SimCity has sold more than 1.1 million units in the first two weeks of its release, EA revealed today. This makes it the biggest SimCity launch of all time. But big sales numbers led to big problems as SimCity's launch suffered from server issues, preventing players from accessing the always-online required game for a majority of its launch week. Oddly enough, 54% of the game's sales have been the digital versions of the game, downloaded directly through EA's often-criticized Origin service.
EA boasted, "in the last two weeks, [Maxis] have increased server capacity by more than 400%, optimized server response times by 40 times, and deployed fixes to address players' direct feedback on game performance." Despite the setbacks, SimCity managed some impressive statistics, which EA shared with us:
- SimCity players have logged more than 15 million hours of online gameplay.
- More than 5.7 million original cities have been created since launch.
- More than 780 million buildings have been built.
- SimCity mayors to date have built enough road and railroad tracks to circle the globe more than 40,000 times.
The server issues appear to be over, as Maxis has turned its attention towards fixing game-breaking bugs, like the flawed traffic logic. EA and Maxis are also on the defensive from constant attacks by modders claiming it is possible to play SimCity as an offline single-player experience — a feature Maxis recently admitted was possible, but nixed due to design choice.
Also revealed today, were eight EA games given to SimCity players as an apology for the launch-week troubles. Those who have registered their copy of SimCity can opt to download one of EA's eight PC titles, including Battlefield 3, Dead Space 3, and Mass Effect 3, for absolutely no cost.
