SimCity players to get free game from EA

EA is offering a free PC game to SimCity players as an apology for the game's bungled launch.

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SimCity's launch has been a mess, nay, a disaster. With server problems plaguing the always-online simulation game, many fans are rightfully pissed.

Well, EA is trying to offer an olive branch following the game's troubled launch. No, you won't be able to get a refund. Instead, EA is offering a free game.

Maxis GM Lucy Bradshaw offered the closest thing to an apology from EA so far, admitting that not foreseeing the game's demand was "dumb" and that "we feel bad about what happened." See? Almost an apology! Stating the obvious, Bradshaw added that "if you can't get a stable connection, you're NOT having a good experience."

According to Bradshaw, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email describing how to get a free PC download game from EA's catalog on March 18th. There's no detail on what games you'll be able to choose from, but at least it's better than nothing. "I know that's a little contrived," she said. "Kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy."

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 8, 2013 8:45 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, SimCity players to get free game from EA.

    EA is offering a free PC game to SimCity players as an apology for the game's bungled launch.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 8:47 PM

      so can you buy BF3 end game with that credit?

      • reply
        March 8, 2013 8:50 PM

        Willing to bet it's only valid for older discount titles like NHL 09 or Mass Effect 1

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 12:00 AM

        fwiw, maxis says: Details are still being worked out, but there will be followup post in several days that will outline that.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 8:49 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 8:51 PM

      Which one?

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 9:08 AM

        I'm sure it'll be a shitty one.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 8:51 PM

      They give you Aliens Colonial Marines to show you your experience could be worse.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 8:51 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        March 10, 2013 10:10 AM

        If so, they'll give free copies of the sims 3, that way they can make a few hundred on DLC from a gift.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 8:58 PM

      lol

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 9:00 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 9:03 PM

      Aliens Colonial Marines would be fitting.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 9:04 PM

      Free game Is gonna be Madden 2008.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 9:08 PM

      Valid only for multiplayer games that they've taken the servers down for already.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 9:12 PM

      So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.

      Pure ignorance. There must have been a reason they didn't have an open beta. It's their own damn fault for doing limited closed test for brief durations.

      • reply
        March 8, 2013 9:35 PM

        More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta

        ahhahaha

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 2:29 AM

        They knew exactly how many people would log on. It's the standard excuse companies give when they full well know that they'd need 20 times the server capacity in the first week to handle all logons and it doesn't make economic sense to actually build a datacenter this large for 1 week.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 2:47 AM

          This does seem to happen often, which is why I like that Guildwars2 actually stopped selling copies at launch for a while until they knew they could add more players without too many issues. Which worked pretty well to be honest.

          People bitched about that too though, so somebody is always going to be unhappy :)

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 9:11 AM

            SWTOR also had a smooth launch because the had a phased launch with preorders getting priority and then letting people in over the course of a few days.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 6:06 AM

          Also, the quote "if you can't get a stable connection, you're NOT having a good experience" needs to be engraved on a stainless steel tablet and mounted on the wall of every huge game publisher who even THINKS about changing their next single-player focused title into server-side.

          Diablo 3's RMAH worked because Blizzard has spent over a decade building Battle.net to withstand this kind of load, and adapt to growing loads. EA Maxis apparently started from scratch, or from piecemeal vague knowledge from other teams like the Origin infrastructure team, who don't have that much experience either. They probably said, "Let's use EC2!", and spun up a few EC2 instances, and load tested against a simulation of hundreds or thousands of clients... and then it fell on its face when hit with well over tens of thousands of clients.

          • reply
            March 10, 2013 6:03 AM

            WTF are you talking about? I have absolutely no idea if you're serious, but the RMAH had so many issues and people were having error boxes come up for a week before it could be used.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 11:32 AM

          Which is understandable and perfectly fine (to me anyway), but the main issue is that you need those servers for singeplayer. If only the multiplayer was inaccessable, I don't think there would be nearly as big of a backlash. Plus only requiring the servers for multiplayer would mean a lighter load and reduce these problems in general.

