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EA cuts quarterly losses, despite declining revenue
Electronic Arts has posted its financial report for the second quarter (July–September) of its 2011 fiscal year, posting $631 million in revenue, a decline of $156 million compared to revenue recorded during the same period last year. However, the megapublisher managed to cut its net loss to $201 million -- almost half of last fiscal year's second quarter loss of $391 million. EA CEO John Riccitiello said of the company's recent performance, "We credit our results to blockbusters like FIFA 11 and to innovative digital offerings like The Sims 3 Ambitions and Madden NFL 11 on the iPad." Indeed, FIFA 11 was a golden goose for the publisher -- it was the best-selling game in Europe during the quarter, pushing the life-to-date sales of the FIFA franchise past 100 million worldwide. The publisher also revealed its "cost reduction plan," which seeks to "restructure key licensing and developer agreements to improve the long-term profitability of its packaged goods portfolio." How much more obtuse can the plan get, huh?
The Sims 3: Ambitions review (iPhone)
The Sims 3: Ambitions adds a few new things to the mix that you couldn't do in previous versions. It beefs up your Sim's career paths and options, including firefighter, chef, musician, athlete and artist. EA's also added the option to have babies in this new iPhone iteration. Other than that, however, The Sims 3: Ambitions is a streamlined affair with good enough but not astounding graphics, and, if you already play The Sims, a completely expected progression of gameplay. And for us, that progression is fairly addictive. The streamlined version of the full game focuses on the life and career of just one Sim, with a far more limited range of things you can do. Like the previous iPhone version of The Sims 3, life inside of a mobile device is a little more lonely than it was on the desktop: for some reason, my Sim finds less things to do with her time, has less friends, and spends a few minutes at the end of each day sort of just milling around waiting to be tired enough for bed. Fulfilling her whimsical wants (why she wants to kick over garbage cans has never made any sense) is a fun time-waster, but we've always tried to keep our focus razor sharp when honing our Sims, so hobbies have usually come second. Of course, my Sim is also learning to be a gardener. Since her chosen career path was chef, Charlotte (who is named after the author of Jane Eyre and has the honor of being my fourth Sim to bear this name) thought that gardening would be a fitting hobby to cultivate. I haven't yet gotten Charlotte to either the top level of her career or chosen hobby, but I'm fairly certain it's a goal I can achieve... and that's the whole point, isn't it? For those unfamiliar with the franchise (if that's even possible), this new iteration is probably a great starter kit. For diehards like ourselves, the open-endedness of this is a great, enjoyable time sink, to be sure, but it's also a tiny bit disappointing. Obviously we don't expect the full features of desktop versions of The Sims 3, but we can dare to dream of a day when the iPhone version hooks into the actual game, allowing us a little midday peek into the more fascinating lives of our smaller, incoherent selves. Regardless, EA's glorious franchise loses nothing by wasting our precious downtime in yet another way, and while the mobile versions of The Sims may never replace their full counterparts, these games certainly push the limits of the 'casual' gaming category.
The Sims 3 and expansion packs on sale at Amazon
The current Amazon Deal of the Day is quite possibly the site's most cyclical discount yet: The Sims 3 and all of its expansions have had their prices temporarily slashed. That means you can buy the game online, play it, and then buy more games online, but in a virtual world.
The Sims explore their 'Ambitions' in latest expansion pack
It's time for EA to announce the latest Sims 3 expansion: Ambitions. Arriving in June, the pack gives players the opportunity to pull the strings of the helpless electronic dolls throughout their careers. No longer safe from Little Susie's megalomania on the job, the Sims will now do their work as a conduit for an ethically ambiguous puppeteer. Although, we doubt it'll ever get to the visceral level of Five Minutes to Kill Yourself. Ambitions will apparently include a huge variety of jobs, including solving cases as a detective, hunting ghosts as a (wait for it) "ghost hunter," and "leveraging Build and Buy mode" as an architect. The expansion also includes a tattoo system -- so, go ahead and give your teenage Sim that tribal or barbed wire ink they'll regret every time they take a blurred-out shower as an adult.
