What the heck?

"Seera1024;c-17001571" wrote:

"Writin_Reg;c-17000976" wrote:

"Seera1024;c-17000943" wrote:

"Writin_Reg;c-17000896" wrote:

"Seera1024;c-17000542" wrote:

"Writin_Reg;c-17000512" wrote:

"Triplis;c-17000476" wrote:

"Writin_Reg;c-16997576" wrote:
They had to do it - with the way this game is dependent on Video card updates and the video card companies like Nvidia - etc that stopped support of 32 bit computer last year - never mind Apple stopping support of 32 bit computers - you could no longer get security updates nor Video game updates - so EA, like many of the other studios had no choice but also drop 32 bit support seeing the machines could no longer be updated or made secure. They are technically viruses ready to happen and no decent company could or should support that. When machines become a hazard because they cannot have updates then they need to get the machines to stop using the game.

I would never suggest anyone who can no longer get proper updates to run that computer - not ever.

If a game needs updated video cards like this one does on a regular bases - and can't get them - then that computer has done it's time and needs to be retired.

EA is even making a Legacy system for the people who just can't afford an update - to keep them having the abilty to play the games they paid for - for FREE. Say what you will about EA and greed but if you ask me that is a very nice and ungreedy thing to do of EA, when they do not have too. I have a trunk full of games from over many years of gaming that are no longer playable unless one has older pcs and not one of the companies I have these games from ever gave me a legacy system to use so I could play the old games on my always newer pcs (I frequently rebuild my pcs every 3 years so I never have an old system) - I am just flat out of luck if I want to play any of my old games.

EA is also the only company that gave me a new complete download of my Sims 2 after Windows made it impossible for me to play that game any longer. When window 10 came out - they scurried to give us an update on that free version of Sims 2 - as well as an update for Sims 3 and Sims 3 CAW - again something they did not have to do, but they did. A few years ago they also made it possible for me to play my old Scrabble game that would not even play on Windows 7 as EA owns Hasbro which owned my scrabble game. Not once did EA have to do these things - never mind for free - and very few companies I know of has ever done this - other wise I would not have a trunk full of unplayable games today - now would I?

Perhaps many of you misjudge EA more times than you notice and ignore the times they prove they are not as greedy as you think. Not support 32 bit - as it has no support from it's OS and many video cards is actually a kindness - giving you a Legacy system for free is even kinder - and something no publisher has to do, and I guarantee you many do not even try. I have a trunk of games that prove that.

Most likely they are making the Legacy version available because the alternative would be having nothing available for those people whose PCs are no longer good enough, which might open them up to iffy issues, along the lines of "I bought this game and now no longer have access to it, despite owning it." (With a physical disk, even if it stops working on a new machine, you still own the disk. This virtual 'live service' stuff doesn't have quite the same setup.) It also may just be one of those things where they are trying not to lose long-time fans of the series; they probably have some numbers on how many people are going to be affected by this.

That said, yes, my impression as well is that this is about the overall operations of the tech world and the messiness of trying to support 32-bit with updates while others are not. On a marketing/business level, they probably don't like doing this at all. I don't see how opening up a bit more performance, maybe, for a portion of the fanbase is a motivating business goal if it's going to cut out existing customers in the process.

I don't see any reason to believe this move is greedy or generous in any way. It just seems like a pragmatic, boxed-into-a-corner thing.

I have plenty of games that I could no longer play because companies (or microsoft) update their systems - and never gave us a way to use the older games - in fact even updating our own systems did not make these games playable because the companies did not update the game itself. You were just flat out of luck.

I don't have an issue with companies updating - it is always a benefit for the games they produce. My issues are with companies who update and don't even try to help players be able to play the games. All of them need to make Legacy systems to play their games - but most never do.

I will say EA has offered ways to play many of their outdated games though over the years - some of which were even made by other companies that EA took over long after these games were out there, and EA was able to give me a game update to make that game work. I have not had the same help from many of the other big game companies though. So having faced this experience many times - I do think they are being a lot more generous than many other game companies. Not all mind you - I have had good luck with a few companies - like the one who first took over Sierra games they were good at making the games work - then Activision/Blizzard took them over and they wouldn't help at all. So they ended up in my trunk of hundreds of unplayable games - which proves a lot of companies don't make it possible to even play the games you paid for.

