Posts Tagged ‘sims’
The Sims Online Is Now Free, And You Can Earn Money Playing It!
The Sims Online has now become EA Land, and with the change of name have come a number of alterations to the basic structure of the game, which are drawing in new players by the droves. Free play; custom content; ownable stores; Paypal-enabled exchange of Simoleons for actual money; the list goes on, and the game gets better every week. Here’s a review of some of the changes, and how you can use them to earn money:
Free Play
Not much explanation necessary here. The 14-day trial of old has now been extended to permanent free play, with a few limitations. One of the most noteworthy of these is that free players will only be able to cash-out more money than they cashed in; in other words, they can’t actually make any money from the game until they are subscribers. The only way to earn money in-game is to team up with a full subscriber, and get them to pay you. Your free play account is easily upgradeable to full member, so once you’re earning more cash in-game than the $9.99 a month it costs to subscribe, it’s time to upgrade.
Custom Content
At last! The Sims Online has allowed users to create custom content. Apart from adding variety and interest, this is a great way for players to earn money in the game, and real life. To create custom content you can either modify an existing Sims object, start completely from scratch, or use a photograph or existing image as a basis for your new Sims object. There are plenty of tutorials available to show you how to get started, and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to do once you’ve had a little practice.
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The Sims Online – The Free Trial Has Become Permanent Play
The free trial of the Sims Online game is currently undergoing a revision. Very soon, according to EA, the free trial will become permanent free play. Great news for those of us who can’t afford the $9.99 a month for full play, but what has brought about this change?
Well, put simply, EA stuffed up. The Sims Online was released to the public four years ago, and has earned itself a relatively small user-base. The immensely popular game Second Life was released at the same time, and has gone from strength to strength. Now, Second Life is a very good game and plays to different strengths to the Sims Online, but the Sims comes from a franchise that boasts the two highest selling games of all time. It shouldn’t have been too hard for EA to come up with a game, then, that at least landed in the top 10% of online games. And initially, they did.
At the beginning of January 2003, the Sims Online claimed over 100,000 active subscriptions, making it top of the list for online games. Sales soared, and EA projected 40,000 subscribers by the end of the year. And then they gave up. Luc Barthelet, the Senior Vice President of Electronic Arts, seemingly turned his back on the game, and bugs and instabilities were left unresolved. Cheats sprang up which allowed players to get large amounts of Simoleons (the Sims Online currency), effectively destroying the in-game economy and rendering many of the objectives of the game (such as employment) useless. Before the cheats came out Simoleons could be sold on eBay for real money, which is one of the attractions to many new players, who want to believe that their actions within the game have some sort of effect in the real world.
So Second Life grew, and the Sims Online – an online version of the most popular games of all time – sank into obscurity. A few faithful users stuck with it, but most players left it well alone, instead finding newer games with more interesting and innovative features. That, however, is about to change. Luc Barthelet announced in March 2007 that he is re-involving himself in the game. The forums have been consulted for the first time in years, and the Sims Online world is in for a shake-up.
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