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When SimCity's exploded at launch, leaving many unable to play thanks to its always-online requirement, EA promised one free game to every mayor as a peace offering. Today the publisher revealed the list of games, including Dead Space 3, Battlefield 3 and, ah, SimCity 4. Perhaps to spare its servers further stress, ho ho, EA will send the freebies out gradually.
Being the first SimCity game in over a decade, you'd think that EA would have known that demand for their city-planning game would be through the roof. But as SimCity's bungled launch proved, that was not the case. In fact, a new interview with Maxis' Lucy Bradshaw reveals exactly how much the company had grossly underestimated launch demand.
"Could we have built a subset offline mode" in SimCity, Maxis asked. "Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn't fit with our vision."
SimCity is starting to show signs of recovery, and Maxis has outlined its current moves to turn on non-essential features and plans for an upcoming patch.
A modder has posted a video showing SimCity highways being built outside city boundaries, and a sort of "offline mode" in which the disconnect timer has been disabled.
SimCity has almost scrambled back to its feet following the disastrous launch that left players languishing in queues, thanks to a string of updates and new servers. Maxis claimed over the weekend that the "core problem" of being being unable to play is "almost behind us", and that it has "reduced game crashes by 92% from day one." It also dropped teasing, but slightly contradictory, hints that it may consider adding offline support.
EA is offering a free PC game to SimCity players as an apology for the game's bungled launch.
EA has reportedly sent a letter to members of the Origin LinkShare program, requesting they remove any active promotion of SimCity as the company irons out the server problems.
The ongoing server problems with SimCity's always-on DRM connection to Origin has forced EA to disable several features, and even forced Amazon to...
The launch of Maxis's new SimCity has been something of a mess, to put it mildly, with players facing long queues to even launch what is chiefly a single-player game. Good job, always-online DRM. Maxis has issued a statement saying it's "putting everything we have" towards fixing up the servers and squashing bugs. The city-building sim launches in Europe today, so let's hope that doesn't overload things further.
