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How long will SimCity be supported?

If the game is dependent on EA's servers, is there a published figure on how long they will keep them running? When the servers go offline at the game's EOL, what happens to the saved cities? Does the game become permanently unplayable?

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This is a question for which the answer can by only speculation, as our FAQ states, questions about Speculation of the future of the industry and of upcoming releases are prohibited. – Ilya Melamed Mar 13 at 9:06
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Concur, although I'd personally be delighted if someone were to corner an EA official and makes them give a straight answer to this particular question... – Shadur Mar 13 at 9:07
While speculative, and hence not an answer - this "shutdown notice" from EA mentions a metric of less than 1% of all peak online players across all EA titles, used as a justification for shutting down games. You can see the games getting the ax are mostly 3 years old or greater, but given the problems with SimCity launch who knows how long it would take to hit that 1% mark. You can figure once it gets that low they will pull the plug - they are EA after all. – EBongo Mar 13 at 11:20

closed as off topic by Ilya Melamed, Blem, Shadur, kotekzot, Private Pansy Mar 13 at 9:53

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There is no official support period for servers that is known, at least for now. When the servers go offline, the game is unplayable as for now. Maybe EA will release offline patch at the end of the game servers lifetime.

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Don't hold your breath. Maxis has been quoted as saying an "offline mode" would take "significant engineering". – EBongo Mar 13 at 11:25
Yep, I'm aware of the problems with "offline mode", so that's a big maybe. – Petr Abdulin Mar 13 at 13:34
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“It wouldn’t take very much engineering to give you a limited single-player game without all the nifty region stuff.” rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/12/simcity-server-not-necessary – David B Mar 13 at 13:54
Of course... the "nifty region stuff" was supposed to be the main selling point of the game. That and the amazing (oops) Glassbox game engine. – user43524 Mar 13 at 17:54

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