EA Unveils The Sims 3 Web Features

So it seems as Drea has an ever growing position in The Sims Division. The Sims 3 site seems to be making quite a leap from the Sims 2 site. The main feature at launc (to me anyway) is the addition of a 2nd town which is downloadable, named Riverview. The new hood is something i'm surprised to see EA doing. Does this mean EPs will expand on the main town, or add their own towns? If so how will the 2nd town integrate into the main experience?

Also on the site you can find the mashup-maker, an exchange (Similar to that of the TS2 Exchange), and the My Sim pages make a return (is that good?). The store also makes a re-appearance (which we had confirmed earlier).

Press Release:

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 30, 2009 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced the robust online and community offerings to The Sims™ 3 game, the highly-anticipated flagship game from the best-selling PC franchise The Sims. In addition to the town included in the game, a second town, Riverview will be available for download from The Sims 3 product website at launch. TheSims3.com also will allow players to create and share their own movies, manage their online content and purchase additional in-game content. The game is set to launch worldwide on the PC, Mac, iPhone™, iPod® touch and mobile devices starting June 2, 2009.

“With such a vibrant and active community as The Sims has, we wanted to build even further on the already immense offline experience, by offering players additional functionality, content and tools available online through the game,” said Ben Bell, Executive Producer of The Sims 3. “One example of the many online tools we’ve added to the game is the Create a Movie tool. Within the game, players can easily set up the camera angle they want, capture in-game footage, play director and producer and then post their movies online to show off to the world.”

Key Online Elements Include:

The Sims 3 Store: Included with purchase of the game is $10 worth of SimPoints, which players receive when they first register their game online at TheSims3.com. They can use their SimPoints towards downloading exclusive in-game items from The Sims 3 Store, to customize their game. For additional items, players can purchase bundles of 500, 1000 and 2000 SimPoints in $USD, EUR, GBP and other major international currencies using a variety of payment methods including international and national credit cards, PayPal, and EA cash cards (in North America only). Whether it’s the must-have new outfit or the latest style of plaid furniture, players have the opportunity to further customize and populate their Sims world with additional items.

Game Launcher: The Game Launcher is the key entry point for players into TheSims3.com community. This hub page connects players to both the Store and the Exchange, and provides them with news and information about game updates. Players can keep track of their downloads, uploads, installs, game updates and their media portfolio that includes the videos and photos they can capture while playing the game. The Game Launcher also alerts players to new content in the store, localized game and store promotions along with relevant updates to the Store and cool new content from the community.

TheSims3.Com Site: With the launch of the game on June 2, the marketing website at TheSims3.com will be replaced with the full community and product site for the game. The site will not only connect players, encourage new ways to be creative in the game, and offer personally relevant information for each use, it also will serve as the hub site where players can share their content with other members, and embed them on social networking sites and blogs.

Key Site Features

The Exchange: Building off of The Sims 2 Exchange’s success of more than 100M downloads, The Sims 3 Exchange highlights featured items, most popular downloads, powerful search and browser capabilities, along with giving players the ability to see what other players are recommending.

Create a Movie and Create a Story: New easily accessible tools inspire creativity and allow players to create movies and stories and then show them off or share them with friends. Players can show off their Movies with the Create a Movie Tool by embedding them on external sites or with an email link back to their Movie on TheSims3.com.

My Page and My Studio: The Sims 3 product site will allow players to maintain their profile pages on their My Page section as well as offering them the new My Studio section to manage all their creations – Movies, stories, Exchange objects. My Page is also a blog space where players can post news, customize it with a personal avatar, track favorites and more. Users can make friends with other The Sims 3 players and share their content across a number of social network sites.

For more information about The Sims 3, go to www.TheSims3.com. The Sims 3, developed by The Sims Studio, is also in development for Mac, iPhone, iPod touch and mobile devices. To download artwork, visit www.info.ea.com. The Sims 3 will be available for purchase at retail and online through digital distribution starting June 2 at http://eastore.ea.com/store/ea/ContentTheme/pbPage.the_sims3/ThemeID.718200.

* INTERNET CONNECTION required. See product pack or digital distribution rules for details.

About The Sims 3

Get inspired by the endless creative possibilities and unexpected moments of surprise and mischief in The Sims 3! Customize your Sims’ appearances and choose up to five traits to create individual personalities. From the “romantic” trait or “kleptomaniac” trait to “evil” trait, create millions of unique Sims from the vast amount of personalities. New goal-oriented game play enables you to choose which short or long-term objectives you want your Sims to pursue and even determine your Sims’ destinies in life. Create and edit your own movies by capturing your gameplay moments or select from a library of clips. Then join The Sims 3 online community where you can show off all of your creations, receive additional content, hear the latest news, and more! Download exclusive content and hear the latest news of The Sims 3 at www.TheSims3.com.

