The latest incarnation of SimCity was never meant to be an offline experience, the game's general manager said Friday afternoon.

"In many ways, we built an MMO [Massively Multiplayer Online game]," Lucy Bradsaw said in an EA blog post.

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

The post came after fans on social media and EA message boards criticized the game's always-online element. Players have been beset with server troubles and couldn't play for much of the first week of SimCity's launch.

While publisher EA has been responding to the server problems, players have raised the question of why the game needed to be online only at all.

"Always-Connected is a big change from SimCities of the past. It didn’t come down as an order from corporate and it isn’t a clandestine strategy to control players," Bradshaw said.

"From the ground up, we designed this game with multiplayer in mind –- using new technology to realize a vision of players connected in regions to create a SimCity that captured the dynamism of the world we live in; a global, ever-changing, social world."

Bradshaw went on to detail how SimCity's region play — which links players cities in larger regions where they share resources and are always connected — was meant to enhance gameplay. Cloud saves allow players to continue the game from different computers, while the ansynchronous gameplay lets you benefit from another city's resources even when their friends were offline.

Meanwhile, gamers have attempted to debunk the claim that SimCity needed a constant server connection. On Thursday, a player named ___ posted a video on Reddit showing how they'd accessed SimCity's debug mode.

The user kept playing while offline — though they would still have to go back online for any of the changes to save.

Bradshaw seems to reject fans that desire offline mode with this statement from the blog:

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. The SimCity we delivered captures the magic of its heritage but catches up with ever-improving technology.

What do you think of SimCity's always-on requirement? Let us know in the comments below.