SimCity (2013) launched on March 5 in North America to positive pre-release press, yet the widespread release of the popular game was met with technical problems that rendered the game unplayable to nearly all participants.

SimCity is a popular franchise that is characteristically developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts, and until the most recent installment, was a very popular city-building simulator.

The technical problems that have plagued the first week of release include the game crashing and many people being unable to connect to the game’s constant online service.

“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,” said Lucy Bradshaw, general manager of Maxis, when asked about the problems the game currently faces.

Bradshaw continued, “Ok, we agree, that was dumb, but we are committed to fixing it. Within 48 hours we increased server capacity by 120 percent. And it is 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.”

Bradshaw finished out the statement by noting how, although people were undoubtedly burned by the plight the game saw, all was not lost: “we’re going to offer customers 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,” she said.

Luckily for retailers the makers of the game ironed out all the kinks just in time.

“We were lucky that EA offered some form of compensation, or we would’ve had every copy returned, and not just half of them,” said GameStop assistant manager Kevin Thomas about Maxis’ way of winning back clients.

BestBuy stores were also hit hard by the questionable success of the game’s launch, according to Raul Rodriguez, communications major at Bucks and Best Buy employee. “People kept buying it before the official street date, but the game kept crashing and a lot of people were mad the SimCity didn’t work,” said the 20-year-old from Bristol.

Much of the controversy surrounding the launch of SimCity stems from the pressure of EA to use an always online digital rights management in order to combat piracy. This always online DRM would force players to be constantly connected to the servers, which overloaded the servers in the beginning of the game’s lifecycle.

Problems like these have caused many to argue that the always online DRM will lead to the beginning of the downfall of the video game industry.

“Always online DRM is a huge factor that is causing the downfall of the videogame industry. Look at what happened with Diablo III at launch; the game was plagued by unfair judgments because of a developer’s weak decision (to utilize always online DRM). SimCity is in big trouble, and it may be impossible at this point for EA to bounce back,” said Mark Sullivan, 19, music major from Philadelphia.

Only time will tell if this new feature will lead to a drop in video game sales.

SimCity is available for retail purchase, or digital download through EA’s digital distribution service, “Origin.City”