going on, i will just wait till there is a hacked offline version of it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz

I wont spend a single cent on an “always online” DRM game. D3 was the perfect lesson for me. If they wanted to add a multiplayer feature, that was fine but it shouldn’t have been this way. I don’t always want to be tied to the internet to play my games. Sometimes I’m in school waiting for my next class, or at a friend’s house, or on a trip. So long as they continue with this trend, I shall continue with mine… I used to run out to Gamestop to purchase any and all games that I loved, never had an issue buying a game even when struggling financially, but I wont support this and anyone that complains about this type of DRM but purchases the game, deserves the stress and headaches that follow. I don’t care if my PC is always online, it isn’t online for the purpose of companies to make sure I’m playing properly. I don’t pay my internet for the purpose of playing my single player games, I pay it for school work, MMOs and other streaming media. Single player games are just that, single player. They themselves have forced customers to seek out pirated versions of their games. The developer of Sins of a Solar Empire out sold almost all of the competition and the FIRST statement he made was “I just wanted to prove that if you make a good game, people will pay for it.” Customers aren’t as shady or as ignorant as large companies claim we are. I never once looked at pirated games before this became an issue. Not saying I download pirated games or don’t, but let’s just say that this hasn’t helped them in the slightest with avoiding having their games pirated. Settlers 7 was pirated to play offline within a few days of release. Pretty soon, they’ll claim all their games are MMOs just to have an excuse to require online connection to their servers, and as that happens I shall bid specific companies farewell. I hate that I look at my twitter feed and see specific individuals with a lot of leverage complaining about the always online DRM, yet they still go out and purchase these products and even tell others to purchase them. One specific individual that was on fire yesterday, I’m sure most know who. I have a lot of respect for people on this particular site, but it’s stuff like that that I just can’t comprehend. Is the urge to enjoy the game sooo much that you’d support a company openly screwing you over? You can’t just hold out and ignore titles that are developed this way for the sake of the greater good? To try and make a real impact on the industry with the type of reach you have because you’re popular?
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian-Smith/100000531128393 Ian Smith
  
  Wall of text crits me for over 9000!
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
    
    Hahahahah… I lost it for a few minutes. Raged…
- Deathstar2x
  
  I’m disappointed with people that give into the temptation of playing the game instead of voicing their concerns. In fact, they have two choices, speak with their wallets or get used to the draconian DRM in their (single player) games going forward.
  
  Salutes to you for standing on principles.
http://www.facebook.com/kevin.cox.5817 Kevin Cox

no company with an “always on” online service is ever going to be ready for the crazy amount of stress that comes on launch day.

Unless they overestimate their user base.

Like smart people.

But they won’t.

Because doing that costs money you’ll potentially waste.

Like dumb people.

Solution?

Don’t have it always be on. DERP
http://www.facebook.com/kevin.hawes.7 Kevin Hawes

I think your last paragraph summed everything up quite nicely lol
- http://twitter.com/Summer_Sal They Call Me Sal
  
  Haha, thanks
http://twitter.com/Hyprtitn HyperTitan

I really haven’t been so disappointed over this whole DRM crap. Granted I didn’t play D3 until a few weeks after launch. This SimCity mess just frustrates me. Buying a game for $60 dollars and not being able to even start the damn game up is unacceptable. Offline single player option.

And this has taken a lot for me to write because I try to give companies the benefit of the doubt with situations like these. But unfortunately if this persists I think I’m just going to get a refund
http://twitter.com/cipero Matt Cipriano

I just don’t understand why a developer like Maxis would even do this. I am a fan of the series and when I can play the game, it is superb. But the whole online thing blows big time. True..it should have an online MODE..that would be tight for people who want to play online. But all the time..even for private, solo games is just ridiculous.

Also gone are the days when games had a release date, you stood in line, got the game..went home and played til your hearts content. Now there is a release date..and then there’s a hopefully I’ll get to play today date.