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            March 9, 2013 1:19 PM

            Oh, I absolutely agree. Cutting out the offline playmode entirely isn't acceptable.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 2:36 AM

        They had preorder numbers. The beta was stupid too, you could only play for 60 minutes. Surprise surprise, people usually play games for longer than that numbnuts.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 9:27 AM

        I wonder what the reaction would be if they said "we just plain fucked up"

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 9:37 PM

      On the bright side, if I get a $20 game out of this, SimCity would've costed only $25.

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      March 8, 2013 9:38 PM

      EA you pissed me off with the new Sim City. I didnt buy the game because of your $20 off pre order bonus, that can only be used on old games and expires a week from purchase. Give me a break. Then this, im actually happy I didnt buy it. You guys have failed big time as a company and if you dont straighten up your act no one is going to put any faith in you and in the video game market, faith =$$. I bought both MOH's and they were flops, I bought Crysis 2, and it sucked 3 isnt much better.

      Drop, Origin and go with Steam, stop being childish about about the whole situation. Youll make money and have less headaches. Id rather have a smaller piece of a bigger pie then a huge piece of a small pie.

      • reply
        March 8, 2013 9:39 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          March 8, 2013 9:47 PM

          Highly doubtful.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 2:37 AM

          It certainly fucked up the initial launch. People couldn't download the game when it was released because it stayed listed as not yet available.

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            March 9, 2013 2:44 AM

            I suspect this was related to the final code getting patched really heavily until release, so they couldn't get the retail code to the Origin team in time. The director of Origin really knows his stuff. He's a fantastic guy. It's just too bad he's stuck there.

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              March 9, 2013 5:41 AM

              I think it was a bit more than that. That might explain the lack of preload (though really you can preload most of the assets and just delta the changes when it goes live) but the actual unlocking of the game seems to have been a database issue on Origins end.

              People who had pre ordered the game couldnt start the download as it showed unreleased, but if you purchased the game after the release date you could immediately start downloading it.

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 10:40 PM

      would be amazing if they offered a selection of games where they shut down the servers for them

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 11:14 PM

      Gamer entitlement is when a company gives you a free game from their library in exchange for waiting an extra week or less to play their game and you still complain about it.

      • reply
        March 8, 2013 11:20 PM

        I need to write a greasemonkey script that looks for any variation of 'gamer' and 'entitlement' and hides that post because it really is the most annoying and empty argument I see over and over and over.

        Do people really think the only consumers to feel entitled are gamers? Does being a gamer somehow make that sense of entitlement less righteous? Or do people just like barfing out that phrase ad nauseum because it's an easy way to be all 'anti'?

        Blah.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 12:40 AM

          No, entitlement from gamers is just more obvious and obnoxious. Count how many facebook groups/steam communities/review bombings are perpetrated by the gaming community vs any other consumer group. It probably has something to do with the prevalence of piracy, the ultimate form of gamer entitlement.

          Gamer entitlement is when a gamer whines how "publishers have to cater to my every whim and follow every demand I make because I gave them monies!". If you have a legitimate concern the company isn't addressing which is shared by a large portion of the player base then it isn't gamer entitlement. These issues (server problems and bugs) ARE being addressed and fixed but gamers are still whining and demanding the company do more. Hence gamer entitlement.

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 12:45 AM

            Count how many other products are sold at retail that DO NOT FUNCTION.

            • reply
              March 9, 2013 1:16 AM

              If you cherry-pick out problems that are unique to video games it will be impossible to accurately compare it to other products. I am talking about any issues in general. An example of consumer entitlement in a different area is if a waiter is rude to a customer, and the customer demands reparations and a public apology. Normal consumers in that situation would choose to move on and not visit the restaurant again, but not an entitled gamer. They keep on throwing money at the company that supposedly mistreats them and expecting them to act differently every time. It's Einstein's definition of idiocy.

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                March 9, 2013 1:21 AM

                Who said anything about continuing to throw money? What even is your argument anymore? BROKEN PRODUCT DOES NOT FUNCTION; PEOPLE WHO PURCHASED COMPLAIN <> ENTITLEMENT.
                Discuss.

                • reply
                  March 9, 2013 1:30 AM

                  Why don't you read my original reply because I already addressed and refuted that exact point.

