Maxis' one option that no one is talking about

As a few rays of sun begin to peek through the cloud of smoke pouring from the SimCity launch, most people seem to be finally wrapping their heads around the concept that the game can be both designed to be multiplayer-only and use Origin as a form of DRM, not simply one or the other.

It's pretty much accepted that Maxis isn't going to suddenly make this a single-player game, even if it were easy to move the region code from the server to the client. But here's what no one has suggested yet that I've seen: Release an official server app. Follow the Minecraft model. Let players host their own regions on their own hardware, independent of EA.

Of course, the first thing you would hear from EA is objections and dismissals. It would never work. Not like it ever made any money for some guy called Notch.