Will Wright has always been outspoken with his opinions on the game industry and on the titles he's worked on. The creator of SimCity expressed his dismay at the launch of SimCity, calling EA's failure "basically inexcusable."
"I feel bad for the team," said Wright about the team at EA Maxis who developed the game, who further expressed his opinions about the launch (via GI.biz). "I could have predicted — I kind of did predict there'd be a big backlash about the DRM stuff. It's a good game; I enjoy playing it a lot."
Wright says that he understands why the game's audience was none too pleased about the product they received due to its DRM, although he partly attributed some of the anger to EA's reputation as a company.
"It was kind of like, 'EA is the evil empire, there was a lot of 'Let's bash EA over it,'" Wright said. "That was basically inexcusable, that you charge somebody $60 for a game and they can't play it. I can understand the outrage. If I was a consumer buying the game and that happened to me, I'd feel the same."
Wright agrees with the complaints, and says that are valid concerns about always-online DRM.
"I think people care if it doesn't work. If you can't play it on planes, stuff like that… I think there are some very valid concerns about it. Also there's a perception; I don't expect to play World of Warcraft on the airplane, because my perception is it has to be on the 'Net. SimCity was in this very uncomfortable space, like the uncanny valley, almost; [it was caught] between was it a single player game or was it a multiplayer game?"
