The interview snippets make it clear that SimCity 2013 was hopelessly compromised from minute one

If nothing else, consider the mandates from EA:

  1. Make it "unpirateable" even if it compromises gameplay
  2. Make it depend on EA's online service, b/c we need to sell that even more than we need the game to succeed
  3. Make sure it can handle a steady trickle of "expansions" like The Sims

If you are going to implement those mandates, you are gonna end up with something bad. Even if SimCity 2013 had not been otherwise brain-damaged or screwed up, just EA's goals for the product were damning.

(Of course, it is not JUST the mandates -- the game was screwed up in many other ways as well. But the mandates alone would have been bad.)