Gamers have reported long queues to play, bugs and other glitches since SimCity launched on 5 March. The company said the way it had set up the launch had been "dumb" and that it "really feels bad" about the way gamers had suffered.
As compensation, all those who bought SimCity will be offered a free Electronics Arts PC game this month. Since the game launched, the online computers that co-ordinate play have been regularly overwhelmed.
Many gamers reported waiting 30 minutes or more before they could start to construct a city and said the game was sluggish once they were playing. Others said it often crashed or was slow to respond to changes.
The troubles led online store Amazon to briefly suspend sales of the download version of the game.
In a blogpost, Lucy Bradshaw, general manager for SimCity, said the way Electronics Arts (EA) and Maxis, the studio that created the game, had set up the servers had contributed to the problems.
Unlike all other versions of SimCity, the latest requires gamers to remain online while they play, as each city they construct sits on a chunk of virtual territory shared with other players.
Source: BBC News