                  • reply
                    March 9, 2013 1:36 AM

                    You refuted the fact that the product is broken? Amazing. Or did you refute the fact that people are not entitled by expecting to receive what they paid for? Amazing.
                    What single exact point in my post did you already refute? I see none.

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 1:39 AM

                      Hint: Refuting facts makes you look like an idiot. It is written.

              • reply
                March 9, 2013 1:24 AM

                Haha, what? A lot of people who go to restaurants would complain to the manager for sure, what the fuck are you talking about?

                Throwing money at a multinational corporation that spent a decade strategically and systematically snapping up good, creative developers and calling the games those developers made theirs? Sometimes it's hard to avoid when it's the biggest player around, and they own a huge segment of the talent because they bought them.

                The advantage to a company that size, and same with Zenimax, is that they should be able to bring large scale resources to bear on things like QA.

                What other injustices do you think are just people being entitled?

                • reply
                  March 9, 2013 1:41 AM

                  Here's a nice big pill you may have difficulty swallowing: every time you pay for a product after purchasing a previous product from the same company, you're telling them all your complaints about the old product mean squat because you're willing to pay again for the new one. As long as people keep spending money on garbage, companies will continue to produce more garbage to meet the demand. If you're actually against corporate sponsored video games you should only be purchasing indie games, and if that doesn't work and corporations still pump out games you don't like then, well, looks like you're the minority and the corporations aren't obligated to cater their games just for your disproportionate demographic.

                  • reply
                    March 9, 2013 1:46 AM

                    So you're giving up the other argument then? We're not entitled now, we're enablers? It's actually OUR FAULT that EA failed to have sufficient server capacity because we bought (what the hell am I saying, 'we'?) some bought this game?

                  • reply
                    March 9, 2013 1:53 AM

                    You're making a massive generalization. EA's profits have been falling because of the issues they've been having with 4 of the last 6 quarters showing loss: http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/30/light-on-revenue-ea-barely-squeaks-out-a-win-for-the-quarter-with-digital-up-thanks-to-battlefield-3/ and a loss in total for the last two years.

                    Consumers are telling them off. Their losses are coming from their major franchises, particularly their AAA console development.

                    I know for my sake, since ME3 I only purchased one EA game (Most Wanted) and have sworn off any future purchases, and based on their quarterly reports, it looks like this is exactly what is happening elsewhere as we see their major launches (Medal of Honor and Dead Space 3) have underperformed. Only FIFA has remained above expectation for them.

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 1:55 AM

                      Bad Company 2 and Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate (on massive sale) were my most recent. So, there's that.

                      • reply
                        March 9, 2013 1:58 AM

                        BC2 was good stuff :)
                        Still a bit buggy at launch, but at least you could play it, and could totally do SP even if the entire online portion was down.

                        I do recall us having some great shack games the first night.

                        • reply
                          March 9, 2013 2:01 AM

                          I bought it because I'd played that beta map so much! I just recently reinstalled and played a few games. It was still fun, except when there were 7 lvl 50s on one team, and 1 on ours (our next highest was 36th or something).

                          • reply
                            March 9, 2013 2:04 AM

                            BC2 is still my only actual Preorder, too! I'd get BF3:GOTY with all the DLC at a decent price, but who knows if that opportunity will ever arise.

              • reply
                March 9, 2013 6:05 AM

                Really? Look up the number of class action lawsuits out there. I believe EULA typical waive your right to class action suits, so there probably aren't any for video games.

                Consumers do not like being lied to or mistreated, regardless of what product they bought.

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 12:56 AM

            Holy effin' Stockholm syndrome.

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 1:01 AM

            Ugh, just fuck off already.

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 12:07 PM

            I don't think expecting the product you purchased to work from the time you bought it is being overly entitled. I would expect it from any other purchase I made. Why wouldn't I expect to be able to play the game I bought, the day I bought it?

          • reply
            March 10, 2013 6:46 PM

            Dumbest post ever.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 5:45 AM

          I dont know about you buy spending $60+ on a video game that doesnt work and then being given a random old game that I probabbly already have for free cause they F'ed up gets me mad. If I pay for something I expect it. If you order a large coffee and they give you a cup half full wouldnt you be mad? I spend my hard earned money and I expect a level of quality in a product. Is that so wrong?

