EA refuses to refund user for SimCity, threatens account ban

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Are you looking forward to when EA goes bankrupt, and their IP's are sold to more capable developers and publishers?
Yes 60%  60%  [ 15 ]
No 16%  16%  [ 4 ]
Probably 24%  24%  [ 6 ]
Total votes : 25

Beauty_pact
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09 May 2013, 5:48 pm

www.gamechup.com/ea-refuses-to-refund-u ... count-ban/

I'm sorry if this has already been posted, as it is from two months back:

Quote:
SimCity is having issues right now and majority of people are unable to play the game.

One user was understandably frustrated with this and tried to ask a refunding citing the official EA press release which said “if you regrettably feel that we left you down, you can of course request a refund for your order.”

The customer service representative acknowledged the press release but then later added “it is also the our discretion to process a refund.”

Not only that he also mentioned that if the user tries to dispute it, his “account will be banned.”

You can check the screen grab of the conversation below. This was posted on the EA forums.

/.../



redrobin62
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09 May 2013, 6:14 pm

And these companies wonder why there are pirate and torrent sites. Sometimes you don't have a choice.



Last edited by redrobin62 on 09 May 2013, 6:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Andras
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09 May 2013, 6:14 pm

Not surprising. It's EA, what did you expect? I've been avoiding their games for a while now. Let's not even start with all the great game series they killed. :(



Anomiel
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09 May 2013, 6:22 pm

I love EA's games a lot (but they don't live up to their full potential) and will always do, but the way they treat their customers and employees is just shameful.



TheBraveSirRobin
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09 May 2013, 11:26 pm

As terrible as EA has been for the last few years, with every game released not living up to what they could've been and microtransactions and incredible amounts of poor-value DLC and the SimCity debacle, there is a VERY SLIGHT chance that they might be improving there business practices a bit as it has been confirmed that the Sims 4 will not have always on-DRM. Chances are, though, they're still going to do everything terrible they've been doing minus always-online DRM. I haven't bought an EA game since Bulletstorm, so I have the good fortune of not being invested in any of their franchises. *shrug*


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Schneekugel
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10 May 2013, 4:26 am

I gotta say, Yes they f****d up the release of Sim City completly. But I found their excuse offer pretty well, so I dont know if there were differences between the countries or continents, but in europe you were offered too choose from a list of free EA Games, and there were really good games on that list. So as long as they still work on Sim City and manage to delete the bugs, I feel myself well refunded for the waiting time.



WorldsEdge
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10 May 2013, 10:47 am

I've not played it, but I've never seen such uniformly negative user reviews for any game, well, ever. The review page on Amazon (link) has be seen to be believed.

And the ratings are mind-blowing. And I mean that in a BAD way...

Customer Reviews
(2,748)
1.5 out of 5 stars
5 star - 156
4 star - 107
3 star - 113
2 star - 187
1 star - 2,185


Three times as many "one star" ratings as anything else? I'd not have thought something like that was even close to being possible. After all, every game seems to be pick up at least a few hardcore fans. Except for this one, apparently.

Given that my laptop is a dinosaur, I'd probably never have bought it anyway. But I took one look at that page a few weeks ago and was kind of awe-struck. EA has made the epic fail of all epic fails here. Its almost like they intentionally set out to alienate the entire PC based gaming community. And have succeeded.

Maybe they'll still have a home in the console world, but I can't help but think that they're done in the mind of PC gamers. For now and forever.

First line of the "most helpful customer review"...

Quote:
Guess what? If you'd love to experience the nonstop thrills and excitement of SimCity, then please remove $60 from your bank and promptly pay someone to kick you repeatedly in the friggin' mouth.


:lol: <<<'Course I also never parted with $60, so I guess I can laugh along. Still, amazing how one of the most storied franchises in gaming history has now completely imploded.


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kouzoku
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10 May 2013, 12:14 pm

I always LOVED Sim City? Is this new one that bad? I looked at some videos on the website and it looked amazing! Are the negative reviews because it requires a powerful system?

What have been your experiences with gameplay? (EA jerks aside)



BlueMax
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10 May 2013, 1:58 pm

I wish developers would realize that not every game has to be multiplayer! The new SimCity barely works at all because, like Blizzard, you now need to be connected to their servers at all times.

Like Blizzard on opening night, their servers couldn't handle it. UNlike Blizzard, they haven't really fixed the problem yet.



kouzoku
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10 May 2013, 2:35 pm

BlueMax wrote:
I wish developers would realize that not every game has to be multiplayer! The new SimCity barely works at all because, like Blizzard, you now need to be connected to their servers at all times.

Like Blizzard on opening night, their servers couldn't handle it. UNlike Blizzard, they haven't really fixed the problem yet.


There's no option to turn this off? Someone like me would never even use the multiplayer feature. I used it on Civ V like twice with my ex.

