The SimCity development team at Maxis have issued a bold statement. Since day one, their efforts have resulted in a 92% drop in game crashes, which has resulted (we're told) in more than eight million hours of total play time to date. That...that's a lot. But there's still no offline mode. In fact, Lucy Bradshaw, General Manager for Maxis, has flat out stated it would not be possible to do so. Going on to add that, if such a thing were ever possible, it would be a massive undertaking that is currently outside of their capabilities.

"The game was designed for MP, we sim the entire region on the server so this is just not possible. We have no intention of offlining SimCity any time soon but we'll look into that as part of our earning back your trust efforts. Hey, this is on Maxis. EA does not force design upon us. We own it, we are working 24/7 to fix it, and we are making progress."

Kudos for taking responsibility for this, but I remain sceptical that EA had no influence over the end game decisions. But regarding those fixes, she later wrote:

"I'm happy to report that the core problem with getting in and having a great SimCity experience is almost behind us. I had hoped to issue an 'All-Clear' tonight, but there are still some elements coming together. Tonight and tomorrow we'll be monitoring each server and gameplay metrics to ensure that the service remains strong and game is playing great. We need a few more days of data before we can assure you that the problem is completely solved and the game is running at 100 percent."

So what do you all make of this? Comments below.