SimCity returned today after a 10-year hiatus, and gamers were eager to dig in, prompting delays on Electronic Arts's Origin platform.
Some users who tried to download SimCity via Origin today encountered a "Not yet released" message. Earlier today, an EA rep said on the company's forum that there are two possible reasons for the delays: the game is actually not yet released in your country; or your credit card payment failed or was unable to be charged.
"We have also identified a very small number of North American players for which neither case applies and are investigating directly with Origin to resolve. We will continue to post updates in this thread as more information becomes available," EA said earlier today.
At this point, SimCity is - in theory - available via Origin in North America, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Russia. It will go live in Europe (except the U.K. and Ireland), Australia, and Japan on March 7 and New Zealand, South Africa, India, the U.K., Ireland, and Portugal on March 8.
EA suggested that those who might be having credit card issues contact customer service, but many of those on the forums complained about extremely long wait times. One player did manage to connect with support staff, though, and had this to say:
"Got into a support chat. The gist is that there is an issue and they are working on it. There is no ETA. It is not an issue with my account specifically," drdoak wrote. "Being from an IT background, this happens sometimes. It is always frustrating for users, but sometimes you really don't know what the ETA is until you're almost done fixing the issue."
In a separate thread, another EA rep apologized for the delay; "I just hope that once you have started playing, you can enjoy the game itself its fullest, despite this experience!" wrote Marcel Hatam, global community manager for Origin.
Those who are too peeved to wait can request a refund, Hatam said, "though we are currently still in the process of resolving this issue."
EA normally allows for pre-loads of games, as it did with Crysis 3 and Dead Space 3. "This didn't come together for SimCity unfortunately, for which I again apologize," Hatam said.
Additional updates will be posted to facebook.com/origininsider and @OriginInsider (general news) as well as @OriginStatus (outage and maintenance news).
Here at PCMag, Matthew Murray signed on at midnight and reported no difficulties or drops. For more, see his first look at SimCity and the slideshow above.
The game is available for the PC or via Origin for $59.99.
The SimCity franchise debuted in 1989, and EA's Maxis released SimCity 4 in 2003. A spin-off, SimCity Societies, was developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment and launched in 2007, but now, Maxis is bringing back the classic city-building game with SimCity.