EA and Maxis: Our Bad on SimCity, Here's a Game and Our CEO

After the initial launch of SimCity was wrought by server issues and complaints by many gamers, EA and Maxis have decided that they will try to make it up to gamers. Since the game is designed in a way that requires a constant internet connection in order to play the game, when EA's servers had issues during the launch (they still kind of do) lots of people were very unhappy. The truth is, there is no NEED for this game to have to require an always-on approach, but in order to combat piracy and to eek out more from the game, EA implemented this approach.

Nevertheless, EA sent out an email this morning to owners of SimCity offering 'something extra' and it read with the following,

Our SimCity Mayors are incredibly important to the team at Maxis. We know we messed up and want to sincerely thank you for staying with us. The good news is we have solved most of the major issues and players are really enjoying the game. We're getting great feedback from our fans and know that many of you are having fun and are exploring this whole new expression of SimCity. 

As a small token of our appreciation, we are offering you a free EA PC game download on Origin*. Mayors who have authenticated their copy of SimCity on Origin by March 25 can select a free game through a redemption portal inside the Origin desktop client later this week. We'll be opening up the redemption portal country-by-country so some of you may see it a little sooner than others. The portal will be live worldwide for everyone to select their game by March 22.

We don't want any of you to miss out your free game, so please note that you must register your copy of SimCity before March 25, 2013 at 11:59 PM PST and you must claim your free game by March 30, 2013 at 11:59PM PST. For more information, including instructions on how to get your free game and a list of eligible games, please read our FAQ. We've included some of the hottest games in the EA portfolio, so pick one and add it to your Origin library on us!

Sincerely,
Maxis

While we can acknowledge that this is a step in the right direction of keeping customers, I think that everyone agrees that this issue could have been avoided if they simply had not forced gamers on to servers to begin with. In addition to that, by launching on Origin only, they further reduced the amount of people willing to play the game. I personally know more and more gamers that refuse to buy games that are Origin exclusive, which could ultimately hurt EA's bottom line in the future. If EA can't deliver a reliable game experience, then maybe they shouldn't be forcing us all to use their unreliable infrastructure and just let us buy the games and use them the way we want to.

We'll keep you updated on this promotion, and if you have any more questions we recommend you check out the FAQ for this promotion.

Also, right as we were about to publish this, we also got news that EA's CEO John Riccitiello just stepped down from his position, likely connected to this SimCity screwup. The truth is that EA stood to benefit a lot from this game's release and they seriously messed it up. It looks like John simply became the sacrificial lamb for this gigantic mess. EA's stock is up 5% in after hours on the news, clearly investors didn't like the guy.