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 12:34 PM

          I'm going to punch you in the face, but I'm going to give you a slice of cake in exchange. What, you don't want the cake?

      • reply
        March 8, 2013 11:32 PM

        An extra week, so far. And people paid for SimCity not "buggy SimCity + random game they don't want"

      • reply
        March 8, 2013 11:54 PM

        i love it when people whine about whiners. gamer entitlement!

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 12:41 AM

          Sounds like you feel entitled to feel entitled.

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 12:50 AM

            Entitled to use a product customers paid for, weird, right? If this were anything other than a video game it would be an even bigger clusterfuck.

            But thanks for your thoughts, front pager. And sweet username! See you in 3 months?

            • reply
              March 9, 2013 1:01 AM

              Thanks! I spent a lot of time carefully pressing the "generate random password" button to craft this username. I'll be back again to comment on articles I take interest in from the Shacknews twitter feed I've been following for the past year or so.

              99% of the entitled gamers whining probably preordered it. They've already been "unable to use the product they paid for" for weeks/months. Waiting a tiny bit longer for the developers to fix unforeseen bugs that all online games tend to encounter won't kill them. In fact, I've already read reports from players being able to use the game without problems.

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                March 9, 2013 1:02 AM

                "unforeseen bugs that all online games tend to encounter"...I don't have words for this.

              • reply
                March 9, 2013 1:20 AM

                Unforseen bugs like playing the game? Please. If this was a browser or an Office program people couldn't use it would be a way bigger melt down. Would you call those people entitled? It's less of a big deal because it's a game.

                Pre orders are irrelevant, and you pulled that stat out of your ass.

                I can't figure out why you'd want to defend this type of behavior.

                • reply
                  March 9, 2013 1:23 AM

                  Because it's easier on his ego than admitting he's taken an indefensible position.

                  • reply
                    March 9, 2013 1:25 AM

                    But why? He's just a random front pager with a username that looks like someone puked and passed out on a keyboard.

                    Usually those types of people just fade away into the background while maintaining eye contact.

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 1:41 AM

                      I guess we're just that lucky. Yay.

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 1:41 AM

                      I guess we're just that lucky. Yay.

                • reply
                  March 9, 2013 1:28 AM

                  I could cite hundreds, if not thousands of cases where a popular program was rendered inoperable by an update and people had to live with it till it was fixed. The company apologized, developers quickly fixed it, and everyone moved on with their lives.

                  This may come as a shock to you, but video games are in fact developed and produced by real live human beings. Yes, that's right, the kind who makes mistakes. I'm not defending some negative type of behavior the companies are using on purpose, I'm defending the irrefutable fact that accidents and oversights are bound to happen and criticizing companies for factors that are inevitably beyond their control is stupid.

                  • reply
                    March 9, 2013 1:35 AM

                    Thousands, really? Please list them, I would like that.

                    What fucking planet are you on?

                    QA is a basic part of the process, and should be done very well for a company that size. Or for a smaller company, a cost effective solution would have been a larger beta, or open beta.

                    Their absolutely draconian DRM was definitely a factor within their control. They have completely manufactured their crisis by way of their odd orwelian obsession with DRM. They blamed this on people playing their game more and for longer than they expected. That IS something within their control, there were a thousand things they could have done to set themselves up for success here, even if they did want to have this retarded DRM.

                    Or just drop the DRM. On the whole, is that DRM scheme cost effective, or not? Is that something they set out to do on purpose, or was it somehow a factor beyond their control?

                    You sound like an insane person.

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 1:46 AM

                      I'm not talking about DRM, I'm talking about server issues and bugs. Complaining about DRM is not gamer entitlement because it's a valid objection that's shared by most of the player base.

                      Quality assurance is not infallible, errors can still slip through. You don't know if these issues are the result of poor quality assurance or excusable mistakes.

                      • reply
                        March 9, 2013 1:52 AM

                        They made a city simulator always online as DRM. News flash.

                        This is a giant QA failure that would have been largely avoided by things like an open beta.

                        Their form of DRM caused this issue. Otherwise you'd be able to play single player and things would be fine. That's why this is an inexcusable mistake.

                        We can't agree on reality, you must be a republican.

