Skip to main content
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The Games, Movies, TV & Comics You Love
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Games
  • TV
  • Movies
  • Hardware
  • Video
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Deals
  • More
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X
    • Nintendo Switch
    • Nintendo Switch 2
    • PC
    • Platforms
    • Tabletop Gaming
    • Comics
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • SFX
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
    • Newsletters
    • About us
    • Features
Total Film
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
Subscribe now
Trending
  • Gamescom 2025 schedule
  • Gamescom
  • Battlefield 6
  • New Games for 2025
Don't miss these
The Sims 4 screenshot showing a young woman with shoulder-length wavy brown hair and an academic green coat, her expression surprised
The Sims Stop us if you've heard this before, but a new Sims 4 update bringing long-awaited features has broken the game once more: "Bravo EA"
MindsEye
Third Person Shooters Sponsored streams for former GTA dev's new game MindsEye aren't going to plan - sponsor apparently cancels one stream and another creator actually laughs while promoting it
MindsEye
Action Games MindsEye dev says new performance hotfix is "the first in a series of patches," but with 40% positive reviews and just over 500 players on Steam, it would take a miracle to turn this train around
Dune: Awakening
Survival Games Dune: Awakening launched to "Mostly Negative" reviews thanks to server frustrations, but it seems fans of the survival MMO are content now: "I don't hate it"
Baldur's Gate 3 screenshot showing Astarion, a pale male elf with short curly white hair and red eyes, looking over his shoulder with a smirk on his face
Baldur's Gate 33 hotfixes later, the infamous Baldur's Gate 3 bug Larian said it "probably" squashed lives on, and the RPG's fans can't help but keep rooting for it: "I don’t want them to fix this particular bug"
Mindseye
Action Games After a rocky launch, MindsEye is officially this year's worst-rated game according to Metacritic, ranking below 183 other games
Mindseye
Action Games "MindsEye definitely needed a delay": GTA 5 veteran's new action game is here with 'Mixed' Steam reviews and "bugs galore," as players share spaghettified NPCs and cars with lives of their own
A Helldiver waves a flag while looking down at a battlefield in a screenshot from Helldivers 2's Masters of Ceremony trailer.
Third Person Shooters Helldivers 2 players overwhelmingly vote to rename a city "GUN," Arrowhead CEO says he hoped for "something else" but "the people have spoken"
Mindseye
Action Games MindsEye is getting 3 hotfixes this month to remedy its rough launch as devs explain those viral bugs "were caused by a memory leak" that "impacted roughly 1 in 10 of our players"
Battlefield 6 multiplayer screenshot
Battlefield Battlefield 6 fans won't stop dunking on the beta's teeny tiny maps, especially after Dice's lead producer promised them that "large maps exist"
pixelated fantasy characters in a wooden room
Roguelike Games Indie devs in shambles but "still laughing" after translation error turns their dungeon roguelite into "Crap Dungeon" on Steam: "Please give our game a try, I'm hoping it's not actually crap"
The Sims 4 Vampires
The Sims New Sims 4 update prepares the game for fairies but breaks things for another occult, leaving all my vampires starving as every Sim is wrongly marked as "pregnant"
MindsEye
Action Games MindsEye's launch "hasn't been without its challenges," says ex-GTA lead's studio, and the action game is set to get a "series of updates aimed at enhancing your experience"
Jurassic World Evolution 3 key art showing a T-rex roaring with baby T-rexs standing in front
Simulation Games Finally, Jurassic World Evolution 3 devs have successfully been bullied out of using generative AI: "Thanks for your feedback on this topic"
Donkey Kong Bananza screenshot shows DK looking shocked, with his hands in the air and eyes popping out of his head.
Donkey Kong Nintendo is probably regretting those Switch 2 mouse controls as players flock to Donkey Kong Bananza's artist mode to create penises and other cursed sculptures
  1. Games
  2. City Builder
  3. Sim City

SimCity's botched launch: The best jokes and memes we've seen so far

Features
By Matt Bradford published 9 March 2013

Finding humor in SimCity's DRM distaster

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Failure to launch

Failure to launch

111 best gaming memes

about the problems

We can't solve your SimCity woes, but we can help you kill some time while you wait for that server to connect. Introducing our gallery of SimCity jokes, memes, and other images from the botched launch (as recruited from the likes of memegenerator, Reddit (r/SimCity), quickmeme, etc...).

Page 1 of 37
Page 1 of 37

Page 2 of 37
Page 2 of 37

Page 3 of 37
Page 3 of 37

Page 4 of 37
Page 4 of 37

Page 5 of 37
Page 5 of 37

Page 6 of 37
Page 6 of 37

Page 7 of 37
Page 7 of 37

Page 8 of 37
Page 8 of 37

Page 9 of 37
Page 9 of 37

Page 10 of 37
Page 10 of 37

Page 11 of 37
Page 11 of 37

Page 12 of 37
Page 12 of 37

Page 13 of 37
Page 13 of 37

Page 14 of 37
Page 14 of 37

Page 15 of 37
Page 15 of 37

Page 16 of 37
Page 16 of 37

Page 17 of 37
Page 17 of 37

Page 18 of 37
Page 18 of 37

Page 19 of 37
Page 19 of 37

Page 20 of 37
Page 20 of 37

Page 21 of 37
Page 21 of 37

Page 22 of 37
Page 22 of 37

Page 23 of 37
Page 23 of 37

Page 24 of 37
Page 24 of 37

Page 25 of 37
Page 25 of 37

Page 26 of 37
Page 26 of 37

Page 27 of 37
Page 27 of 37

Page 28 of 37
Page 28 of 37

Page 29 of 37
Page 29 of 37

Page 30 of 37
Page 30 of 37

Page 31 of 37
Page 31 of 37

Page 32 of 37
Page 32 of 37

Page 33 of 37
Page 33 of 37

Page 34 of 37
Page 34 of 37

Page 35 of 37
Page 35 of 37

Page 36 of 37
Page 36 of 37
...reticulating splines...

