Maxis; Sound The Alarm, SimCity 5 Is Broken

By Nathan Young on March 7, 2013

SimCity 5 was released this week. And so far many people have not been able to play! For the few lucky ones who have gotten a chance to play, there have been numerous crashes and game freezes. One requirement for SimCity 5 is you must be connected to the internet and their Origin servers to play the game. What; did EA and Maxis realize the huge number of people who would play SimCity 5? And to add insult to injury, Amazon has pulled SimCity 5 from their website. And the number of one star reviews is approaching 1000!

Many people have shelled out the $60 to buy the game only to be disappointed by EA and Maxis. Some people have commented saying EA is threatening to ban people who criticize the server problems or if people are asking for their money back. To help solve the server problems, EA and Maxis has disabled “non-critical” features including leaderboards and achievements as well as disabling cheetah speed. EA responded to the problems with this statement:

“We are experiencing extremely high server volume and it’s preventing some players from gaining access to the game. Our server team is working around the clock to resolve this issue so that we can get the rest of our fans into the game. We are aggressively undergoing maintenance on our servers to add the necessary capacity to meet the demand. Players may continue to play throughout the weekend but we want to note that performance will fluctuate during this time. We thank our fans for their continued patience.”

Maxis says it will continue to add servers over the next two days and work around the clock to fix all the problems players are reporting. But for some people like me, it might be too little too late. Why in the world would a game require its players to be connected to the internet and a server? For one, not everyone has access to the internet. I would like to be able to play the game in isolated places like if I was camping for instance. Two, requiring an internet connection is going to tie up internet bandwidth. If I was using public Wi-Fi and it was slow because someone was playing SimCity 5; I would not be happy! Since my internet provider (Cable One) has a monthly cap, it will not take long before playing SimCity 5 becomes an extra cost to me!

I have been a SimCity lover from day one! But this latest move from Maxis and EA might be the last straw from me. I fell in love with SimCity because it let me build the city of my dreams! I don’t want to experience numerous crashes because of problems with their servers. If you’d love to experience the nonstop thrills and excitement of SimCity 5, then please remove $60 from your bank account and promptly pay someone to kick you repeatedly in the friggin’ mouth. That’s the SimCity experience!

I wish Maxis would go back to the days of great customer service and gameplay. But ever since they were bought by Electronic Arts, they have gone downhill fast! I was looking forward to playing SimCity 5, but now it looks like I need to save my money! I guess Sim City 4 is going to prove as the last real edition of the SimCity franchise. I would have reviewed SimCity 5 by now, but because of the server problems, I will let Jonathan Cresswell explain it to you.