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EA Offering Free Game to Users After SimCity Launch Problems

An anonymous reader writes "The SimCity launch earlier this week was a complete disaster. Single player games that require an Internet connection to enable forced multiplayer features (as well as acting as a form of DRM) is bad enough, but then to not be prepared for the demand such a popular franchise has, well, that's just dumb, and Lucy Bradshaw, EA's general manager for the Maxis Label, has admitted exactly that." They did not provide much details, but supposedly anyone who has SimCity now should get "a free PC download game from the EA portfolio." They are unrepentant about the always-online requirement though.

2 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Too little, too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Games shouldn't be rentals.

    Well, yes, but if tens or hundreds of millions of people support that business model, then it's going to succeed. The way to once again have games that don't require someone else's permission to play is to buy those kinds of games, not the kind that are DRMed out the ass..

    You get what you ask for.

  2. Re:EA's Lucy Bradshaw's post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    Beta tester here: Maybe if their beta lasted longer then 24 hours they would have seen this coming.