If the reason for the game not being playable is the technology and software has advanced too much and the game is not being actively worked on, is over 5 years old, and the game has not been actively worked on in over 2 years then companies should not be obligated to ensure that modern computers can play it. Those games are not making enough money to warrant that to be something that they should have to do. It's not realistic as any number of reasons can be what's causing the problem.

Any support for old games is something I feel that is purely optional for companies. The people who worked on those games and know the code either no longer work there are are focused on the games that actively being supported or are in the pipeline to be released. And those games should be the priority of the company and they should not have to forever support all games they've ever released because that's just too much work for too little return.

I agree - like 32 bit holding back the Sims 4 with so few users. It's pretty much the same thing.

But you said that companies should make sure all of their games are still playable even if things change to make the game not playable.

You can't agree with me and hold that position.

Like the company that first took over Sierra games was not obligated in my mind to make sure those games worked on modern systems in any way. That they did was great, but I would not have held it against them if they chose not to. And I don't hold it against Activision/Blizzard for choosing to not do the same thing with those Sierra games.

What I took from your post is that you feel that all companies should be like the first company that took over Sierra games and do that. But that's not realistic. At some point technology and software just progresses too much and the income that would be generated from fixing it doesn't cover the costs of getting the game to work.

Okay the Sierra games was a series of 7 games for one that were not cheap and all they needed to do was provide an update or code key or both - which is not a Legacy system but a single line of code to feed into my computer. It was not a big expense. Some office person took a minute to do it the first time. Usually most updates are just a line of code or not much more than that - easily obtained from the company. They do not even have to reveal it - they can encrypt it but no one but the company who owns those material has that information. They include the information when the companies exchange hands. It should be in the paperwork - most likely in their computer under that companies information. A simple search feature at most - there is no work involved. I know the first company did that - it took a two minute phone call and me giving them my name, address, and phone number.

No, not all companies - the big ones should though. Especially series games we spend a lot of money on. I do not hold Indie studios and small studios to the same rules as that would take some body away from their work - most don't have people to do that kind of thing - office people etc. But the mammouth companies I think they should in cases where it would be that simple.

I can agree in retrospect - it depends on the games and the companies. If I spend 10- 20 bucks for a game - well of course not - who would even bother. But when I spend a couple hundred dollars or more - you can bet I want a way to use those games.

I can tell you've never coded. Just because all it takes is one line to fix it it takes time to find what's causing the problem, time to find the solution, and time to QA the solution to make sure it doesn't break anything else. It also takes work to discover that all it takes is a single line of code. That's a lot of time for a game that's no longer bringing in money itself, especially if none of the team that worked on that game is still around. Time that could be spent on their currently active games fixing the bugs in those games. The only way they make money is from the good PR that it brings up that causes people to buy their currently active games. And with few exceptions most games just aren't played by people for as long as it takes the game to no longer run on newer computers. So most of the time, the work they would put into making the game playable would be in vain. No one would notice. Or not enough people for it to make up the money that it took to fix it.

Big companies have the same problem you give a reason for the small and indie companies to not do it: it takes people away from their work. Big companies tend to have a lot of games they are actively working on. All of their employees that deal with coding the game are working on one of those games. And those bigger companies are held to a higher standard when it comes to their active games working properly. So can they really afford to have a portion of their staff just dealing with making sure some random game that so few people actually need the fix (most players have moved on, many likely still have access to a computer that can play it)?

If the next time I have to update my computer and I'm not able to get stuff that still works with Windows 7 and Windows 10 has had an upgrade that makes me unable to play Sims 2, I won't be demanding that EA fix it to work on Windows 10 again. And I bought every EP and SP for Sims 2. It's just not realistic to expect EA to do so. Would I love if they did? Yes. But they are not required to do so and no one should be demanding that they do.

Now I have no problem with people who decide that making their company's old games work on modern systems be their pet projects: aka the stuff they work on during the short times that they are waiting on something from someone else before they can do something else. Or having to play the waiting game for something to be compiled. The they may only work on it 15 minutes in total one week and those 15 minutes are spread out over the 5 days. But it should be up to the employees to decide if they want to take on something like that and not forced by the company.