The Sims Franchise Celebrates Its Fifth Anniversary and Continues to Break Records REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2005--Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced that the award winning computer game franchise, The Sims(TM), will celebrate its fifth anniversary this month. The very first The Sims(TM) videogame for the PC began shipping to stores this week in February 2000 and took the nation by storm by becoming the #1 selling PC game in four out of the last five years. Since 2000, the franchise has spawned 7 expansion packs, been translated into over 17 languages and has sold more than 54 million units worldwide. In September 2004, the next-generation sequel The Sims 2 quickly became the fastest-selling PC game. In just five months, sales have already reached over 4.5 million units worldwide. The first expansion pack for this award-winning game, The Sims(TM) 2 University, will be in stores March 1, 2005 and will allow players to send their Sims to college and experience the ultimate on-campus fantasy. "The Sims changed the way people play videogames and also changed the kinds of people who play videogames," said Bing Gordon, Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Electronic Arts. "The Sims 2 and its expansion packs will continue to deliver what Sims fans everywhere want -- new content, fun and innovation, because The Sims franchise is still just beginning," Gordon added. The Sims Five Year Highlights: -- The Sims franchise has shipped over 52 million units worldwide, including more than 16 million units of the original product, The Sims. Since the launch in 2000, The Sims franchise shipped 7 expansion packs and a deluxe, console, and online version. The Sims has been translated into more than 17 languages and is sold worldwide. -- The next generation of The Sims launched in September 2004 with The Sims 2 and has sales already topping 4.5 million units worldwide. The Sims 2 will ship its first expansion pack, The Sims 2 University, in March 2005. -- The Urbz: Sims in the City, a spin-off to The Sims, brought Sims to the city for the first time. It shipped for console and handheld game systems in the fall of 2004 and continues to sell well worldwide. -- According to The NPD Group, The Sims original product is the number one selling PC game in North America and The Sims 2 is the number one selling PC game of 2004 in North America. -- The Sims 2 received over 20 editors' choice awards, perfect review scores and over 35 magazine covers worldwide. Most recently, The Sims 2 received the award for the Best Simulation Game at the 2005 D.I.C.E. Awards in Las Vegas by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. -- The Sims 2 players have created over 125,000 Sims & Houses for their Sims, and uploaded these to www.thesims2.com to share with other players. The player-made Sims & Houses have been downloaded by over 5 million unique visitors from around the globe. In addition, players have used The Sims 2 moviemaking feature to film their Sims' lives and create their own movies. Over 4,000 movies have been created since the launch of the game in September 2004.The creator of The Sims, Will Wright, has been honored with many accolades for his outstanding achievement in his trade and was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame in February 2002, joining such industry legends as Sid Meier and Shigeru Miyamoto. Wright has also been included in Entertainment Weekly's "It List" of "the 100 most creative people in entertainment," Time Digital's "Digital 50," a listing of "the most important people shaping technology today." In 2002, he was listed as number 35 on Entertainment Weekly's Power List and in 2003 was featured in Game Informer's "Top 10 Developer List of 2003." For more information about The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 University, visit http://www.thesims2.com. About The Sims The Sims computer game allows players to create a neighborhood of simulated people (Sims) and control their lives. The game skyrocketed to the top of the charts when it began shipping to stores in February 2000 and quickly became a universal gaming and cultural phenomenon. The Sims PC product and expansion packs were the best selling PC games of 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Translated into 17 different languages, The Sims has inspired seven top selling expansion packs. They include: The Sims(TM) Livin' Large, The Sims(TM) House Party, The Sims(TM) Hot Date, The Sims(TM) Vacation, The Sims(TM) Unleashed, The Sims(TM) Superstar, and The Sims(TM) Makin' Magic. Combined sales for the franchise have topped 54 million units life-to-date. The first expansion pack for The Sims 2, The Sims 2 University, will be available in stores on Tuesday, March 1, 2005. About Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, EA posted revenues of $2.96 billion for fiscal 2004. The company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers and the Internet. In 2003, EA had 27 titles that each sold more than one million copies. Electronic Arts markets its products under three brand names: EA SPORTS(TM), EA GAMES(TM) and EA SPORTS BIG(TM). EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com. Electronic Arts, EA, EA SPORTS, EA GAMES, EA SPORTS BIG are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
Yeah, yeah, I was reading that and thinking of all the dollars I spent on TS1 the past couple of years. Let's see: Hubby spend about $50 for Sims Deluxe. Then I bought all the expansion packs in this order: Hot Date, Unleashed, Vacation, House Party, Superstar, and Makin' Magic. I think at the time all the expansions were 29.97 at Wally World. So that's $179.82 for all the EP's. Now, I don't even play TS1 and have unistalled it from my computer. For TS2 I paid 49.95 for the DVD version and will pay another $40 for University. Anyone else seeing little $ flying away on little birdy wings? LOL
Yes Kristalrose - one of my major concerns with buying the Sims 2 is that my Sims 1 discs (of which I have all ) would just lie dormant on my shelves and be consigned to a life of gathering dust and be handy for propping up the odd book or two. So Maxis have the 100 or so that I've spent on them, and yet I'm no longer getting any more gameplay because I simply don't have enough hard disk space and I can't get used to the "sub-standard" graphics. Sneaky devils.
Ah, the gamer's typical problem. Feeling guilty about spending money on the game that they have already had many, many hours of fun playing just because they are no longer playing it. Sigh. It's probably the most cost effective entertainment around. I can buy 5 books for the same price as one Sims EP, but 5 books only entertains me for about 10 hours (the downside of being a fast reader). Shoot, I've had 100s of hours of fun playing TS2 already (and it's much more fun than rereading books that you've already read.) And seeing a movie costs (if you include the mandatory popcorn) about half the price of an EP and yet only lasts 110 minutes.
