EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game

A post on the EA website by Lucy Bradshaw has the latest word from the Maxis label general manager to discuss the fairly disastrous launch for SimCity, their online-only urban planning game. She explains what's going on with the game, and promises those who have suffered through its launch will be rewarded with a free game. "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," she writes. "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." Here's word on the current status of the game:
The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we’re working fast to address.

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.

So we’re close to fixed, but not quite there. I’m hoping to post another update this weekend to let everyone know that the launch issues are behind us.
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14.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:19
14.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:19
Mar 9, 2013, 14:19
 
Slick wrote on Mar 9, 2013, 14:09:
nin wrote on Mar 9, 2013, 14:06:
Refunds?



if you want a refund, do a chargeback, they can't ban your account for 1 chargeback, just call their customr service and tell them why. pleanty of people on their official forums are doing this.

Yes they can and they have said any chargebacks will result in a permanent account ban, the last public text chat with an Origin rep where he asks for a refund even flat out says it.
Avatar 57682
13.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:18
13.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:18
Mar 9, 2013, 14:18
 
And in 8 days time.

"What free game? Oh THAT! Yeh we hoped you wouldn't remember that. To be honest with you we forgot about it ourselves. Actually, due to unforseen circumstances the server that hosts these games is down. In fact, we had to use that server in order to put up the extra SimCity servers. We're sure you'd appreciate more SimCity servers than some other games to distract you away from SimCity! That's how we saw it. We're really quite proud of it!"
12.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:16
Dev
12.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:16
Mar 9, 2013, 14:16
Dev
 
Slick wrote on Mar 9, 2013, 14:09:
nin wrote on Mar 9, 2013, 14:06:
Refunds?



if you want a refund, do a chargeback, they can't ban your account for 1 chargeback, just call their customr service and tell them why. pleanty of people on their official forums are doing this.
Who says they can't? This is EA, they not only can, but WILL ban your entire account for WTF ever reason they want. They put all sorts of weird things into their EULA. They've had that they can ban you for not reporting bugs. They've had that they WILL remove games if you don't use your account for a couple years. I'm sure there's other examples, those are only the 2 most memorable for me.

Also, if EA felt like fighting it, that was a legitimate purchase. I'm sure their eula also says they aren't responsible for online game bugs, etc. Doing a chargeback on something that's not a fraud could theoretically be construed as fraud itself.
11.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:16
Slick
 
11.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:16
Mar 9, 2013, 14:16
 Slick
 
still waiting for someone to mention the "free game" part of this article on how EA is giving away a "free game" to people on March 18th...

at least say something about how it's probably a $5 browser-only game, or something...

man i wish every other always-online game i'd played with issues the first week of launch gave me a free game just for putting up with a sketchy launch week...

oh wait, i'm an EA shill, forgot. (btw still waiting on that cheque EA)
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10.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:15
nin
10.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:15
Mar 9, 2013, 14:15
nin
 
Fantaz wrote on Mar 9, 2013, 14:13:
Is there still a deal on this game? It seems the $12-off coupon at Gamefly expired... but if they still have it on sale for around $48 somewhere, 2 games for that price is not bad.

Yeah! You might even be able to play one of the two! What a deal!

9.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:13
9.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:13
Mar 9, 2013, 14:13
 
Is there still a deal on this game? It seems the $12-off coupon at Gamefly expired... but if they still have it on sale for around $48 somewhere, 2 games for that price is not bad.
Avatar 571
8.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:12
nin
8.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:12
Mar 9, 2013, 14:12
nin
 
Another great quote: "thousands of players across the world are playing".

Thousands!

7.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:09
Slick
 
7.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:09
Mar 9, 2013, 14:09
 Slick
 
nin wrote on Mar 9, 2013, 14:06:
Refunds?



if you want a refund, do a chargeback, they can't ban your account for 1 chargeback, just call their customr service and tell them why. pleanty of people on their official forums are doing this.
Avatar 57545
6.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:09
6.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:09
Mar 9, 2013, 14:09
 
EAs war chest must be enormous. Every time they screw a big franchise or kill off a good company they always seem to have plenty of money left to do it again.

And people keep buying their stuff! I guess they get what they wanted otherwise they wouldn't keep buying it. It's not like this is EA's first debacle..
Avatar 18037
5.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:06
nin
5.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:06
Mar 9, 2013, 14:06
nin
 

Refunds?


4.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:05
Slick
 
4.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:05
Mar 9, 2013, 14:05
 Slick
 
so anyone going to comment on the "free game" part of this article?

cause that sounds pretty evil of them...
Avatar 57545
3.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:04
3.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:04
Mar 9, 2013, 14:04
 
I'm still waiting for Blizzard to announce the free expansion to Diablo 3. I won't be holding my breath.
2.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 14:02
Dev
2.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 14:02
Mar 9, 2013, 14:02
Dev
 
Protip: Check pre-order numbers and realize that a big chunk of those are your most die hard fans, the most likely to log in at 12:01 midnight and play for extended periods.

Also, 80% less game issues isn't very much to brag about. If 80% of ppl had 10 disruptions an hour, then reducing by 80% could still mean 80% of ppl are getting 2 disruptions.

And now its the weekend when many people finally have a lot of time to sit down and play the game they bought, perhaps go and buy it for the first time. And you expect to fix all your issues this weekend?

HAHAHAAHHAHAHA. Nothing has changed over there I see.
1.
 
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game
Mar 9, 2013, 13:51
1.
Re: EA Adds SimCity Servers; Promises Free Game Mar 9, 2013, 13:51
Mar 9, 2013, 13:51
 
SpinCity, it is really the fault of the players and how successful the game is blahblah. The one hour betas on a weekend didn't give you accurate metrics to use? Who could have imagined such a problem would occur with your forced online garbage?

At this point I'm just ready for this game to be out of the news. It will probably improve as people get fed up with trying and move onto doing other things. Then the defenders can emerge from hibernation and proclaim it's a good game after all with just minor launch problems.

PennyArcade has a really good comic about this today.
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