What happened to buying a game to play when you want to play? It seems more and more common that we are chained to whenever they allow us to play even tho we are still shelling out full price for the games.
- http://twitter.com/Summer_Sal They Call Me Sal
  
  Agreed. We don’t own the games anymore.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Gerrettie-Jr/1287578323 Bill Gerrettie Jr

EA strikes again! When are people gonna learn to stay far away from anything they produce?
http://twitter.com/Deadalon Deadalon

I desided to wait buying the game. Looks like I made the right call.
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Grimm/1290540679 David Grimm

So EA forced the game to be online only. Pirates will soon release a version that is offline only. Which is what we want. For free. EASIEST DECISION EVER MADE.
- http://www.facebook.com/inkogni.alex Inkogni Alex
  
  if its online you get many great things you can do with friends or just random people you get in the game. but the games need an offline mode for those that either hate people or don’t have friends playing SimCity.
  - http://www.facebook.com/trevor.kidd.75 Trevor Kidd
    
    SimCity is not historically a multiplayer game. It’s purely single player and the extensive fan base the IP has generated over the years, knows it and loves at as a single player game. The mutliplayer aspects add very little to the experience, but at a very high cost to both innovation and freedom. I predict that users will tire quickly of this title, because it doesn’t deliver what they wanted from the game — a game they can get lost in for hours and days. Kind of hard to get lost if you’re never bloody alone.
    
    If Maxis was still calling their own creative shots, they would have recognized this and built a game that catered to their huge, built-in fan base. Instead, they are puppets for EA and built what is essentially a live, always-on, advertising pipeline, directly from their overlords to the desktops of gamers.
    
    If gamers are smart, they’ll spurn this marketing tool disguised as a game, to make it less likely to ever see it again. Too bad we don’t seem to be very smart. Even worse is that EA seems to know it.
    - http://www.facebook.com/inkogni.alex Inkogni Alex
      
      agree that EA is the scum of earth and that the SimCity might have better sales if EA wasn’t involved.
      Next we know they will put out a DLC that lets you play offline
      ( for 20$ )
      why does EA kill games
- http://twitter.com/Thaguf Thaguf
  
  It will be a long time before a viable pirate version is available anywhere since they have to make a server emulator. Which is a lot of work so don’t expect it anytime soon.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_P4HMCB2HFGNQRRKG5SO33L5LCQ Age Of Majority

Nobody to blame but ourselves. Everyone bought diablo anyway even myself. And everyone bought sim city anyway. I didn’t buy sim city and i won’t because of always online. You’ll see it again because they know they can get away with it. If consumers would take a stand against this we could affect the way games are developed. No one will do that though. They’ll just keep buying it, buying it and then b*tching about it.

You don’t really own sim city, or diablo, or any other game that requires you to use something that you have no control over to play it. If their servers are down, you can’t play your game. If your internet goes out, you can’t play your game. Imagine if this were the case with almost anything else we use in our daily lives? If you buy something, it becomes your property, and no one else should be able to dictate how and when you use that property. If a third party can dictate when you play that game, you don’t own it. It’s baffling to me that this new component to games has made it this far. The problem is that i don’t think it is going to stop at just games. This always online feature has implications that are far greater and in my opinion far more dangerous for the future of not only video games, but all digital media. It’s sad to see that most people just don’t care.
- http://twitter.com/Hagg3r Michael
  
  Or we can blame the developer. It is not the consumer’s fault the publishers and/or developers are not setting the game up as to expect a large amount of people at launch. This is not an acceptable business practice. You would would not accept it for any other service and you should not accept it here. If you are saying you are cool with launches being terrible, and that they are “always this way”; that we should “expect it” then you are basically telling developers that it is perfectly fine for their service to be this way.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_P4HMCB2HFGNQRRKG5SO33L5LCQ Age Of Majority
    
    I don’t know if you read my post or not. The essence of what i said is that consumers set themselves up for this. They buy these always online games knowing what it means and not caring.
    
