SimCity may have been a debacle that even EA acknowledges, but it was still SimCity, and as such, sold an incredible lot of copies based on nothing but the brand name. Indeed, as it turns out, it has sold 2 million copies since March, reports VG247.
EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau acknowledged the rough launch, however, when discussing the numbers.
“In retrospect, our biggest takeaway is that we are lucky that SimCity has an enormous number of loyal fans,” he said. “That first week after launch was really rough — an experience nobody wants to live through again.
“Since then, we’ve sold more than 2 million units, and the number of people logging in and playing is holding steady. SimCity is a success. However, underestimating demand in the first month was a major miss.
“We hope that the game and the service we’ve provided since then meets the fans’ high standards.”
Of course, it’s worth remembering that 1.2 million of those were sold at launch, much before the launch controversies mired the game, and that only 800,000 copies have therefore sold since.
However, it is to be hoped that the (still) high sales numbers of the game do not teach other publishers the wrong lesson that always online DRM is something that consumers will accept. EA for its part seems to have learned that lesson the hard way. For now.
