Electronic Arts Suspends SimCity Marketing - UPDATED

[Andy Chalk]

Electronic Arts Suspends SimCity Marketing - UPDATED

Electronic Arts has asked its online affiliates to "please stop actively promoting" the beleaguered SimCity.

The latest twist in the SimCity nightmare from which Electronic Arts cannot awaken is truly amazing. In an email sent out this morning, the publisher asked affiliates of Origin's Linkshare program to stop promoting SimCity. EA has "deactivated all SimCity text links and creative," the email said, "and we ask you to please remove any copy promoting SimCity from your website for the time-being."

"To be clear we are continuing to payout commissions on all SimCity sales that are referred, however we are requesting that you please stop actively promoting the game," the email states. "We will notify you as soon as the SimCity marketing campaigns have been resumed and our promotional links are once again live in the Linkshare interface. We apologize for any inconveniences that this may cause, and we thank you for your cooperation."

The problem, of course, is that SimCity servers have proven woefully inadequate for the demands of the game. EA has promised to add petition [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122550-Maxis-Adding-More-SimCity-Servers-Over-Next-Two-Days] demanding the removal of always-on DRM in this and future EA games has attracted nearly 39,000 signatures.

Stay tuned!

Source: Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/8/4079894/ea-suspends-simcity-marketing-campaigns-asks-affiliates-to-stop]

UPDATE: We contacted EA and were told that the company would not be commenting on the situation.

Permalink

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

This is like watching a slow motion trainwreck unfold. Only it's worse because I actually bought the game and am one of the idiots who's trapped in the trainwreck.

 

[Legion]

Wow, they really screwed this one up, didn't they?

I find it strange more than anything else. This is not a small company trying to do something big, this is one of the industries largest, and they can't even manage it.

Who the hell tested all of this? Why did they not do it more thoroughly?

I just can't see it from their perspective, how they couldn't have this sort of thing sorted out. They need to win people over more than any other company.

 

[felbot]

oh god, then the constant threads on 4chan about the game actually being good may finally stop.

 

[Monsterfurby]

This is like watching a slow motion trainwreck unfold. Only it's worse because I actually bought the game and am one of the idiots who's trapped in the trainwreck.

Same here... It's a real mess, someone screwed up on an unimaginable scale. At the same time, I really dislike all the "EA broke Sim City, down with the evil empire" rhetoric that's being thrown around.

Here's hoping the "Evil Ampire" will fix this soon...

 

[DeadDodo]

I was really sad when I heard the problems, it would have been a day 1 buy for me, but luckily I held off for a few days.
But now I'm probably getting more entertainment out of this mess than if I actually played the game.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

You know EA's release of Sim City is not unlike how I used played Sim City 3000 back in the day. I'm half expecting EA's headquarters to be destroyed by space debris come tomorrow morning

 

[itsthesheppy]

A few more unmitigated disasters like this and maybe EA will rethink it's approach to game development and publishing. Maybe.

EA may be one of those companies so bloated and incompetent, however, that there actually isn't anyone to learn from this. How often does a huge company that fucks up all the time actually change things around for the better? In my estimation, the end of this road is the company just imploding.

 

[ViciousTide]

Never going to post or view this website again, because this Star Craft 2 ad blocks up 90% of my screen when trying to comment.

 

[snekadid]

"Stop telling people about our horribly broken game! It's hard to sweep this under a rug when people keep taking the tour!"

 

[Callate]

It's almost sad that an increasing amount of the criticism directed at EA could be filed not even under "this is a horrible way to treat your customers" but "this is a really bad idea that will come back and bite you in the ass." There's some bleed between the two, of course...

 

[ohnoitsabear]

The plus side to this mess is that it seems highly unlikely that EA is going to try always-on DRM again anytime soon. The SimCity launch has just been too much of a disaster. Hell, this may even encourage other companies to not do similar things in the future.

While it certainly sucks that loads of people can't effectively play something they paid sixty dollars for, I do think that SimCity's horrific launch will probably be good for the long-term, as it will probably reduce the amount of draconian DRM that companies use. And less draconian DRM is certainly good for the consumer.

 

[Gabanuka]

Oh God, this just gets better and better.

I mean sucks that people lost money but holy shit this is funny, EA have been completely wreaked by their own stupid decision.

The karma. It's delicious.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Here's my theory of what happened:

The online component actually is not purely DRM, but actually cloud processing (which is a completely new field for games) many of the game's internal calculations - like advertised. However, somewhere along the line someone within EA or Maxis or both grossly misrepresented the bandwidth need to either please their boss, save their own arse or keep the project afloat, leading to a complete mismanagement of server bandwidth provided versus what this ambitious technology would actually need.

 

[Longstreet]

Man, all these Simcity / EA news messages is like a gift that keeps on giving
Let's see what happens next.

I'm cooking up some popcorn, any takers?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

What do you mean, it's broken? I've been playing just fine ever since day one! I've got this big city and a subway system and avenues and -

What?

Oh, silly me. I've been playing SimCity 4!

Lawl.

 

[FEichinger]

The plus side to this mess is that it seems highly unlikely that EA is going to try always-on DRM again anytime soon. The SimCity launch has just been too much of a disaster. Hell, this may even encourage other companies to not do similar things in the future.

We saw how well that worked out with Diablo 3.

Man, all these Simcity / EA news messages is like a gift that keeps on giving
Let's see what happens next.

I'm cooking up some popcorn, any takers?

Ah, awesome, I'll have a bag!

 

[MiskWisk]

What do you mean, it's broken? I've been playing just fine ever since day one! I've got this big city and a subway system and avenues and -

What?

Oh, silly me. I've been playing SimCity 4!

Lawl.

I'll take you up on that offer.

OT: As pretty much everyone and their cat have already said, who did not see this happening? Maybe not at this scale but still...