    What you are experiencing is exactly what i’m talking about. You can’t play your game because of always online requirements. I’d bet you’ll buy the next big always online game to come out anyway though won’t you? Go back and read the last paragraph in my post. You have no one to blame but yourself because you’ll just keep buying it. Almost all online games have these problems. How you expect to buy one and not experience any of them is beyond me. Especially after the Diablo debacle. Don’t worry though. Thanks to your dollars you’ll have plenty more chances to lament the problems that arise from games like these.
http://www.facebook.com/inkogni.alex Inkogni Alex

I FRIGIN KNEW IT, ask Justin Lowe if you don’t believe me
http://twitter.com/JanKlaassen14 Jan Klaassen

i understand everyone’s frustration about this bad launch and all, but launches will always be like this with online games (i.e. diablo 3 and maybe Guild Wars 2). there’s no point in adding more server capacity after one day or so, because like 3 or 4 days after launch people will start to play significantly less and the extra servers will be very much useless/a waste of money. players should have expected problems like this, like i did. and about the ‘always online’ thing, i guess 90% knew this was coming when they bought the game, so imo they don’t have the right to complain about it.

maxis/EA/origin should, however, have been more active in telling us what we’re up to through social media to temper those complainers.

so these first days all everyone will talk about is the bad launch, forgetting what the game itself is about. after those days, when people have calmed down and will be able to play the game without technical issues, everyone will start telling how awesome the game is (or how bad it is, like diablo 3), and act like the launch has never happened.
- Justin Bania
  
  The point is that launches are going to be heavy and companies should know this. They should be prepared by having the infrastructure to handle it. If it is a matter of time then they should have started sooner on getting servers up and running. It it is a matter of money then they should have invested in more hardware long before launch.
  
  They launched with one (!) server for each region. One. They have access to the pre-order numbers. They KNOW that won’t be enough. They supposedly staggered the launches to help control the push on their systems but thought 1 server for each region would be ok? No, that was just poor planning or no planning at all. That isn’t a failure on the customers part, it is a failure on the publishers part.
  - http://twitter.com/Hagg3r Michael
    
    Exactly. They should have extra servers ready to go that dynamically come up as more are needed. Who cares if they have extra servers at first? MMOs can solve this by having single server tech where you are in the same “world” but if more servers are needed they can be added without the dreaded “server merge” later on.
- Jason Williams
  
  sim city has historically been a SINGLE player game, and still has a single player mode, there is no reason to force always online, how would you feel if you couldn’t play your full price AAA solitaire game because of server/internet issues?
  
  there are many games I enjoy playing by myself and every once in a while popping into online mode(terraria for example), but mostly I like to explore and build at my own pace so I play alone.
- http://twitter.com/Hagg3r Michael
  
  Not sure where you have been, but GW2 had a very smooth launch. Infact, most MMOs lately have had great launches ironically enough. The games that have gravitated towards this “online only” DRM based environment are the ones that have had the biggest problems.
Ravenstorm

EA, Eternal Atavism, Everlasting Agony, Extended Asphyxiation, Exorbitant Aggravations, Effervescent Annihilation, Embargo Asinine… Excommunicate Auxillium?

Nuf said.
http://www.facebook.com/inkogni.alex Inkogni Alex

feel like i this might be the game i can fire my RAGE CANNON, kept firing it at D3 since its release. still mad at D3 for many reasons
http://www.facebook.com/tera.bea Tera Bea

I get online play and I am for it, but if EA is truly looking out for their customer wouldn’t it make sense to allow the game to be played offline until a server becomes available. If you ask me this is just wanting control, EA has your money and now they control how you play, when you play and if you play. Seems like they are going into the world of communism. I am a tech guy and even I can figure out how to address server load issues!!! EA has many people and I am just one!! This is not rocket science I WANT A FULL REFUND!!
http://twitter.com/Summer_Sal They Call Me Sal

470.00 was Sims, not SimCity… but I do see your point. What they end up doing could cost less than that… or substantially more.
http://twitter.com/Hagg3r Michael

Honestly you can’t even compare this to error 37. Diablo was working fine within a few hours of the game launching. This game, well, it is still broken. They even had to rip out features from the game to get it to work better.

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