Are they forcing us to stay connected to get info from us? That seems likely.



BlueMax
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10 May 2013, 2:57 pm

kouzoku wrote:
BlueMax wrote:
I wish developers would realize that not every game has to be multiplayer! The new SimCity barely works at all because, like Blizzard, you now need to be connected to their servers at all times.

Like Blizzard on opening night, their servers couldn't handle it. UNlike Blizzard, they haven't really fixed the problem yet.


There's no option to turn this off? Someone like me would never even use the multiplayer feature. I used it on Civ V like twice with my ex.

Are they forcing us to stay connected to get info from us? That seems likely.


Just like Starcraft2 and Diablo3 -- even if you're only doing the solo stuff, you need to be online. Am I right about SimCity being like that too? It's been a month since I read the complaints...

I want a copy of old Sim4!



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10 May 2013, 3:08 pm

BlueMax wrote:
kouzoku wrote:
BlueMax wrote:
I wish developers would realize that not every game has to be multiplayer! The new SimCity barely works at all because, like Blizzard, you now need to be connected to their servers at all times.

Like Blizzard on opening night, their servers couldn't handle it. UNlike Blizzard, they haven't really fixed the problem yet.


There's no option to turn this off? Someone like me would never even use the multiplayer feature. I used it on Civ V like twice with my ex.

Are they forcing us to stay connected to get info from us? That seems likely.


Just like Starcraft2 and Diablo3 -- even if you're only doing the solo stuff, you need to be online. Am I right about SimCity being like that too? It's been a month since I read the complaints...

I want a copy of old Sim4!


:(



hanyo
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10 May 2013, 5:26 pm

I would never want any game that forces me to be online to play it (with the exception mmorpgs). To me games like Simcity and The Sims are single player games. If I have to be connected to play them I don't want them. I also hate digital downloads. I want an actual physical copy of the game that I can keep forever.



TheBraveSirRobin
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10 May 2013, 8:55 pm

I think I have something I can add that's actually mostly relevant:

The new SimCity doesn't just have broken servers, it's also has broken design and broken programming. So in other words, it's a terrible game, even after you've managed to log in, and of all the awful terrible games I've seen in my life this is the only one so far I would dare say should not be bought under any circumstances beside a complete overhaul of the game in some future update. If you don't believe me just type in "SimCity broken" into Google.



Andras
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11 May 2013, 9:57 am

[img][800:720]http://i.imgur.com/RHSJ6.png[/img]

:cry:



Beauty_pact
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11 May 2013, 1:08 pm

I'd like to add to that victims of EA image that you posted, where it says that developers under EA will end up producing mediocre games, that the new Syndicate, which was released last year, made by the Swedish development studio Starbreeze, under the watch of EA, became the way it did because EA kept stepping in to ruin the ideas that the Starbreeze developers had. This has actually been told by developers from Starbreeze. I do hope that people realize that the new Syndicate did not become the way it should have, not because of Starbreeze, but because EA kept watching over the development progress. However, at least Starbreeze did not end up bought out by EA - which is why we now are seeing the deeply ambitious game 'Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons', from them, which really looks awesome. I just wish they would release it for the Wii U, as well.... maybe they will at least port it, when the sales of the Wii U start to increase.

Talking about the Wii U, by the way.... some may have noticed that EA are not releasing any games for it - in fact, most points to that it is their intention that the new Need for Speed game, for it, will be their last Wii U game. Well, the reason behind this is because EA is trying to retaliate against Nintendo, because Nintendo refused EA's offer to make Origin a part of the Wii U's networking system (thank god they didn't, or Nintendo would've ended up on my list of companies to avoid, as well). Here is one link about it:

www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/xnt5r/w ... dbreaking/

DICE also are sucking up to their worthless employer and making up lies about that the Frostbyte 3 engine won't run on the Wii U (despite that it even runs on PS3 and Xbox 360):

http://mynintendonews.com/2013/05/07/di ... ort-wii-u/

In reality, they said they did not even try to make it work. Frostbyte 3 must be a pretty worthless engine, if that would be true, though, considering that the more advanced CryEngine 3 runs "beautifully" on the Wii U, as per the word of Crytek's CEO - the upcoming 'spiritual successor' of Eternal Darkness, 'Shadow of the Eternals', uses it, for example... as did a finished Wii U version of Crysis 3, until EA stepped in and scrapped the project:

http://wiiudaily.com/2013/03/finished-v ... -on-wii-u/

I do hope EA goes bankrupt, soon. But from the way their shares are going, I suspect they will. They will likely become just 'EA Sports', though, before they die off completely. Simply can't wait for that day.... they have ruined so much in the videogaming industry, treat their employees like garbage, treat their customers like crap and steal from those that work with them.