Fans of the game SimCity are angry with Electronic Arts (EA) over the company's decision not to provide electronic refunds for the game.
EA announced the decision on Thursday March 7 through its Origin Twitter account, saying that it will not provide refunds, despite ongoing server problems.
"In general we do not offer refunds on digital download games," the company posted. It also gave a link to its policy. The company also clarified a rumor suggesting it would penalize users asking for a refund.
"We will not ban players for requesting refunds," EA tweeted.
Complaints with EA's server began on Tuesday March 5, when a new version of SimCity was released. The game requires an Internet connection to be played and players began to get frustrated when servers became overloaded.
Global Community Manager for Origin Marcel Hatam commented in EA's forums that upset players would have the ability to request a refund. EA revised the post, however, directing readers to a refund policy.
EA does offer a 14-day "unconditional guarantee" on physical products sold through the Origin store. However, those who downloaded the game are out of luck. European users get a "Cooling Off Period" whereby they can revoke their online purchase within 14 days.
EA has faced a strong backlash over the controversy. This has been particularly evident on Twitter.
"In General games don't fail so hard like SC has," tweeted Josh Creasy. "Maybe you should do the right thing and start giving store credit or refunds."
The controversy even had an effect on Amazon, forcing the company to stop selling the downloadable version of the game.
"This has been an exciting and challenging week for the team here at Maxis," Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis said in a statement. "We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and enthusiasm from our fans which has made it even more upsetting for us that technical issues have become more prominent in the last 24 hours."
