SimCity DRM Inspires Petition, Dragon Age 3 Boycott

Many gamers are unhappy that the latest SimCity requires players to stay logged into EA's servers. A new online petition demands that the always-on restriction be removed from the city-building game.

"When I, And millions of other people, buy a game that has a single-player experience. We expect it to work regardless of our connectivity to the internet, or quality of our connection," reads the petition started by Ryan Lashley. "EA has made this impossible, so many people with an unstable connection will not even be able to play the game in the first place, let alone anyone who wants to play on the go/with no internet connection."

The online requirement for SimCity enables the extensive multiplayer component of the game and helps curb piracy. However, it's also an inconvenience to players. If the servers are down, they can't even play the game by themselves. Furthermore, a server outage can cause game progress to be lost.

As of now the petition has been signed by 49,794 gamers. The goal is 50,000 signatures. It's likely they'll hit that mark later today.

EA has made no indication that they would remove the always-on requirement. They're currently focused on adding servers and fixing bugs. Their reasoning seems to be that people will stop complaining about always-on if it stops interfering with normal gameplay. If not, well, then maybe the free game will calm them down.

In the meantime, gamers are dreaming up other ways to stick it to EA. On Reddit, some gamers are suggesting that they cancel pre-orders for EA-published RPG Dragon Age 3 to show their displeasure. Unlike the petition, though, it's tough to say how many people are actually signing on for that boycott.