The Sims Online
A failed experiment in online social simulation.
The Sims Online was a massively multiplayer online game released in 2002, developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was conceived by Will Wright as an open-ended online platform for social interaction and emergent gameplay, building on the success of The Sims. Despite considerable pre-release coverage and high expectations, the game received mixed reviews and underperformed commercially.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Maxis
- Publisher
- EA Games
- Producer
- Margaret Ng; Virginia Ellen McArthur
- Designer
- Will Wright
- Chris Trottier
- Jenna Chalmers
- Programmer
- Jeff Lind; Greg Kearney
- Artist
- Bob King
- Composer
- Jerry Martin
- Series
- The Sims
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
The Sims Online is an open-ended game where players create and control virtual people, called Sims, in a persistent online neighborhood. Players select a city, which acts as a server, and create a sim with control over name, gender, and appearance; each player may have one sim per city and up to three sims total. The city view is divided into neighborhoods with a grid of properties, which players can search and filter by attributes such as popularity and category. Players must manage their sim's eight motive levels—hunger, comfort, hygiene, bladder, energy, fun, social, and room—while on a lot. A skill progression system, modified from The Sims, improves a player's ability to earn income using skill objects; skill progression accelerates when multiple players work on the same skill together, and skills degrade over time based on total skill points earned. Social features allow players to search, bookmark, and locate others by name, and a top 100 list ranks successful sims and properties. A friendship web visually depicts relationships, which are manually set as friends, enemies, or acquaintances.
Development and release
The Sims Online was conceived by Will Wright, who envisioned online games as the future norm and proposed the concept to Maxis in 2000. At the 2001 Game Developers Conference, Wright revealed initial concepts and screenshots, aiming for the game to imitate real-life social networks as an interactive exploration of the social web. He cited conversations with author Neal Stephenson and Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash as inspiration, with its metaverse concept drawing comparisons from publishers and reviewers. Wright intended the game to be thematically empty upon release, with players creating settings and social dynamics with minimal guidance. The development team, initially inexperienced with massively multiplayer online games, faced challenges scaling tools from a single-player engine. Ultima Online developer Gordon Walton joined to provide expertise. The team included a larger representation of women than typical for the time, reflecting the majority female audience of The Sims franchise. The development budget was estimated by industry insiders at $25 million. EA announced a public beta in October 2002.
Reception
The Sims Online received mixed to average review scores on Metacritic. Critics generally praised its social networking features, with several comparing the game to a chat room. Michael Lafferty of GameZone described it as a chat room come to life, highlighting the diversity of the player base. A. A. White of Game Revolution commended the integration of in-game instant messaging and email. Jessica Theon of Computer Games praised the design and social features for encouraging cooperation, though she found navigation difficult. Game Informer enjoyed the communal aspect but wished for more gameplay options beyond mindless genial interaction. Scott Steinberg of PC Zone noted the unique approach to massive online play but found the lack of a chat log problematic. Some critics discussed negative aspects of player interaction: Steve Butts of IGN noted the gameplay was open to confusion and abuse, while Dana Jongewaard of Computer Gaming World found players primarily focused on making money. Commercially, the game was a disappointment, peaking at sixth place in US PC sales in December 2002 and selling 105,000 units at launch. EA dropped the retail price from $49.99 to $29.99, citing an error on expectations. The subscription base remained under 100,000 for most of 2003, far below EA's goals of 200,000 by March and 400,000 by year's end.
Legacy
The Sims Online was later seen by its own developers as a letdown. Will Wright felt the subscription model didn't suit the Sims audience, calling it a very different game held back by the challenges of making it multiplayer. Executive producer Gordon Walton admitted the game launched without its intended features because of time pressure, missing a working economy and enough engaging activities. Don Hopkins pointed to the lack of support for player-made content as a key reason for its failure. Associate producer Jessica Lewis thought the high price and monthly fee turned off players who could instead buy cheaper expansion packs for the original Sims. Tim LeTourneau, a producer on The Sims 2, said the game was ahead of its time but never caught on like the single-player Sims titles. The game often came up in talks about online features for later Sims games, with journalists noting its failure suggested players disliked the idea. It also hinted at EA’s later push for more online integration and monetization in the franchise. In 2011, EA released The Sims Social on Facebook with similar social features. After the negative reaction to SimCity’s online requirements in 2013, EA confirmed The Sims 4 would be an offline, client-based game. In 2020, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said The Sims Online shaped how the studio thought about adding social interactions and competitive elements to future Sims games.
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