SimCity could have been built with an offline mode, but that didn’t fit Maxis’ vision for the game, says its general manager Lucy Bradshaw.

In a post on the official EA blog that promised “straight answers”, Bradshaw outlined a number of reasons why she felt the game had to be always-online.

These reasons included: so players could exchange gifts; so social features such as challenges, achievements, and leaderboards would function; so cloud saves were possible; and so visiting players would see up-to-date versions of their friend’s cities.

“Cloud-based saves and easy access from any computer are another advantage of our connected features. You can pop from work to home, play the game and have your cities available to you anywhere,” said Bradshaw.

“Could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision,” she said.

“We did not focus on the 'single city in isolation' that we have delivered in past SimCities. We recognize that there are fans – people who love the original SimCity – who want that.

“But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always-Connected functionality.”

“[Always-online] didn’t come down as an order from corporate and it isn’t a clandestine strategy to control players,” she added.

Bradshaw also said that the game would be continually retooled and improved.

“The game we launched is only the beginning for us – it’s not final and it never will be. In many ways, we built an MMO,” she said.