Maxis Offers Free EA Game to Disappointed SimCity Players

SimCity has been having major issues since it launched in the U.S. last week. What with the problems with servers, many people haven't been able to even play it, and of those who have some have found themselves suddenly disconnected with hours of progress lost. Naturally, EA and Maxis are acutely aware of the problems players face, and in between busily adding more servers – including one called Antarctica that presumably isn't actually in Antarctica – they found the time to get the general manager of Maxis Lucy Bradshaw to write a blog post explaining and apologising for the issues.

According to Bradshaw, the problems arose because “a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.” It's tempting to get on our high horses here and insist that we all pretty much knew that this would happen and that they really should have made lots more servers available just in case anyway, especially if they wanted a smooth launch. But Bradshaw openly admits that they made a mistake, which is pretty rare in these circumstances:

“OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it.”

Of course, in the meantime some people are still unable to play the game, which is ridiculous given that EA and Maxis want to sell this idea of always-online play as the future of games. But Bradshaw has an offer to keep players sweet while they wait out the storm:

“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.”

Are you at all appeased? Or do you think EA and Maxis ought to do more than bribe players for the return of their affections?