You may or may not have been keeping up with the news about the most recent SimCity, where downtime was rampant and game functions where cut to help alleviate the issue. The long and short of it all is that people were/are upset with Maxis/EA’s decision to make the game an “always on” affair after servers couldn’t keep up with launch demand. Today, EA is trying to placate the frothing masses with their choice of a free game.

On March 22nd, EA will make available the ability to choose one of eight titles on the Origin store. So long as you take the time to register your copy of SimCity “before March 25, 2013 at 11:59 PM PDT,” you will be in. This choice has to be made “by March 30, 2013 at 11:59PM PDT,” though, so choose quick.

Our SimCity Mayors are incredibly important to the team at Maxis. We sincerely apologize for the difficulties at launch and hope to make it up to you with a free PC game download from Origin.

At Maxis, our studio values dictate that we innovate and create something that is quirky, complex and challenging. Sometimes this bites us in the butt, but our servers are green and we’re seeing record numbers of players all online and having a great time.

The titles given actually aren’t too bad, but it is rather funny that one of the offering is SimCity 4.

  • Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition)
  • Bejeweled 3
  • Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition)
  • Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition)
  • Medal of Honor Warfighter (Standard Edition)
  • Need For Speed Most Wanted (Standard Edition)
  • Plants vs. Zombies
  • SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition

So there you have it. Sometimes it pays to buy a broken game because you might get a free game in the process. Oh, the world that we live in!