SimCity getting free Offline / Singleplayer Mode soon

Jan 13, 2014

Is an Offline Mode” enough for you to purchase the game finally, or come back to it after so long?

The Sims 4 announced for a 2014 release

May 07, 2013

Maxis and Electronic Arts have announced that The Sims™ 4 is currently in development at The Sims Studio for release on PC and Mac in 2014. The Sims 4 celebrates the heart and soul of the Sims themselves, giving players a deeper connection with the most expressive, surprising and charming Sims ever in this single-player offline experience. The Sims 4 encourages players to personalize their world with new and intuitive tools while offering them the ability to effortlessly share their creativity with friends and fans.

The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around the world. Their continued devotion to the franchise ignites the fire of creativity of the team at The Sims Studio, driving them to continually improve and innovate on one of the world’s most popular simulation games that has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.

As a thank you for the support of the more than 30 million fans that share and discuss stories about The Sims across global social networks, a special VIP briefing was held where several of the world’s top fans were amongst the first to hear the news about The Sims 4. This select group was the first in the world to hear from the creative team for The Sims 4, and they will receive special access to the development team as the game progresses.

Restart Origin to begin Redeeming your Free EA Game

Mar 18, 2013

In an update to today’s earlier story of Maxis being responsible and owning up to their mistakes regarding the launch of SimCity, they are now offering a free game. Thanks to my friend, and friend of the site, JV, he has simply restarted Origin and it prompted him to pick a free game. They did say this would happen in a rollout manner, so if you don’t have these screens, do not worry. It will be coming.

Step 1:

Relaunch Origin, and you should be greeted with this…

Step 2:

Choose your game:

Maxis reveals the available Origin titles to redeem for the SimCity trouble

Mar 18, 2013

Our SimCity Mayors are incredibly important to the team at Maxis. We sincerely apologize for the difficulties at launch and hope to make it up to you with a free PC game download from Origin.

Starting today, every player that has activated their copy of SimCity will receive an email that will give directions on how to redeem this offer, and you can also find more information on our FAQ. We’ll be opening up the redemption portal country-by-country so some of you may see it a little sooner than others. The portal will be live worldwide for everyone to select their game by March 22. We don’t want any of you to miss out on your free game, so please note that you must register your copy of SimCity before March 26, 2013 at 06:59 AM GMT and you must claim your free game by March 31, 2013 at 06.59 GMT.

At Maxis, our studio values dictate that we innovate and create something that is quirky, complex and challenging. Sometimes this bites us in the butt, but our servers are green and we’re seeing record numbers of players all online and having a great time.

Here is the list of games that you will be able to choose from once you are able to redeem. It’s a great list of games across the whole EA portfolio, so pick one and add it to your Origin library on us!

• 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

We’re getting great feedback from our fans and know that many of you are having fun and exploring this whole new expression of SimCity. We’re humbled by your patience and passion for the game. Thanks for building something very special with us, together.

Lucy Bradshaw of Maxis gives an update about SimCity

Mar 10, 2013

Yesterday, Lucy Bradshaw, Senior Vice President at Maxis, live tweeted from 12:00-12:45pm to discuss and answer questions about SimCity and what went wrong. Anyone could tweet to @SimCity and use hashtag #AskLucy to make sure they got their questions answered. This is the official statement Lucy posted, after the event.

UPDATE #4:

I’m happy to report that the core problem with getting in and having a greatSimCity experience is almost behind us. Our players have been able to connect to their cities in the game for nearly 8 million hours of gameplay time and we’ve reduced game crashes by 92% from day one.

A combination of optimizing our server architecture and response times, deploying these enhancements on both a series of new and the original servers and issuing a few critical client updates has achieved getting virtually everyoneinto the game and, once in, having a great time building cities and sharing regions.

I had hoped to issue an “All-Clear” tonight, but there are still some elements coming together. Tonight and tomorrow we’ll be monitoring each server and gameplay metrics to ensure that the service remains strong and game is playing great. We need a few more days of data before we can assure you that the problem is completely solved and the game is running at 100 percent.

The good news is that tens of thousands of new players are streaming into the game every day and the confidence our fans have shown is truly humbling. I can’t begin to explain the way a development team feels when something you’re proud of is threatened at launch. Our biggest fear was that people who love this franchise would be scared off by bad reviews about the connectivity issues.

But you put your faith in us. You bought the game with the understanding that we’d quickly fix the server issues. For that support – that incredible commitment from our fans — we are deeply grateful. As the general manager of Maxis, I want you to know that we cherish your faith in us, and the love you’ve shown for this franchise.

Thank you very much.

ORIGINAL / UPDATE #1:

Here’s a quick update on the problems we were experiencing with SimCity – and a little something extra for people who bought the game.

The server issues which began at launch have improved significantly as we added more capacity. But some people are still experiencing response and stability problems that we’re working fast to address.

So what went wrong? The short answer is: a lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta.

OK, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. In the last 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. It’s working – the number of people who have gotten in and built cities has improved dramatically. The number of disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.

So we’re close to fixed, but not quite there. I’m hoping to post another update this weekend to let everyone know that the launch issues are behind us.

Something Special for Your Trouble
The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets. The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience. So we’re not going to rest until we’ve fixed the remaining server issues.

And to get us back in your good graces, we’re going to offer you a free PC download game from the EA portfolio. On March 18, SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email telling them how to redeem their free game.

I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.

SimCity is a GREAT game and the people who made it are incredibly proud. Hang in there – we’ll be providing more updates throughout the weekend.

I think Maxis is on their way to earn back the trust of their customers, and while it may not do much to help save “EA”s face, it will make considerable improvement overall. As of today, the servers have been more stable and I’ve seen less complaints. These guys are working around the clock to ensure a proper experience, things are getting better.

Maxis Debuts Intro Video for SimCity

Jan 09, 2013

SIMCITY goes Multicity in New Strategy Trailer

Dec 11, 2012

In October, Maxis debuted the first all-gameplay strategy video where Lead Designer Stone Librande gave you the first look at the inner workings ofSimCity.  You not only learned that roads are the foundation of a successful city, but you also learned the basic infrastructures needed to start growing a city. When Stone left off, he was just beginning to build out a tourism city using casinos. Today he’s back and he’s showing you some advanced strategies for growing his casino city using Multi-city play – one of the crowning achievements in SimCity.

With Multi-city play, you no longer need to provide all the required city infrastructures in one city. Build a police station and share your growing police force with the greater region. Have your friend build a fire station in a neighbouring city and soon you’ll see their fire trucks putting out flames in your city. Just like the world around you, neighbouring cities support each other through shared resources. These are just a few examples of the Multi-city play that you’ll see today in Stone’s gameplay strategy video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVUO1cklon0]

SimCity confirmed to release on March 5th, 2013

Oct 24, 2012

Today, EA confirmed that SimCity will be available in stores on March 8, 2013.  SimCity is the ultimate city building simulation game, offering both veteran fans and new players a fun, dynamic experience, underpinned by GlassBox, the most complex simulation engine in its class. If you haven’t checked out the recently gameplay videos, or even the GlassBox demo videos from around E3 time, I highly recommend checking them out. SimCity is looking to blow all other city games out of the water so far.

SimCity will be available on PC and MAC, with an expected age rating of ESRB of E10+. To stay up-to-date on the latest regarding SimCity, and to pre-order now, please visit www.SimCity.com.