20 Disastrous Gaming Launches Everyone Saw Coming
18. SimCity (2013)
The excitement for 2013's SimCity reboot was stymied by the fact that EA confirmed pre-release that it would be an always-online title - an extremely odd choice for a city builder with a distinct single-player focus.
Many called foul that this thinly-veiled DRM would likely make the game unplayable in the event of server outages, and lo and behold, when SimCity launched it was an absolute dumpster fire of server issues, ensuring the majority of paying customers were unable to properly play it.
And even when players could get online to play, many reported losing masses of progress due to the flaky servers.
EA only stoked the ire of the player base further by both refusing to give refunds or release an offline patch, ensuring that SimCity underperformed commercially amid the deafening chorus of justified anger.
It was an outcome which so, so many saw coming, and only an entire year after SimCity's release did EA finally release an offline patch, by which point most folk had long since abandoned the game.