The trial offer of the Sims Video game is currently undergoing a revision. Soon, according to EA, the free trial will become permanent free play. Nice thing about it for those folks who can’t buy the $9.99 30 days for full play, but what has brought about this transformation?
Well, to put it differently, EA stuffed up. The Sims Online was published to the public 4 years ago, and has earned itself a relatively small user-base. The immensely popular game Second Life premiered at the same time, and it has gone from strength to strength. Now, Second Every day life is a very good game and plays to different strengths towards the Sims Online, but the Sims develops from a franchise that boasts the two highest selling games ever. It shouldn’t are actually too hard for EA to create a game, then, that no less than landed in the top 10% of flash games. And initially, they did.
At the outset of January 2003, the Sims Online claimed over 100,000 active subscriptions, making it top of the list for games. Sales soared, and EA projected 40,000 subscribers right at the end of the year. And then they gave up. Luc Barthelet, the Senior Vice President of Electronic Arts, seemingly turned his back about the game, and bugs and instabilities were left unresolved. Cheats sprang up which allowed players to acquire large amounts of Simoleons (the Sims Online currency), effectively destroying the in-game economy and rendering lots of the objectives with the game (such as employment) useless. Prior to the cheats arrived Simoleons could be obsessed about eBay the real deal money, that’s one of the attractions to a lot of new players, which believe that their actions within the game involve some sort of effect in the real world.
So Second Life grew, along with the Sims Online – a web based version of the very popular games ever – sank into obscurity. A couple of faithful users saddled with it, but many players left it well alone, instead finding newer games with an increase of interesting and innovative features. That, however, is going to change. Luc Barthelet announced in March 2007 that he is re-involving himself amongst people. The forums happen to be consulted initially in years, and the Sims Online world is in to get a shake-up.
One of the first moves that EA decide to make is to created new cities for players to discover. They are also changing the brand, and have promised to seal the loopholes that offer the money cheats. Registration will be greatly simplified, as well as the free trial can become, soon, permanent free play. Of course there will be limitations: only one choice of city for non-payers; just one avatar; less starting money. Nonetheless, this can be a real show of commitment by EA, and can no doubt attract many new players. New players, paying or not, will breathe life back into the game, and that is got to be described as a good thing for EA, whose image was looking somewhat tarnished by its failure.
Exactly why now? Well, the Sims 3 is a result of be released in (possibly) 2008, that might have something related to it. Nobody wants an inactive goose on display if they’re trying to build hype for his or her new product, and it’s really going to take time for the Sims Online to obtain back on track. This is the very promising (re-) start, though, as well as a very exciting time for it to get into the concept of the Sims Online. Extra features such as AvatarBook, which works comparable to Facebook, will provoke interest, and could pull in an exceedingly large audience indeed. Few people who have totally Sims games haven’t wondered just what it would be like to play with other people, most have been put off by bad reviews or friends’ advice. Now that’s ready to change, as well as the community are only able to get stronger and stronger. The question, then, is not why EA are making these changes now, why they didn’t get them to before. Now we can only play and wait, and hope this time around EA gets it right. .
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