Hasta La Gadget!

You know things are really bad when Electronic Arts is actively suspending all of its marketing efforts on SimCity. The publisher has sent an email to its marketing affiliate partners asking them to “please stop actively promoting the game” until further notice. Specifically, EA’s Origin says they have “deactivated all SimCity text links and creative,” and they’re asking affiliates to remove all promotional material from their websites.

EA plans to resume their marketing and promotional efforts at some point, though, mentioning in the email that they will notify affiliates when they can start promoting the game again. However, EA says they will still “payout commissions on all SimCity sales that are referred,” which is certainly good news for affiliates still.

SimCity launched earlier this week, and it didn’t quite go as planned. Of course, no one can really plan for how a launch will go, but we’re sure Electronic Arts wasn’t expecting this much backlash and issues. It turns out demand of the new game was higher than expected, resulting in server crashes and downloading failures for gamers.

Amazon even ended up suspending digital orders of the game, while still allowing physical copies to be sold with an asterisk in hopes to temporarily cut down on the amount of gamers with access to the game and hopefully help out EA with the surge of those hankering to build their dream city. In the meantime, feel free to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign for Civitas, a cheaper DRM-free alternative to SimCity.

[via Polygon]

EA tells affiliates to “stop actively promoting” SimCity is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The SimCity launch earlier this week didn’t quite go as planned, as Electronic Arts experienced problems across the board, mostly due to servers crashing. Many gamers experienced download failures and weren’t able to play the game on launch day. Because of the outcry, a team of game developers is looking to make a SimCity clone, called Civitas, but they need your help to fund the project.

The developers are looking to create a DRM-free version of SimCity, with the ability to play the game completely while offline, something that SimCity doesn’t offer, and it’s the one feature that’s currently causing all of the problems. Plus, the game will only cost $15, at least if you back the project on Kickstarter right now.

Of course, the folks behind the project weren’t afraid to call out EA on their Kickstarter page, claiming that EA is “forcing the worst form of draconian DRM on its players.” Those are certainly some fightin’ words, but it seems the developers are confident that Civitas will be an excellent alternative to EA’s city-building offering.

Of course, the game will go into beta first for a few months, and you can join in on the beta fun by pledging $10 more on top of the $15 price of the game, which still isn’t a bad price at all, even if you didn’t get access to the beta. However, we’ll have to wait and see if the game can live up to its own expectations. So far, the project has raised almost $37,000 at the time of this writing, and they’re looking to raise $250,000 total, but there’s 24 days to go, so it can be easily achieved.

[via Kotaku]

Civitas is the DRM-free SimCity game you’ve always wanted is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

SimCity is certainly living up to its name, and just as all cities have their fair share of issues, so too, does the digital make believe world of SimCity. The thing is, the issues SimCity is currently experiencing has everything to do with its servers, although there are other items on the agenda such as the lack of residential zones for the Sims “inside”, but that is a different can of worms altogether. Having said that, Amazon has temporarily removed digital versions of SimCity, although the boxed versions of the game are still available for purchase.

Amazon has also included a disclaimer, asking buyers to be wary that there are server issues with the game at the moment, where it reads as follows, “Many customers are having issues connecting to the “SimCity” servers. EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when the issue will be fixed. Please visit https://help.ea.com/en/simcity/simcity for more information.”

Hopefully EA gets everything sorted out, otherwise it would be a bummer considering how the game has a cult following all these years.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: New Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag Screenshots Hit The Web, No Plans For StarCraft 2 To Adopt Free-To-Play Model,

This week was supposed to be a big one for PC gamers as EA’s long-awaited SimCity released, with many members of the media praising the game as it currently stands at an 82 out of 100 on Metacritic. That praise turned into many PC gamers going out and buying the game, which seems like something EA wasn’t exactly expecting as since it’s release, the game has been met with nothing but negativity to both gamers and the media.

The issue EA is having with SimCity is due to the game’s always-on DRM that requires players to always be connected to the Internet when they have the itch to manage their virtual city. It seems way more copies were sold than EA originally anticipated, which is resulting in the company’s servers not working as they would hope they would. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: The 7th Guest: 3 Heading To PC, Mac and Mobile To Give You Nightmares Again, MSI AG2712 All-In-One Gaming PC at CeBIT 2013 – Hands-On,

I’d be willing to bet there are huge number of gamers out there who have fond memories of playing previous SimCity games back in the day. I know I spent many an hour building a giant city only to destroy it with a rampaging monster or some other catastrophe. It’s been 10 years since we’ve seen a new game in the SimCity franchise. EA has announced that the new SimCity game is now available at retail stores across North America and as a digital download via Origin.

This game has been one of the most widely anticipated launches of early 2013 and brings the game play we all remember along with significantly updated graphics and capabilities. EA says that everything is intelligently simulated in the new SimCity.

EA says that everything from the Sims in the city down to every kilowatt of power is intelligently simulated thanks to the powerful new GlassBox Engine. The game supports multiple city game play across regions giving players a larger field than some previous titles that limited you to a single city. The new game allows players to manage and play up to 16 cities at a time.

Each of the 16 cities can have a different specialization. A player’s individual cities can share services and trade resources. The cities can choose to help each other or hinder each other depending on the player’s mood. This is also the first SimCity game to support multiple player gaming with a players decisions for their cities impacting the city and the region. The game supports real-time updates and pushes updates to players with new challenges and achievements.

You can download SimCity Limited Edition for $59.99(USD) or the Deluxe Edition, which includes French, German and British city sets for $79.99 over at the SimCity website now.