If you were even casually keeping an eye on general videogame news from early March, you would have known that players of EA and Maxis’ latest city building simulation were having a bit of trouble trying to actually play the game due to much higher than anticipated demand for the always-online title.
Now over two weeks since launch, SimCity has become infinitely more stable to play, and in that time the game has gone on to sell over one million units worldwide.
In two weeks, SimCity has managed to sell 1.1 million copies, 54 percent of which were via digital download, making this the biggest SimCity launch of all time.
“SimCity is one of the storied brands in gaming, and Maxis delivered a game re-envisioned and engineered for the online age,” said EA’s COO, Peter Moore.
In addition, SimCity players have helped set a new record for concurrent users on EA’s digital distribution service, Origin, with 1.3 million players (“and rising”) online at the same time. Here are some more stats broken down for us by EA:
- 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.
After offering the download of a free game for any troubles you may have experienced while trying to play SimCity, Maxis has additionally tried to assuage fans by promising that the studio “continues to enhance both the core SimCity game and the online service infrastructure,” while server capacity has been increased by 400 percent, optimised server response times have been improved by 40 times, and fixes have been sent out to address players direct concerns.
Are you playing SimCity? Which game from the line-up of free EA titles will you be claiming off of Origin starting next week?
