EA Labels president Frank Gibeau says DRM is “a failed dead-end strategy” that had nothing to do with SimCity’s always-online requirement.

Speaking with GamesIndustry, Gibeau said claims the game was online to prevent piracy were "conspiracy theories".

"That's not the reality; I was involved in all the meetings. DRM was never even brought up once,” he said.

“You don't build an MMO because you're thinking of DRM – you're building a massively multiplayer experience, that's what you're building."

“The team at Maxis that had a creative vision for a multiplayer, connected, collaborative SimCity experience where your city and my city and others' were [working together]; for better or for worse, and for right or for wrong.”

Gibeau then attacked the practice of DRM.

"DRM is a failed dead-end strategy; it's not a viable strategy for the gaming business.

“So what we tried to do creatively is build an online service in the SimCity universe and that's what we sought to achieve.

“For the folks who have conspiracy theories about evil suits at EA forcing DRM down the throats of Maxis, that's not the case at all," he said.

“If you play an MMO, you don't demand an offline mode, you just don't. And in fact, SimCity started out and felt like an MMO more than anything else and it plays like an MMO.”