About The Sims

The Sims franchise celebrates an impressive over 100 million units sold since its launch in February 2000. Now translated into 22 different languages and available in 60 different countries, The Sims quickly has become a universal gaming and cultural phenomenon. For the latest information about The Sims and to check out the hottest creations for The Sims 2 made by our community members, please visit www.TheSims2.com.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS^TM, EA^TM, EA SPORTS Freestyle^TM and POGO^TM. In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. 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.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Freestyle, POGO and The Sims are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Launcher Screenshot:

Random: Cornify Us!

I felt like adding a little button under the Simmers News Network that i encourage everyone to check out, the more time you click, the more awesome the blog looks. So why not try it out and get funky?

The Sims are no longer on Stage

According to SnootySims twitter account EA has shut down The Sims on Stage, which they bought over a year ago. It's a sad day when an up and coming site is taken over by a corporate mega power, and then after lack of traffic, is shut down. The Sims on Stage now directs right back to the main Sims site, which no longer displays the Sims on Stage logo. It's a sad day for karaoke singers everywhere.

Site Changes

So, i have made a few changes to the site today. All of these you can find int he release notes, but i find it important to announce these changes for this time. As you may notice i am switching over to a new signature image at the end of each post, most will have a the speech bubble with "Simmers News" on it, but on occasion i might use another, such as the "Feature" bubble under the poll results. Another thing i have done, is i cleaned up the footer to the site, moving the statcounter button onto the side, as it required a block to itself to function correctly, thus i made the footer much smaller, and compact! Finally, i have added a new way to follow Simmers News, and that is via my Twitter. You can click the little button which is now next to the RSS Feed button on the side Nav bar, and bottom Nav Bar. It keeps the same speech bubble theme, and the same background is used so you don't get to confused. I follow many different game journalists, aswell as Sims fansites, and the like, so you can find them, and follow them too! I know the signitures underneath are ugly, but they will go away as new posts show up, so eventually you won't have to look at them!

Poll Results: Custom Content

Last week we had a poll asking how much CC you had in your game, and surprisingly (to me anyway) the majority of you said you had little or no CC in your games. 4 out of the 6 votes were either "Very Little", or "none". the other 2 votes fell under "Yes i have tons!"

This week we will begin the EP poll voting, each week it will be 1ep vs another, in a bracket form, until we have a winner. The bracket goes as follows.

Left Side:
Apartment Life vs University

Freetime vs Nightlife

Right Side:
Bon Voyage vs Open for Business

Pets vs Seasons

So obviously we will begin with the semi-finals match-ups, our first poll will be Apartment Life vs University. So vote!

New VIP Blog

If you have yet to recieve a VIP email, you can check out the new blog, courtesy of your's truly. The blog is a lot about the movie making process, and the online features of it. You can check it out here with the code 18704

Random: Battlefield 1943 Trailer

I know, i should be ashamed of posting stuff about a Non-Sims game, on the blog here, but it's kind of dry out there, with The Sims 3 still being over a month away. So, i've always been a big fan of the battlefield series (started with 1942, moved up to 2, 2142, and the Heroes Beta). So i am obviously excited about it returning to WWII with Battlefield 1943 coming this June to PS3 and 360, and September to the PC. So check out the trailer!

Revised for typos

My Sims 3 Pre-Order Box

Not sure exactly why i haven't posted this yet, but i scanned the box i got for pre-ordering the Sims 3. It looks like this: (Back is on the right, Front is on the left)



As you can hopefully see it comes with $10 worth of Simpoints for use in The Sims 3 Store, so therefore we now know there will be a Sims 3 Store. I only get the points when i pick up the game however which is a bit of a bummer. My Pre-Order box also came with a poster for the band Bang Camaro, which i get a free music download for when the game launches. The poster was too big to scan, not that it's all that appealing, just more marketing stuff. Finally in the box came some Sims 3 Stickers (shown below). They're actually neat looking stickers, granted i would have prefered Sim art over just Plumbobs, they do the job, and it's only $5. So, check out the images (click to enlarge). And just wait for it to launch this June!

Motherlode!: The Sims 3 has Cheats!

The Sims has always been a franchise that endorses cheating, and with The Sims 3 that is still true. In an interview with german site, Games Guide, EA has confirmed that Kaching, Motherlode, and Moveobjects will return for the Sims 3. Not all cheats from TS2 will return however. Can we get rosebud back EA?