                  • reply
                    March 9, 2013 1:36 AM

                    [deleted]

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 5:48 AM

                      Op Flash Dragon Rising, Red Orchestra 2. Both games promised stuff that still have not been put in the game. Not to mention Dragon Rising stopped patching after the first month.

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 5:49 AM

                      Playstation 3

                  • reply
                    March 9, 2013 1:38 AM

                    Please name a few for us. I know of, for example, AWS East EC2 failing for a number of days do to a bug in their fall-over protection, which they apologized for and since that time has never occurred again.

                    I recall a few hour or more outages for gmail over the past five years. I do not recall 'thousands' of cases of 'popular' programs rendered inoperable. So please name some for us.

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 1:44 AM

                      For example:
                      EC2 failure in one East EBS for 1 hour 55 minutes: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/amazon-web-services-outage-once-again-shows-reality-behind-the-cloud/
                      In 2011 they had an EBS API failure in one Availability Zone in the East Region which was restored after 11 hours for all but 2.2% of customers: https://aws.amazon.com/message/65648/

                      That's it.

                    • reply
                      March 9, 2013 1:53 AM

                      After 30+ years of software development do you really think it's inconceivable that thousands of software programs ran into similar issues to this one? Programming is not an exact science, half the time you spend involves proofreading your script and testing it out for bugs. Bugs of all kinds can be extremely easy overlook, and no matter how hard you try to get rid of them it's impossible to publish a game that's 100% bug free.

                      • reply
                        March 9, 2013 1:55 AM

                        You're the one who mentioned thousands of cases. I asked for specifics, so please provide.

                        To assist you, I've mentioned the two major cases I'm aware of. You're aware of thousands, so please elaborate.

                      • reply
                        March 9, 2013 1:56 AM

                        Now it's theoretically, mathematically conceivable. Over 30 years before online only DRM.

                        Walked that back from you being able to cite thousands of examples.

                        And now it's not so much entitlement as it is enabling?

                        Do you like these kinds of discussions? This is how you get your kicks?

                        You're not even a good troll.

                        • reply
                          March 9, 2013 2:06 AM

                          I think he switched from 'waiting a week for the game to work' to 'any update which causes a product to be unusable' cloud or not.

                          Now as I recall from the product I support, if this were to happen, we inform our customer to downgrade while we escalate a patch. Our customer is able to continue using the older version of the product while we work on the patch and provide it to them. In this case, there is no downgrade, there is no alternative. It either works or it does not, but either way, customers paid $60 for it.

                          He's mocking people for expecting something they paid for to work within 'an extra week or less' and complaining about that fact.

                          I will say that even though EA offered a consolation prize, the offer is irrelevant to the discussion as the point of the discussion is that a product legally paid for is completely unavailable for usage.

                          • reply
                            March 9, 2013 2:51 AM

                            Lets ease up on the guy a little, he's a frontpager but at least he is getting involved and having a discussion here.

                            His opinion is kind of weird for me, but hell, I feel that way about most of you :)

                      • reply
                        March 9, 2013 6:56 AM

                        There is a huge difference between bugs and what EA did/is doing with Sim City. You are correct, all software has bugs and it is nearly impossible to squash them all. However, the problem plaguing Sim City isn't bugs. It's the DRM always online crap that caused such an uproar. That is completely and totally within their control and could have been avoided by either keeping single player as single player (which they should have done) or by paying attention to the world around them. Honestly, companies are beyond stupid. Apparently Blizzard and D3 taught them nothing.

                        I'm sorry, but your argument has nothing to do with the problem folks are pissed about.

                      • reply
                        March 9, 2013 8:42 AM

                        no. this is beyond bugs. this is their architecture, their design. this was flawed before development began. they needed help at the whiteboard/dry erase marker stages and didn't get it.

                        this is WAY beyond "always on" problems... because that isn't the problem. all the customers are ONLINE and ready to go. this isn't shaky wireless B PCMCIA cards on a laptop running on battery at the maximum distance of being connected. that isn't even part of the discussion.

                        the discussion needs to be about vision, and execution. things that can't be programmed. and with the resources EA has, this should have been a leap forward in gaming. it's just a city simulation game. and they managed to COMPLETELY fuck it up on this release, and going forward.

