The players of SimCity BuiltIt are seriously owed an apology
I will state up front that I am indeed grateful that new features are added to the game fairly often...
The problem is the features that have been added to the game as of late have been absolutely terrible, and the features that have been added have had extremely negative reception. The game did not need three new shops, and the game did not need the lousy mass transit feature. Players responded negatively, and many even stopped paying for things within the game.. but none-the-less, the decision makers pushed forward and kept these unwanted terrible things within the game.
The original premise of the original SimCity games, which are far superior to this rip off pay to play game that is called SimCity BuildIt was to... build your own city!
But the problem that is arising in the game is that there isn't any actual building occuring, at least not to the level that justifies the game name of "build it". The game requires so much time now to produce the junk that is needed to upgrade residences or do the various exports / airport shipments / cargo deliveries or complete CoM assignments. I am so protective of the items I produce that I absolutely refuse to sell items on global or to even my own club mates. I once was willing to share with clubmates and sold items at cheap prices, but now the sale prices of items from the shops is absolute garbage when compared to the time and resources needed to produce the materials. None of it is worth it. My former club has all but dissolved itself, and I am in a new "club" created by one of my former club mates, but the club is really a place for us to park our cities (including feeders) and just chat. We don't do war, and the club challenge is not even a priority. Neither is war.
I've stopped purchasing things ingame (no season pass, no Vu pass, none of the offers, etc), and I've stopped watching ads. I am thankful that I'm saving money, but I want an apology from the decision makers / powers that be for ruining the experience of a game that was for a while my best way to relieve stress and distract myself from the world we live in. But that is gone now, I still enjoy my city but opening the app is practically useless at this point as it seems to be too much effort to complete a CoM assignment.
It is very clear the intent is to drive up revenue in the games, no matter the cost in terms of player loss. I acknowledge that EA does not give a toss one way or the other on how I feel about its games, I can either play their offerings or go play game somewhere else. That is not a good model for a game that has been in existence now for half a decade or more, the bread and butter of the game I would imagine is the loyalty of long term players. Those long term players are moving on to other things.
If players are really valued, they should get an apology for the extremely terrible experience they have been given as of late. If growing the game and improving the experience is really a priority, then I think the decision makers should actually engage wth the players and find out what things would keep them engaged with the game and playing. I do not see any engagement with players, I am told by the terrible EA help desk that the developers of the game monitor these forums to see what players are saying should be added to the game. I do not think this is true in the slightest, there have been many wonderful suggestions - some easy, some not so easy. I know I've requested more space in the game to actually build (more space as in... give me more area to use land expansion deeds / items to unlock), but instead I was given three new lousy necessary shops and a lousy mass transit system that actually eats up space. Thanks... thanks for nothing.
I don't feel appreciated in the slightest by EA.
