Electronic Arts' launch of the new SimCity game has been plagued by server issues, resulting in everything from features being taken offline to EA calling off some of its promotional efforts for the game. The company hopes to make up for it, however, by offering a free game to users. In a blog post tonight, Maxis' Lucy Bradshaw apologized for the problems, admitting that the game's developers simply underestimated the number of people that would sign online to play the title. "A lot more people logged on than we expected," she writes in the post. "More people played and played in ways we never saw in the beta."

As compensation, the company will be offering a free downloadable PC game from EA's portfolio. Registered SimCity owners will be emailed on March 18th with instructions on how to obtain their game of choice.

As far as the server problems themselves, Bradshaw writes that the company has increased server capacity by 120 percent over the last 48 hours — an improvement that has caused the number of "disrupted experiences" to drop by around 80 percent. Some users are still experiencing issues, however, and EA is continuing to work to resolve the situation. In fact, Bradshaw writes that the company may be able to move beyond the SimCity launch problems as early as this weekend.