For the first time in its history, the popular society-building game SimCity is requiring users to be connected to the internet in order to play. It has been 10 years since the last edition came out, and so far the results have been far from stellar.
SimCity 5 was released on March 5 and began experiencing connection and server issues immediately. There have been widespread complaints of users' inability to play the game when they desire, some having to wait 30 minutes or more just to connect.
In response to the abysmal debut of this latest version of SimCity, on March 7th the online retailer Amazon halted all sales of SimCity 5.
"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," reads a note on Amazon's website.
There has been a large amount of controversy surrounding the game's release ever since it was first disclosed that SimCity would require online play. The video game's maker, Electronic Arts (EA), justified the move as an attempt to curb piracy of the game, but immediately many of its loyal followers started voicing concerns over possible disconnection issues and lag. It appears their concerns were well-founded.
The game has been so poorly received that it has even been subject to the wrath of celebrities. Chris Kluwe, punter for the Minnesota Vikings and self-described gamer, has recently written a scathing online article on SimCity5.
"Don't get me wrong, the game itself is great. When it works, that is. And oh boy, does it hate working," he notes at one point.
Kluwe continues: "At the time of writing this piece, SimCity 5 has been active for almost 62 hours. Of those 62 hours, I've been able to log in for around ten. Of those ten, four consisted of massive latency issues and corrupted games, so (quick calculation here), I've had access to the actual game for maybe 10 percent of the time I've had it. EA's servers are, to put it bluntly, utterly bug[redacted], and there's no option to play the game offline."
Amazon has not yet said when they will start selling SimCity5 again, though the smart money says not until EA has fixed the majority of the issues that have plagued it thus far. At prices upwards of $79.99 for the deluxe edition, it's safe to say that future consumers will be very hesitant to purchase until the SimCity franchise can prove itself yet again.
