The negative blowback didn't hurt this Simcity launch (yet anyway) for a few reasons. First, so many people had pre-ordered it. Second it was massively hyped up by so many of the gaming sites that bow to the big publishers. Third, it's the next version of the game that will take the big hit from this reputation damage (and EA's brand in general).

By the time it was revealed to be a crappy game, inertia had carried the sales a very far distance.

I've seen this concept play out with eg NBA Live. EA produced a few decent versions of it in the early 2000's, and then produced a few really bad versions of it in a row. The first bad version sold fine, then the next releases sold less and less and the reviews were harsher and harsher.

EA had an opportunity to widen its Simcity base, that's a cost you don't see right now. More people than ever before have powerful desktop PC's. Today I can get a great PC for $600 to $800. Ten years ago, that money didn't go nearly as far (and these are less valuable dollars to boot). EA just burned a lot of casual gamers.

There is definitely a cost but it's hard to calculate so it gets ignored. Certainly the rise of indie game developers has been aided in part by the continuing fuck-ups of AAA publishers, though.

I went to the grocery store with my grandma back in 1980's, and she told me she wasn't buying steak because she and everyone she knew where boycotting a manufacturer. That was the first time I heard of the concept. I asked her if it worked and she said yes, they had successfully boycotted several products in the past. I always think of that when I hear talk of boycotting -- that it could work if people were serious about it and actually closed ranks around something.

Of course it could work. Trouble is the gaming community isn't cohesive enough, and the majority of people don't care enough.

I tend to think it's more that the majority of the people buying these games are casual users who will try to play, get frustrated and toss it in a drawer and never complain.

And won't think twice about buying the next one that looks appealing.

it's not that they don't care, but more like there isn't enough of an investment on their part to get worked up about it.

Just about everyone I've heard/talked to about this launch are people who care about gaming and/or game dev.

That only counts for a small fraction of the audience and customer base

A lot of people still refuse to purchase Nestlè products, the scale of that is quite impressive.