SimCity shifts over million copies

Despite being plagued with more issues than Lindsay Lohan, SimCity has reportedly sold 1.1 million copies in just two weeks.

That’s massive, especially considering reps from Maxis and EA both spouted what could speculatively be called lies, and at the very least alternate visions of the truth; especially when it was revealed by a modder that the game could be played flawlessly online with just a simple change to the game’s code.

That’s right, while everyone was listening attentively to those behind the game saying there was no way the game could run without online support, some guy modded it to do it by simply changing a couple of lines of code.

“In fact, it actually improves the game in some ways,” the modder told Techdirt.

“City populations are actually tracked correctly and you can edit outside of your city boundaries. Those additional edits are also saved when you reconnect.”

Needless to say, the gaming community was pretty annoyed by this whole “it suddenly works online perfectly” thing, so EA has leapt into damage control and started offering everyone free stuff.

“Our SimCity Mayors are incredibly important to the team at Maxis,” reads a post on the EA website. “We sincerely apologise for the difficulties at launch and hope to make it up to you with a free PC game download from Origin.”

So, if you did buy SimCity, you can get a free download of one of these games: Battlefield 3, Bejeweled 3, Dead Space 3, Mass Effect 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Need for Speed Most Wanted, Plants vs. Zombies or SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition.

Lucy Bradshaw, general manager of Maxis and a name that has become synonymous with SimCity after a series of blog posts where it seemed she was lying to us, says it’s a move of good faith.

“I know that’s a little contrived – kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy. But we feel bad about what happened.

We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when ‘SimCity’ is running at 100 per cent.” That’s right, they’ll give you some fairly old games to keep the deal sweet.

In some ways it is a nice gesture, especially considering the game has actually sold extremely well and been really popular.

Has EA supremely taken the piss with this entire launch, having a disastrous day at the office and still managing to sell more than a million copies? Let us know what you think in the comments.