EA "thinking about" online features for The Sims, even as EA-Land dies
A recent article in The Times Online offers a few choice phrases from Nancy Smith, the executive in charge of the Sims Division at Electronic Arts, regarding a possible future direction the franchise could take. It begins with Smith saying that the Sims " ... may soon become a multi-player game." Apparently the popularity of virtual worlds and MMOs like Second Life and World of Warcraft is something EA wants a part of, so their idea is to provide " ... more and more robust community features."
Aside from the ability to interact with one another, what are these community features? The article doesn't reveal anything concrete, and Smith is very careful not to commit to specifics. In fact, the entirety of Smith's comments seem to indicate both an ambivalence toward the power of online gaming and a desire to be seen as being focused on moving the franchise forward by incorporating aspects of that same power. Add to this the strange lack of understanding of how the online space works for many MMOs, and you've got a conflicted EA on your hands -- the same company that canceled EA-Land, which might have been the perfect test bed for any online distribution/content model EA wanted to experiment with.
What's going on here? We'll take a shot at understanding this after the jump.
First, it's clear that the rise and success of the MMO model has made an impact on Smith. Yet EA's foray into MMO territory -- The Sims Online, which turned into EA-Land -- wasn't a success at the level of Second Life, either by population number or by similar game mechanics, including breadth of user creation abilities. Perhaps EA's thinking is that if they couldn't make the online model work with that title, it can't be done. Yet the few comments generated by this article are all about how neither Smith nor the author make any mention of EA-Land whatsoever. Clearly, it was popular and created a real sense of community among its members. Is the audience who plays The Sims the same audience as those who play(ed) EA-Land? Is there any crossover? Those may be the real questions to answer as EA works on providing community features.
Next, Smith says something strange. She mentions that some virtual worlds operate entirely within a browser, and seems to denigrate that model. "Micro-transactions will be important, but I think people will continue to pay [a one-off fee] for client software." It sounds as though she doesn't understand that that's exactly how pay-to-play MMOs operate: you buy the initial boxed program or download and install it on your computer. In fact, Guild Wars works that way as well: you buy the initial client, but after that it's free-to-play. The model works, and it works well.
What she must be talking about, and phrasing it poorly, is the concept of monthly fees, which The Sims does not have. The Sims Online had a similar initial pricing scheme as Second Life; it was free-to-play, but with extended features for monthly fees. Once it became EA-Land, however, it went to an entirely free-to-play scheme, with microtransactions via Paypal. So is Smith saying that that's a direction that interests EA? They've signed deals with Ikea and H&M for downloadable furniture and fashion respectively, so that's probably a lock.
What about Smith's next assertion on the strength of The Sims' creation tools? "Just because you can paint with coloured markers because they're the new technology doesn't mean everyone wants to," she said. "Some people prefer to paint with luscious oils." First, she refers to the ability to create movies in-game, which barely qualifies as content creation, especially when considering the vastly superior creation tools inherent in Second Life. Second, there are numerous third-party Machinima apps that offer far more robust movie making tools than The Sims has on offer. Third, what exactly is her standard for measurement? Calling one set of tools "markers" and another set "oils" is not only dismissive, but completely subjective.
In all, this article does not provide the best spin on what EA is thinking concerning its best-selling franchise. All we can come away with is the assurance that they're "definitely thinking about" possibly creating something that "could be of interest", and that they're " ... constantly exploring new kinds of content and experiences." If their ideas are based on the same rigorous fact-checking that seems to have informed Nancy Smith's opinions of virtual worlds and MMOs, then fans of The Sims can expect the next installation to be exactly like the others in the series: single-player, bereft of true interaction, and devoid of truly affective creativity.