...reticulating splines...

refund denials

Angry? Amused? Ready to give up on gaming? Let us know in the comments...

For more SimCity launch news and opinions, read EA, your SimCity is broke, SimCity marketing campaigns suspended, and our SimCity review in-progress.

Page 37 of 37
Page 37 of 37
CATEGORIES
PC Gaming Platforms
PRODUCTS
Sim City SimCity
Matt Bradford
Social Links Navigation

Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries. 

See more PC Gaming Features
Read more
The Sims 4 screenshot showing a young woman with shoulder-length wavy brown hair and an academic green coat, her expression surprised
Stop us if you've heard this before, but a new Sims 4 update bringing long-awaited features has broken the game once more: "Bravo EA"
MindsEye
Sponsored streams for former GTA dev's new game MindsEye aren't going to plan - sponsor apparently cancels one stream and another creator actually laughs while promoting it
MindsEye
MindsEye dev says new performance hotfix is "the first in a series of patches," but with 40% positive reviews and just over 500 players on Steam, it would take a miracle to turn this train around
Baldur's Gate 3 screenshot showing Astarion, a pale male elf with short curly white hair and red eyes, looking over his shoulder with a smirk on his face
33 hotfixes later, the infamous Baldur's Gate 3 bug Larian said it "probably" squashed lives on, and the RPG's fans can't help but keep rooting for it: "I don’t want them to fix this particular bug"
Dune: Awakening
Dune: Awakening launched to "Mostly Negative" reviews thanks to server frustrations, but it seems fans of the survival MMO are content now: "I don't hate it"
Mindseye
After a rocky launch, MindsEye is officially this year's worst-rated game according to Metacritic, ranking below 183 other games
Latest in Sim City
SimCopter
Unreleased SimCopter 64 build turns up over 25 years later
EA's shutting down Maxis Emeryville, home of SimCity and Spore
SimCity owners getting the offline mode they (thought they) want(ed)
SimCitys Cities of Tomorrow expansion is part Demolition Man, part Judge Dredd
Maxis is 'exploring' offline mode for SimCity
SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow expansion pack coming in November
Latest in Features
KPop Demon Hunters still of Rumi and the blue demon tiger
I can't wait for a KPop Demon Hunters sequel, but I'm still not convinced Netflix is actually going to learn anything from the original's success
Peacemaker holding the bloody corpse of his own alt-reality doppelganger
15 years ago James Gunn made the darkest superhero movie I've ever seen, but one scene from Peacemaker season 2 might have just topped it
Key art for Planet of Lana 2 shows Lana and Mui looking out at a landscape.
I can't get enough of the cute cat-like companion in this puzzle platformer, even if some block pushing is a little business as usual
Delicious in Dungeon
Delicious in Dungeon season 2 release date speculation, story, and everything else we know so far
The Outer Worlds 2 screenshot showing someone holding a two-handed weapon beneath a starry sky
"The shorthand is New Vegas in space": The Outer Worlds 2 directors double down on Fallout comparisons, and Obsidian isn't worried about setting expectations too high: "It's our pedigree"
Kirby and the Forgotten Land Star-Crossed World screenshot of Kirby looking up at a little starry character with Astronomer Waddle Dee (who wears a beret with star decals) and the blue chinchilla-like companion Elfilin
Just when I thought Kirby and the Forgotten Land couldn't get any better, Star-Crossed World on Switch 2 proved me wrong
  1. The Prince runs along a bridge across a pretty pond in The Rogue Prince of Persia
    1
    The Rogue Prince of Persia review: "I roguelike but don't roguelove this freerunner – there's just not enough to stand out"
  2. 2
    Shinobi: Art of Vengeance review: "So close to being to a pitch-perfect revival of a classic series, but just can't quite line up the killing blow"
  3. 3
    Fate of the Fellowship is the most anticipated board game of the year, and it's a thing of absolute genius
  4. 4
    This is the perfect cozy board game for Fall with its compelling mix of Redwall and city-building
  5. 5
    Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater review: "Little surprised me in this rigid remake, but it's still one of my favorite games of all time"
  1. Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic in The Fantastic Four: First Steps
    1
    The Fantastic Four: First Steps review: "An occasionally thrilling heroic adventure that sits safely within a B-tier MCU range"
  2. 2
    Superman review: "A triumphant reinvention and a promising start for the DCU"
  3. 3
    Jurassic World Rebirth Review: "An unscary sequel that needed a little more time in amber"
  4. 4
    M3GAN 2.0 review: "A bold sequel with a slightly underwhelming conclusion"
  5. 5
    28 Years Later Review: "Enough terror, splatter and suspense to satisfy”
  1. John Cena as Peacemaker holds a gun to the head of a different John Cena as Peacemaker in Peacemaker season 2.
    1
    Peacemaker season 2 review: "Darker and sadder than the first year, but there's still a lot of fun to be had with the 11th Street Kids."
  2. 2
    Wednesday season 2 part 1 review: "Complex and exciting but weighed down by too many subplots"
  3. 3
    Alien: Earth review: "Arguably the franchise's strongest outing since James Cameron's Aliens"
  4. 4
    King of the Hill season 14 review: "Hank Hill himself has evolved into a much more open and accepting person"
  5. 5
    Eyes of Wakanda review: "A creative premise shortchanged by the runtime and Marvel bloat"

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...