                        what happened to "keep it simple, stupid" ? so many bugs can be PREVENTED if people would just stop fucking up before the coding even begins.

                        they had to disable the fastest speed ? on a simulation game? because the BACK end couldn't handle it? and one of the most frustrating things from folks is still in the design of forcing small cities and regional integration... so then the regional stuff doesn't work either? holy shit.

                        back to the whiteboard and dry erase pens with this one. it's not "testing it out for bugs". they royally fucked up at the conceptual phase. and then couldn't even develop properly for their own internal plan.

                      • reply
                        March 9, 2013 9:33 AM

                        I know I'm feeding a single-serving troll poster but here goes: none of the issues they're having would have been a been a big deal if they had just made the online mode optional. And they're doing this with a game that until now has been more or less synonymous with single player. And unlike Diablo 3, it's a game series that is much more popular with the average person who had no idea this would be an issue. And while their free game capitulation is nice, their explanation of the issues comes across about as self serving as that female virgin athlete who said her biggest issue in life is that she struggles with the fact that everybody wants to fuck her.

              • reply
                March 9, 2013 11:46 AM

                Your username is as memorable as your posts. i.e., not very.

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 2:16 AM

            [deleted]

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 2:54 PM

            [deleted]

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 12:21 AM

        This comment is fucking stupid. I want a free one in return.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 1:02 AM

        horrible post is horrible

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 2:20 AM

        I like that paying up front for a product that is then defective/broken, and being mad about that fact, is "entitlement". You are what's wrong with games today.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 3:24 AM

        Are you a master in Wrong-jitsu? Do you hail from Wrongtopia? Because you are wrong.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 6:53 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 6:54 AM

        You know what you're entitled to when something you buy doesn't work? YOUR MONEY BACK, not some product from the same company. But nope, can't do that with video games (or most other digital media) because fuck you. Your mentality is exactly what's wrong with digital sales and the lack of consumer rights.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 8:23 AM

        Nice try, Cigarette Paper

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 10:41 AM

        You're dumb and so is your name.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 11:49 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 12:58 PM

        I know that's a little contrived," she said. "Kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy."

        I think even EA disagrees with you

    • reply
      March 8, 2013 11:44 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 12:40 AM

      thats pretty cool of them.... I was never really to concerned with the server issues. Iv come to expect problems with new online games at launch. I experienced 3 days of random issues and it kinda sucked but a free game no matter what it is makes up for all of it. If they really want to right the real wrong they will upgrade my BF3 to the premium game.

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 12:42 AM

      I guess it's cool that they're doing something to try and make it right. Honestly, I wouldn't have been upset had they been much more upfront about what was happening in the first 3 days. Rather than having their twitter account spewing canned shit replies to everyone, they should have been doing periodic updates every couple hours.

      They should have explained why (or at least confirmed that we would see) weird behavior would happen when the launcher couldn't connect or whatever.

      Basically, they just should have been a lot more transparent with an "oh god, we fucked up majorly, we're sorry and we're working our asses off to fix this as soon as possible" attitude rather than "No one wants to stop playing, this game is awesome lolz!"

      Also, if we're complaining about free stuff, I'd rather have content for SimCity than anything else, but whatever.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 6:15 AM

        Businesses almost never apologize. They'll bargain, they'll give away free stuff, they'll even feign transparency... but unless you have a business LITERALLY cornered, waiting for a true apology is a fool's errand.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 8:25 AM

          Exactly! I only saw a mention of the issues they were having, but never an apology for them.

          Free game is a lame excuse for an apology.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 11:09 AM

          [deleted]

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 2:17 AM

      Well that's something at least.

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 2:19 AM

      Ooooooo EA giving away free games ???? I never saw that in the common.

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 5:14 AM

      Everyone gets a free copy of darkspore

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 6:12 AM

      "I know that’s a little contrived -- kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy."

