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  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...).

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...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.

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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"
 
 
Hollow Knight
Steam and the Switch eShop are down, or at least struggling, the very second Hollow Knight: Silksong has launched, and you couldn't write better chaos
 
 
The Sims 4 Adventure Awaits
New Sims 4 Adventure Awaits expansion features "a really crappy design choice" fans wish wasn't intentional on EA's part: "This has got to be a bug, right?"
 
 
Battlefield 6 screenshot displaying soldiers creeping through a building in the dark, with night vision illuminating their silhouettes
"They did not want to allow this to happen": Battlefield 6 lead says the controversial Battlefield 2042, which once had just 21% positive Steam reviews, even disappointed its devs
 
 
Two Helldivers pull a classic fart gag
Helldivers 2 Into the Unjust update comes with "one of the funniest patch notes yet," preventing our own democratic gear from turning enemies into unstoppable menaces
 
 
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"
 
 
Latest in Sim City
SimCopter
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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
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As The Legend of Zelda's 40th anniversary looms, I'm begging Nintendo to stop ignoring its greatest run of Zelda games and make this generation's Ocarina of Time
 
 
Indy the dog in Good Boy
Good Boy made me realize I've judged horror fans who fuss over furry on-screen stars too hard, and now I've found 9 more scary movie dogs that prove them right
 
 
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No Man's Sky's biggest problem in 2025 is being too good, and now I'm trapped in a vicious cycle
 
 
Aaron Paul's character Robert Robertson in Dispatch, stood holding a dog in an elevator filled with strange superheroes
Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul has "always wanted" to be in a game, but The Boys-esque superhero comedy Dispatch was the first truly irresistible role: "Nothing really felt like the right fit"
 
 
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I've been playing Heroes of Might and Magic since I was 6, and after putting 10 hours into Olden Era's huge Steam demo, the strategy series has never felt better
 
 
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