A SimCity Update

<i>&#62; And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio.</i><p><i>&#62; 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.</i><p>To me, this seems insulting. They know most of their upset customers want a refund -- for now -- to feel like they've not quite been screwed over as much vs. forcing them to keep a broken product, and offering them a consolation prize.<p>I don't know why Maxis doesn't realize that if SimCity is really as great as critics claim, then the best way to redeem themselves is to offer full refunds, no questions asked, knowing that customers will return once the game is back up and running.<p>Not only would this show a little bit of class, but it may restore a little confidence and credibility to Maxis/EA, and their poor choices up to this point.<p>And again, if SimCity is really that great -- and aside from the DRM/always online aspect, and the current broken state, the fundamental game sounds solid -- then customer <i>will</i> come back. These early adopters are the true enthusiasts, and ultimately just want to play a functional SimCity.<p>So the net results will be the same -- and EA/Maxis redeems a little of what is left of their credibility.<p>Maybe Maxis would refund them and EA won't let them?

"And a result of this public outcry, we've decided to remove the DRM that is crippling this otherwise great software." - Said no company ever

The lack of detail is almost a guarantee that they will limit the 'free PC download game from the EA portfolio' to whatever they feel is the minimum necessary to calm the masses. If they were giving away anything more than the bottom of the barrel you know they would be proclaiming how amazing they are for giving away another "full price game" or something similar. Also, 10 days gives them enough time to say "We fixed it! SC works great _now_. You should be happy to get anything on top of the full game you already have."

Who wants to bet that the free game will be limited to 2+ year old titles?<p>And still no acknowledgment for the people that either don't care to play online or can't maintain a stable internet connection. Want to play while travelling? Want to play while in the military &#38; deployed? Fuck you!

Can someone explain the following -<p>People are upset with the game -- sounds like it is unplayable Most of those people paid with credit card. I understand the desire to want to play the game, but if EA is being a sh*t, why not go the charge dispute route?

I wonder. In a previous post here on HN, somebody said in a comment, that the Sim City infrastructure runs in Amazon's infrastructure.<p>Isn't one of the big advantages of cloud computing the ability to scale your hardware with demand? Why only scale up by 130% when there's still people having problems? Why not scale until everybody has a good experience?<p>I don't even think it's going to cost all that much: after the initial onrush, the number of concurrent sessions is likely going to drop rapidly, at which point, they can easily scale down the infrastructure (maybe forcing regions to be consolidated, but as a player I'd rather suddenly have a new neighbor city than a ghost town because my neighbor stopped playing).<p>If you can scale up by 130% in one week, you can also scale up by 500%. Or however much it takes.<p>Them not doing this, leads to twoconclusions: 1) they don't care about the current ire among gamers. If the game is good, the rocky start will be forgiven when in two weeks time load normalizes and it will be forgotten within a month. And 2) having overloaded servers due to "unanticipated demand" is in the long run good news to give, increasing the perceived value and quality of the game.

The faux candor is cute. The upside is that these troubles will <i>hopefully</i> provide a good case study for future games of this sort. The reviews of Sim City are extremely positive about the gameplay, if the value the server based experience provides to Sim City can be utilised in other games without the issues that Sim City has had the future could be very promising.

&#62; And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio.<p>I can't help but think of the "20$ off your next purchase" pre-order bonus. Which, if you read the fine print, must be used within 2 weeks, and from a select list of really old games, and only applies to a purchase of 30$.

What are the possibilities of the free game being Sim City 4?!?

Why are you guys so upset? Serious question. EA screws up, admits it and gives a nice compensation. What more do you expect?

"you'll get a free <i>crappy</i> game"<p>Well, yay for DRM all the way.

This is a great opportunity for them to turn a shitty situation into one that will awe their customers. They should go overboard in terms of making their existing and potential new customers happy. While this is a good gesture, I don't think it's enough.