Unable to create your city at this time. Please claim a city again later

This is really annoying. Not only were they not prepared for all the traffic, which they should have been, they know how many games they've sold, they know they have a large community, they should be prepared for everyone. 

What's worse is that like many people I can't claim a city. I finally managed to play the tutorial this morning but c'mon I want to play for real! This is so wrong. I'm a long time Sims fan and you'd think I'd be used to all the disappointment but somehow I still manage to be surprised by the problems I run into when trying to play EA games. 

This is ridiculous.