The “SimCity” launch was a rough one. For days, paying customers (including myself) were unable to log in to the “SimCity” servers to play due to the high volume of players. Or more specifically…
“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.
OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It’s working – the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.”
I was surprised to see EA admit to such a mistake, considering the rocky dealings I’ve had with them and their customer service in general. However, EA seems to be trying to make up for their mistake by offering a free game to those who own “SimCity”.
“The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets. The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience. So we’re not going to rest until we’ve fixed the remaining server issues.
And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.
I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.” – Lucy Bradshaw, General Manager, Maxis Label
I don’t know what EA games will be offered in this deal, but I’ll be anxiously awaiting that email. EA seems to be actively working towards improving their servers, having released a large update on 3/8/13 that added eight new servers to help deal with the increased traffic. While I don’t foresee the always online requirement going away, being able to go online and access my saved content anytime I wanted would go a long way into getting the bad taste out of my mouth. Will EA get back on the good graces of their paying customers? Only time will tell.
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You can check out my review of the game and the supporting EA press releases here:
http://www.dadsgamingaddiction.com/simcity/
http://www.ea.com/news/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble?websso=1
https://help.ea.com/article/why-cant-i-connect-to-simcity
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