I own The Sims 4 and almost every DLC for it, which means that through the EA Store I have spent HUNDREDS of dollars. This game is stored locally on my computer. I have never installed it on another device. However, whenever I find myself without internet access (on a plane, or staying in a hotel with limited wifi usage) the game takes the most inopportune moments to tell me that I need to log onto the EA service to verify my game and account. WHY? I only want to play a local game that has existed there since I last shelled out for an expansion.
I'm currently on a four month work trip. The night before I left I opened the Sims, ran any updates that I might have needed, made sure the game ran properly, but the following day when I pulled out my laptop on the airplane the EA app told me that I needed to verify my account, and that without any internet access that my >$500 game is completely unplayable. When I got to the hotel (with limited daily wifi access) I spent a long time getting the game playable again. My job got busy, so I didn't play for a while. This morning I opened the EA app to launch the game again, and it turns out I'm locked out again and must input all my credentials and use a good deal of bandwidth just to launch the game that we've established I ALREADY OWN. HOW IS THIS ACCEPTABLE? Why does this need to be constantly verified? Do you not have a record of how much money I have thrown at you? If this is a measure to reduce piracy you have failed miserably and only penalized those who have honestly purchased the game.
This is a huge problem and MANY TIMES has affected the gameplay experience for me.
So I open the EA app today (after jumping through all the hoops and verifying my game YESTERDAY) and the app refuses to launch because I have no wifi again. WHY? I DON'T NEED THE INTERNET TO LAUNCH A GAME THAT I OWN AND IS STORED LOCALLY ON MY DEVICE. You seem to have done a damn fine job of hiding the .exe file so I can't just bypass your dumb app, WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS?
