On the week of SimCity's ill-fated launch, during which a lot more people wanted to play SimCity than SimCity's servers could handle , Maxis SVP Lucy Bradshaw promised us each a free EA game for our troubles. Today, EA announced that SimCity sold over 1.1 million units in its first two weeks (well, there's your problem), and Maxis announced the list of apology games for SimCity owners to choose from:
- Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition)
- Bejeweled 3
- Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition)
- Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition)
- Medal of Honor Warfighter (Standard Edition)
- Need For Speed Most Wanted (Standard Edition)
- Plants vs. Zombies
- SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
The free game will be acquired through a "redemption portal" which will be rolled out in the Origin client later this week. To take part in the offer, you must register your copy of SimCity on Origin by March 25, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. PDT and redeem the free game by March 30, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. E-mails with instructions will start going out to owners today—I just received an update and on-message apology which opens:
"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."
Despite the controversy surrounding and criticism of SimCity's always-online requirement , mixed messages about the decision , and much-discussed simulation flaws , EA says the 1.1 million unit figure makes SimCity the franchise's biggest launch of all time.
