Another hour, another chapter in SimCity's troubled saga. This time around, Polygon (opens in new tab) received a message sent by EA to its marketing affiliates requesting that they "please stop actively promoting the game" until the ongoing server issues clear up.
"To be clear, we are continuing to payout commissions on all SimCity sales that are referred, however we are requesting that you please stop actively promoting the game," EA's email reads. "We will notify you as soon as the SimCity marketing campaigns have been resumed and our promotional links are once again live." EA has also "deactivated all SimCity text links and creative" that its outreach partners use to promote games.
It's difficult to imagine what's next for the beleaguered publisher and Maxis after the launch servers were quickly overwhelmed (opens in new tab) and SimCity's ongoing infrastructure problems forced the company to disable "non-critical" mechanics (opens in new tab) which in turn led to further community backlash (opens in new tab) . Sometimes, I wish life's problems could be solved just by plopping down a few more parks.
