Home » News » “Non critical” features disabled, more servers being added to SimCity as EA tries (and fails) to keep up with demand
simcity1
News

“Non critical” features disabled, more servers being added to SimCity as EA tries (and fails) to keep up with demand

It’s safe to say that yesterday’s SimCity launch in Australia and New Zealand mirrored launches in other regions in the world… in that it wasn’t very good.

Customers who’d purchased SimCity hopped onto their computers yesterday only to find that too many people were trying to use too little servers. Since the game requires always-on internet and access to EA’s servers, gamers were finding they could not actually play the game they’d bought.

Electronic Arts has outlined how they’re planning to rectify this issue. First, a hotfix is being deployed that will disable some “non-critical gameplay features” in-game, said a Community Manager on the EA forums. Said features seem to be in-game leaderboards, achievements and region filters, though EA has said that disabling these items will “in no way affect your core gameplay experience.”

Additionally, Senior Producer Kip Katsarellis has taken to the EA forums to confirm that EA and Maxis are “deploying more servers over the coming two days which will alleviate many of the ongoing issues” that gamers are experiencing.

“We are also paying close attention to all the bug reports we are receiving from our fans. We’ve already pushed several updates in the last few days. Our live ops team is working 24/7 to resolve issues and ensure that bug fixes roll into the game as quickly as possible,” Katsarellis continued.

In the wake of these server issues, Amazon.com has currently suspended sales of the digital download version of SimCity after receiving many complaints.

What are you thoughts on the current state of SimCity?


This article may contain affiliate links, meaning we could earn a small commission if you click-through and make a purchase. Stevivor is an independent outlet and our journalism is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.

About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Stevivor.com, the country’s leading independent video games outlet. Steve arrived in Australia back in 2001 on what was meant to be a three-month working holiday before deciding to emigrate and, eventually, becoming a citizen.

Stevivor is a combination of ‘Steve’ and ‘Survivor’, which made more sense back in 2001 when Jeff Probst was up in Queensland. The site started as Steve’s travel blog before transitioning over into video games.

Aside from video games, Steve has interests in hockey and Star Trek, playing the former and helping to cover video games about the latter on TrekMovie.com. By day, Steve works as the communications manager of the peak body representing Victorians as they age.