Then, on March 9, Bradshaw promised to spend 45 minutes answering all questions on Twitter using the hashtag #AskLucy. The previous night, EA had asked people to Tweet @SimCity using the hashtag #SimCity on its Facebook page prompting comments like, “Returned a sim game at GameStop and all the pretty displays for SimCity are gone.”
It looks as if the grasp of social media by those in charge is about as good as their ability to estimate server loads based solely on closed beta server gameplay, and not on pre-order metrics.
These are a sample of some of the more asked and least abusive questions asked ahead of time:
@simcity I’ve played and loved SimCity for 20 years without an online experience. Why is this experience no longer valid?#asklucy
— Greg Thelen (@gregthelen) March 9, 2013
#asklucy I’ve read there will be no offline patch. Please explain in your own words why you have not listened to the fanbase/loyal customers
— Daniel Ickler (@ZammyIckler) March 9, 2013
@simcity Will we see an increase in map size, once the server problems are resolved? #asklucy
— BeyondSims (@beyondsims) March 9, 2013
Dear Lucy: with most presales taking place on Origin, how we’re you guys not prepared when you knew the number of sales? #asklucy
— Tom Bridge (@tbridge) March 9, 2013
And here are a selection from the live tweet event itself, which acts as an exercise in disconnect between the actual questions asked (about 20+ a minute at a conservative guess) with the hashtag and the canned responses.
@simcity Why are you cherry picking the easiest questions instead of acknowledging the majority of your unhappy customers? #asklucy
— James Winder (@JamesWinder) March 9, 2013
@simcity How could you not anticipate server load on launch when you all your ads said “50 most anticipated games lists of 2013”#asklucy
— Jeff Arnold (@skankingfool) March 9, 2013
We have no intention of offlining SimCity any time soon but we’ll look into that aspart of our earning back your trust efforts.
— SimCity (@simcity) March 9, 2013
The head of @ea is answering your softball questions about farcical #simcity launch on the #asklucy hashtag right now.
— kai macmahon (@kaimac) March 9, 2013
Looks like #asklucy made it about halfway through her 45 minutes before she gave up. Yet they keep retweeting questions #simcity @simcity
— Ryan Schuetzler (@rschuetzler) March 9, 2013
In all fairness, EA is putting more servers online and sincerely trying to communicate with gamers by putting a public face on this whole affair, but it’s clearly too little, too late. The company is teasing with offering more information on March 18, which is probably when it should have released the finished game.
Meanwhile, over at Amazon, reviews have pushed the game down to 1 star. The most helpful review leads with this:
Guess what? If you’d love to experience the nonstop thrills and excitement of SimCity, then please remove $60 from your bank and promptly pay someone to kick you repeatedly in the friggin’ mouth.
The Change.org petition now has over 50,000 signatures.
Oh, the humanity, the Sim humanity.
Thanks for using my review Tim! I had forgot about writing that in a fog of red rage and Kraken Dark Rum. It pays to google yourself like a narcissistic weirdo.. sometimes..