Source/link: http://www.ea.com/news/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble?websso=1

So Lucy Bradshaw addresses the server concerns. She states that the problem was that more people logged in than was anticipated. She also said that is basically a dumb excuse, she apologizes and assures us that they are working to get the servers up so players can play.

To make up for the mess, we all get a free game on March 18! I'm not sure which game, but a game nonetheless.

I think the game, SimCity, is great overall, of course the servers are crap, but the game itself is still fine. I think it's nice that EA will be giving some free games out, but still doesn't make up for the server issues.

Thoughts?

Yeah, that is a dumb excuse, they should have known roughly how many people would log on Day 1, and be prepared. This just smacks of either arrogance or laziness on Maxis' and EA's part. I can easily imagine some mid-level guy writing a memo to his boss saying "We need more servers..." and it being thrown in a pile.

So what are you all gonna do with your free game?

Its a dumb situation for sure, but them giving people a free game is a fairly nice gesture.

I think their priorities were not straight, but they had the right idea. Before about 7 my time, there were only 4 North American servers and like 10 overseas servers. I believe they wanted the other launches to go more smoothly before fixing ours, but in the end, I played for 4 hours straight just now with zero "Disconnect" messages. And the free game is something I knew they needed to do, but wasn't sure if they would. Hopefully, we get to pick (give us a coupon), but there will probably be a list.

I like how they addressed the issue, i would hate to work at Maxis or EA at the moment and the gesture of a free game to those who bought the game and cant play is nice.

Also i agree that when i was able to play the game it was great, and very addicting

Anyone want to make bets as to what EA decides to give us?

I work at EA (not on SimCity). We went curling today and drank some beers. It was good times.

Until they've settled their issues with consumers being refused refunds, all gestures strike me as being empty. Offering a consumer a single unit of something of which you have an infinite supply and that the consumer may or may not want is hardly the peace offering EA's wording makes it out to be.

Refunds, expedient fixes, updates based on consumer feedback, and EA's choices with future releases will speak the loudest.

I'm glad the head of Maxis is doing this. I'm sure they're doing what they can, but ultimately, the server issues and denial of refunds is up to EA and their Origin service. Maxis can, at best, apologize for the situation and make a gesture like this.

The ones who should really be apologizing are EA.

Maxis is EA. They are wholly owned and operate as a label within the company, but they are part of the greater company.

I also know for a fact that people all over the company are working damn hard to fix the game. When shit breaks it looks really bad for all of us and I assure you that people are getting pulled in from all over the place. I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of tired and stressed out developers and IT folks doing their best to get it all working. It's easy to bash on EA but there's a lot of good, hard working people that just want to do the best job they can and make a fun game that people can enjoy.

I'm betting the free game is The Sims 3 or something like that, then again I think they still charge like 30 bucks for the damn thing.

Maxis made the game and are responsible for it.

I believe em. Wouldn't want to be in their position. Damage control from day start to day end.

Sure, but the game itself is fine. The big problems with the launch, though, are based around EA's servers and EA's refusal to provide refunds. Maxis doesn't appear to be in control of that. They could have suggested for there to be more servers; they could ask for refunds to be provided. But that's still up to EA, not Maxis. Maxis is only a label within EA, and those things fall on EA.

So, when the head of Maxis addresses the concerns and offers a free game in apology, it's a nice start.

They shoulda done an open beta.

I think they're handling this as best they can. It's a shame that the game will be forever marred by this horrible oversight. It may not have been the SimCity that everyone wanted, but a lot of their new ideas seemed interesting enough to give a chance. I'm still happy with my purchase, mostly because I got a $20 credit from Amazon and have been playing Tomb Raider all this week anyways and next week will be dedicated to HotS. Surely they'll have the servers fixed by then, right?

They'll keep churning out shit, and you'll keep preordering the opportunity to eat it.

If I didn't have arma 3 to play this week when the servers have been the way they are I'd have been more upset like a lot of people are. But I'm not, I still got to play some 20 hours of SimCity and now they are actually apologizing and giving a free game to boot. That's a lot more than Blizzard did after the problems with the Diablo 3 launch so I'm happy.

Not to sound ungrateful, but I'm curious as to what the free game will be. Free is free, but if it ends up being something "meh" I'm sure people will be disappointed. Still, the gesture is nice.

I feel terrible for Maxis. To have your game which you worked on for years be destroyed because of issues that are completely out of your control must be horrible.

That's pretty much exactly what I'm thinking. There is some serious vitriol around the internet, and too much of it is focused toward Maxis which I feel is unfair, at least where it concerns the server problems. I've been browsing the SimCity sub-reddit and I saw a link talking about how the game has been review bombed on Amazon down to one star. That kind of behavior makes me ashamed and embarrassed of the community. Those people have a serious maturity problem.

stay classy, giantbomb.

I was able to play 20 minutes today, but got disconnected several times and I ended up losing my city. I don't care about a free game: just give me the game I paid for in a playable state.

Don't worry about him. Flag him and move on. He's just another 3-post random asshole looking to start a fight.

Hopefully, it will be better than Undertow, for those who remember the Microsoft fiasco 5 years ago.

Wait so do we get to select a free game from a list or will it be a predetermined one?

Also If I were to buy the game like tomorrow, would I be able to receive said free game or is it only for people that had it at launch?

Git doooown!

@milkman said:

Server issues might be out of their control, but the design issues have to be put on them. Like how every time someone with any experience with SimCity games says "is that really how small the cities are?"

@milkman said:

I would if the server issues wasn't entirely caused by their always on DRM design decision.

No always connected online mandate, no problem. It's not like the gameplay in this game really needs functionality that unlike say WoW.

It's why I didn't and won't buy the game (and the city size thing which basically removes what I enjoyed about the old games).

I bought Sim City fully expecting there to be broken server issues, so I haven't been pissed about this at all, and now I get a free game too. I feel pretty good about this.

The way these free games work is they give you something in the hopes of getting more money out of you. See Sony gifting Infamous and Little big planet a couple of weeks before Infamous 2 and little big planet 2 were due out as apology for the hacking incident.

So looking at EA's pathetic upcoming releases http://www.ea.com/coming-soon

We can probably look forward to Battlefield 3, The Sims 3 or command and conquer 4. It may sound like i'm complaining, but I don't own any of those. So bring it on.

Odds on Crysis 2 and Dead Space 2 as well now that I'm thinking about it. crysis and dead space 3 are still in first month sales aren't they?

On twitter she said we will have a selection of choices of games to choose from.