I'm glad you said that, Kat. It always puzzles me how people forget how many hours of pleasure they got out of a thing when they front-up with how many bucks they spent on it. How much does it cost to see a movie these days? Don't forget to include the pop corn and ice creams and the pizza to fill the corners when you get home. How much fun was that? 108 minutes on average ... plus the "loading time" that starts with getting in the car and ends with an endless series of trailers and advertisements and "exit and save game" time that starts with pushing and shoving to be first back to the car park and -- if you ain't lucky -- ends with a speeding ticket cos you were trying to get home in time for CSI. And you don't even get an ongoing joke about reticulated splines ... What a rip off! :(
Yes, and I'm making the point that I did enjoy the Sims 1, but have now completely lost interest in it - the long term purchase which I aimed to get out of all those discs has now ceased and I effectively can't play them any more. When I buy a game I hope to get as much playing out of it as possible, but I don't feel I got that with the Sims 1. Yes, you could argue that I should just have waited until I was satisfied with the Sims 1 and then got the Sims 2 - but temptation is a funny thing. Therefore I don't feel satisfied with the way I spent my money, regardless of your assumption that everyone flitters their money away on going to see movies etc. I have very little money, and what I spend it on has to matter, so I'm disappointed 100 worth of disks is useless to me now. Whatever, no doubt I'll just say the wrong thing again and alienate myself even further.
I do hope that we have room here for more than just the opinions of a crusty old moderator. I certainly wasn't criticising you. I was just offering my view that value for money is assessed differently by different people. Some people happily pay out 100 bucks for a a couple of hours family entertainment. Others play a 100 bucks worth of computer game for many hundreds of hours. It's a complex economic argument that relates more to the free-market capitalist system than it does to individuals' preferences and personal choices. I did understand your point and I wasn't saying it was wrong just that there is another side.
Yes - I was being an idiot, and a grumpy one at that. I apologise for my bad mood. On the plus side though - less than a month until I can flutter more money towards Maxis for University. Hurrah.
Yes, Kat and Mirelly, I completely agree. If you think of it as opposed to the cost of movies, dinner, ect. then the money spent is a bargin. And, for me, it was a way to have entertainment and company. My husband works 12 hour night shifts, and quite often it was my sims families that kept me company, as they still do. And, yes, I am looking forward to having my Sims who are now children go to the University in 3 weeks.
Oh Kristal! Our poor sims will be packed off to uni just as all the real uni students are going away for spring break!!! How tragic is that??? Not ...
LOL at Mirelly. I thought that the release date was a little odd, anyway. Is this something that video game companies usually do, putting things out in early spring like this?
Stop complaining about lost money!!! to me it was well worth the cost....Don't have dad bugging me about staying out of the way... Also if you think these games have lost your intrest sell 'em BACK to EB Games for less money of course. You get SOME kind of refund right? Hehehe I didn't spend LOADS OF MONEY I only bought sims 1, sims hot date and sims for pets (can't remember proper name) by the time I had saved up the money to buy another one. Sims 2 ws out....Had long FUN convo with store manager about it while bro buying halo 2 AND IV'E ALREADY saved up 40$ for sims University!!!! awww sims getting eaten by evil plant....Ones dream? They never saw it coming!(evil grincheeky:
To the best of my knowledge EB only accepts console games on trade-in. PC games are too easy for you to have copied before trading them in.
Sorry. My humor can be rather dry at times. (The sigh was the tipoff.) I was certainly not meaning that you were alienating yourself or that you should be alienated. Please pardon my poor attempt at humor, as it obviously didn't come across as meant. However, games are not meant to be long term investments. For the most part they are meant to be rapidly consumed and then thrown away. I think it is to Maxis credit that we don't tend to buy them, play them until we've tried every facet and then throw them away (although I can tell by the people on the BBSes who say "ok, I've done everything with TS2 now. I'm bored. When's the next one?" that some players are still of the "play it once and toss variety). However, there is a limit to how long we will have each new incarnation of The Sims. I suspect that you should plan that by about 2007 or 2008 that TS2 will be replaced, perhaps even sooner. They say that they have 5 EPs planned out already (although there was a mention that there would be a total of 7, although that was early enough in the discussions that things may have changed since then.) Assuming that they do an EP every 6 months (which seems to be the pattern), then they will have finished the 7th EP by the spring of 2008, but the 5th EP by the spring of 2007. That means that they would have TS3 out by fall of 2007 at the earliest but possibly fall 2008 or later (if they have the same kinds of delays with TS3 that they had with TS2.) At least we had some knowledge that Makin' Magic was the last one of TS1's EPs when it came out. I continued playing TS1 until May, when I finally gave in to the self knowledge that the talk of TS2 had already made me lose my appetite for TS1. Please do not feel bad about your post. I'm just sorry that what I had meant as humor (poking fun at myself as well since I've had the same complaint with myself) was taken wrong. My apologies.
Thankyou, but there's no need to apologise. You both made perfectly valid posts which I failed to recognise due my state of mind at the time. Your information on the expansion packs was really helpful - 5 or maybe 7 expansion packs? That sounds really awesome (even though my purse gives a sigh at the use of "expansion" and "pack" in the same sentence, lol). Apologies again for causing such a [size=-1]cuffufal[/size].
We've had apologies all the way around and now it's time to go on to the fun! I know what you mean about the purse complaints. Especially since it looks like the price on EPs has gone up from US$30 to US$35. I felt many pangs of dismay when I heard that!
