EA and Maxis - SimCity Server Debacle was "Dumb"

You'll have seen from our coverage of the the Great 2013 SimCity Launch Debacle that Ea and Maxis have not been having the best time. More importantly, neither have their customers. Well, some owning-up has been done, and a freebie promised.

Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw - who is the Go-to-Manager for this - and today she says that:

"I’m happy to report that the core problem with getting in and having a great SimCity experience is almost behind us. Our players have been able to connect to their cities in the game for nearly 8 million hours of gameplay time and we’ve reduced game crashes by 92% from day one."

So why did the screw-up happen? Earlier she stated that, "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."

Now, for some reason, in a week's time (go figure)... "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.

"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."

EA and Maxis may have stuffed up big time, but Lucy Bradshaw sounds like a stand-up-gal, we'll get an interview with her.

Sources:
EA
and
EA again