14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher Electronic Arts announces that the much criticized SimCity has managed to generate more than 1.1 million in sales since it was launched two weeks ago on the North American market.
54 percent of the copies sold were linked to digital distribution outlets and 44% of them were delivered directly via Electronic Arts’ own Origin service.
Despite the big server-based problems that were present when SimCity was launched, the number of players who went online has allowed Origin to reach a new record of 1.3 million concurrent players.
EA also says that 15 million play hours have been logged into SimCity and 5.7 million cities have been founded, with close to 800 million building plopped down and enough roads and railroad tracks used to circle the real-world Earth 40,000 times.
Peter Moore, the chief operations officer at Electronic Arts, is quoted by VG247 as saying, “SimCity had a great weekend with sales strong across both North America and Europe, adding to overwhelming demand at launch that has us tracking well beyond expectations for the game.”
He adds, “SimCity is one of the storied brands in gaming, and Maxis delivered a game re-envisioned and engineered for the online age.”
Those who buy and activate SimCity until March 25 will also get access to a free video game from Electronic Arts as compensation for the problems that they had to deal with.
At the moment, the game servers are stable and have enough capacity for all those interested.
Right now, discussion has moved on to the always-connected nature of SimCity, with one modder claiming that it would be easy for developer Maxis to make the entire game playable without an Internet connection.
Developer Lucy Bradshaw says that the move would require significant engineering work and is not part of her team’s vision.