SimCity Societies Experience

I recently acquired a copy of the newest game in the SimCity franchise, SimCity Societies. I loaded it with no problems and started playing. It’s a great concept but very different from the previous SimCity games. There were problems with the game crashing at random though.

After doing a lot of research on the issue, I discovered that there is a memory leak in the game. There are also numerous other bugs that cause the game to crash. I figured that EA would release a patch to fix these problems but, as of right now, fans are still waiting. No big deal. The game was still playable even with the crashes.

Like with other SimCity games, the larger your city becomes, the slower the game runs. My computer exceeded the minimum requirements but I found something that said that the minimum requirements were much higher for computers running Windows Vista. Holly has been begging me to take Vista off of the computer for months. (I’m not sure why; it runs great.) Seeing that the requirements for a XP machine were lower, I consented and reloaded a copy of Windows XP.

I regret this decision. First off, I liked Vista. It’s a good operating system for what I use it for. I don’t have any weird hardware compatibility issues and only occasionally run into software compatibility issues. Also, SimCity Societies is now totally unplayable. Every time that I build a power plant then try to add additional buildings, the game crashes. Without a power plant, you can’t have a city. It’s horrible!

Needless to say, I’ve been scouring the SimCity message boards hoping for that patch that I thought I could wait for. It would appear as though EA Games and Tilted Mill have completely killed the SimCity franchise. There is not even an acknowledgment of any problems. They just keep blaming it on people’s computers not meeting the requirements.

Since starting work as a beta test coordinator, I’ve learned a little bit about the software release process. As I look at the SimCity Societies debacle, I get a strong feeling that this release was motivated by an attempt to get the game on shelves before the holidays. I can understand that but it’s bad business to release a turd and try to pass it off as a diamond. I seriously question if there was even a beta test performed which, in my mind, is totally unacceptable. A game that crashes on install or within the first five minutes should be sent back to the developers to get fixed, not released to the public at $50 a pop.

If you’re a fan of the series and can’t wait to get this game, you might want to hold off for six months or so. I’ve completely removed the game from my system and probably won’t load it back on until things get fixed. It’s not worth the $50 you’ll spend, and with the amount of bugs in the code and the lack of response from the developers, it may never be.