      From a business perspective, it's well-timed: the story of SimCity's problems JUST started filtering into business news feeds yesterday, and the level of consumer outrage was approaching that of a class action lawsuit being filed. Those probably factored into EA Corporate authorizing Lucy Bradshaw to make this post, and for EA's marketing wing to send out redemption codes within 2 weeks.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 6:45 AM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 6:48 AM

        The only reason they give a shit is once it makes 'real news' it will start to hit their share price.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 8:06 AM

          The developers WILL feel bad about this, nobody wants to spend years working on a game that is then poorly thought of by fans, or so buggy its almost unplayable (and believe me I've worked on games like this)

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 3:53 PM

            Oh sure the devs will be. But the developers arent the guys who get to make the decisions about shit like this, this is all EA's corporate spreadsheet jockeys.

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 7:36 AM

      EA REP: "How do we fix this????"

      EA MANAGEMENT: "Offer them one of our old shitty games they don't want and must download through Origin so they'll feel even more tied to our system and will buy our next product even when we fuck that one up to."

      EA REP: "Well played sir!"

    • Ziz legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      March 9, 2013 8:23 AM

      SimCity DLC

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 8:52 AM

      Hey Blizzard. Take a note.

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 8:54 AM

      i was honestly going to buy this game, but won't anymore and glad i didn't.

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 8:57 AM

      Anyone else not able to claim other cities in their region?

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 9:14 AM

      advanced glassbox simulation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g418BSF6XBQ

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 9:30 AM

        Blech.

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHdyzx_ecbQ

        Even if they fix all the server issues there is still this horrible AI.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 9:49 AM

          I'm sure they'll fix this at some point, but yeah, it is really frustrating to create a big open highway around your town and then no one uses it because they're busy clogging up the surface streets

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 9:53 AM

            They need the traffic copter from SimCopter to tell them where the fastest route is, not just the shortest.

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              March 9, 2013 4:42 PM

              That will be in upcoming paid DLC, no doubt.

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 11:58 AM

          If you know how A* pathing works it's 10x more stupid. The way to fix this is part of the basic algorithm, instead of using the same cost value everywhere you just assign a higher cost to worse roads and (debatable, it might be too effective) congested roads. That's it, the algorithm will now prefer the longer, faster path. I don't think it's even possible to read any A* turorial as a programming newbie and not learn this.

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 12:01 PM

            Lol youre cute

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 12:04 PM

            And to be perfectly clear this doesn't make the algorithm run any slower either, it's genuinely the same calculation.

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 12:04 PM

            First thing you should think of when deciding how cars will pathfind should include how they account for congested areas. The fact A* accounts for edge costs and they decided to just ignore it is just so god damn annoying.

          • reply
            March 10, 2013 6:09 AM

            A higher cost to "worse" roads? And what's what? If the smaller road isn't congested, it's going to be faster to use it. It's not always worse. But I'm sure you learned that too in your programming newbie A* tutorials.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 1:28 PM

        hahahahaha ohhhh man. facepalllmmmmmm.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 2:05 PM

        I have little doubt the simulations in the older games were just as weak or weaker but were harder to inspect. I mean, they came out with an entire expansion pack to try to fix transportation in SC4...

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 2:24 PM

          [deleted]

          • reply
            March 9, 2013 2:32 PM

            I haven't seen anyone throwing around the words revolutionary. And they're the ones who talked about city size and performance issues, which is an obvious inference to draw anyway. Stop being stupid. I know how much you and a few others are enjoying reveling in its failure though.

            • reply
              March 9, 2013 2:51 PM

              [deleted]

              • reply
                March 9, 2013 3:12 PM

                have you seen me in a single Simcity thread this week defending this debacle? I didn't buy it and now I won't be for awhile at best.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 2:19 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 4:18 PM

        it's a Maxis game. if people expected any solid gameplay systems or AI... I wonder if they've played any other Maxis games.

    • reply
      March 9, 2013 2:27 PM

      Interesting discussion on their twitter: https://twitter.com/simcity/status/310482745732259844

      I'm curious what 6UnJ9Wn would think about this. They're saying that they feel a need to earn back our trust.

      • reply
        March 9, 2013 3:38 PM

        did you ctrl-v'd your password?

        • reply
          March 9, 2013 4:55 PM

          No but some EA apologist in the thread above claims that how he created his username, using a random password generator.

          • reply
            March 10, 2013 11:54 AM

            Apparently he puts the same amount of consideration and time into formulating his opinions as well.

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