Games Guide Interview

New Sims 3 Player Spotlight Video

Thesims3.com has updated with a new video spotlight of a player from the Creator's Camp, this time it is Parsimonious Kate from the UK. You can check out the video, along with this weeks creator's camp update here

The Sims 3 Movie Mashup Tool Video

Gamespot has posted a new Sims 3 Walkthrough of sorts, which shows off the Mashup creator that is on The Sims 3 website when it launches. Personally i will stick to Sony Vegas to do my movies as the mashup creator looks rather shallow and seems slow and clunky. The new TS3 website on the other hand looks fairly sleek from what i can see. Check the video out here.

Gamespot has also posted some examples like a Human Chess Match

The 2nd video i'm not so sure as to what it is, but now we know that your Sims can play Burnout Paradise which is perhaps one of my favorite games of all time

The 3rd movie i also don't really understand...

Movie #1
Movie #2
Movie #3

The Cities XL Beta

There have been a few beta keys flying around the web to get into the Cities XL Beta, if you manage to pick one up you can go here and enter int he code, Email Address, and they require your dxdiag info, which tells them your computer specs. You i hope everyone get's in, i have already registered as i found a key, so hopefully you can too!

Tweet for Ashton, Win Some Games

There has been a war between Ashton Kutcher and CNN lately, as to who can hit 1,000,000 followers on twitter first, each are in the mid 900,000's, and yesterday EA joined the fray, saying the person who gets ashton his 1,000,000 follower will win every game they publish this year, on the platform of their choice, so get tweeting!

http://twitter.com/aplusk

New Feed Options

We are now introducing a whole new way to get updates from Simmers News, any way you want it. We are now offering 5 News feeds, one for All of our Content, one for just Sims 3 News, one just for Sims 2 News, one which is only for MySims News, and the final feed is for only EA Corporate News. We hope that you can use these on any website you may have running, and we hope you can count on us for up to date info on all your Sims games!

Reminders

Just a reminder to vote in the poll before it closes on friday, so far we have more votes then average, so make sure to vote, and also we hope to see you on the forums, which you can reach by hitting the "Forums" link to the right of this post, and also at the very bottom of the page.

Keep on the lookout for new features on both here, and maybe you will be seeing us on other sites soon, so stay tuned ;)

Gamespot Previews MySims Racing

Gamespot has also gotten hands-on with MySims Racing and have written up a preview for the game, and they also seem to like it.

We had a chance to see only a few tracks, but there seems to be quite a bit of variety and things to do, especially if you're helping the townsfolk with their problems. You don't have to complete all of the challenges, but we were told that there are at least 10 hours of gameplay if you head straight to the finish line. Otherwise, you can easily spend more than 20 hours collecting parts and beating all of the challenges.

You can read the full preview here

Kotaku Previews MySims Racing

AJ Glasser from Kotaku recently got her hands on MySims Racing, and for the most part seems to like the Mario-Kart ripoff.

Using the currency that you pick up from different tracks, you can change pretty much everything on your kart from the engine to the body. Different parts affect the handling, top speed and weight of the kart, while special parts obtained from completing challenges can give you bonuses to handling, speed or weight.

You can read the complete preview here

The Sims 3 Coming to the DS

In a recent interview wit Gamasutra, Robi Kauker talked about transitition PC sound effects to other consoles, and talked mainly about The Sims 3 and the DS.

I just finished a DS game where I had 512K for audio and I had to get music in that too. The same ambience system that I was doing in The Sims 3 title, the same concept of the ambience system, was done on the DS level.

And in The Sims 3 world, it might be a two-second, three-second, four-second bird call or bird song to build the ambience. In the DS, it's a tenth of a second and I have to create the birdcall through programmatic, data-driven stuff, not just preset samples. In the certain way, the DS titles are probably going to have more interesting ambience -- at least for the geeky.

This pretty much confirms that The Sims 3 will be on Nintendo's portable system, adding to our current consoles of the iPhone, and PC. No news yet on the long rumored PS3 version, but we will keep you up to date!

View the full interview here

EA Goes Nuts on Marketing

EA has officially gone nuts on TS3 marketing, with advertisements appearing all over the place, these images were uploaded to The Sims 3 Facebook account, and show how much EA has invested in TS3, in which i am amazed, sure its not covering Valve's L4D advertising, or Take Two's GTA4 advertising, but it is still very impressive. Check out all of the images below!

Poll Results: Excitement

So our last poll asked if you were excited for The Sims 3, and we got a fairly optimistic view of The Sims 3 with 5 voters looking forward to the game, and 1 somewhat looking forward to it. This week we ask you "Do you have a lot of CC for TS2?". The Poll will close sometime next week, and once you vote, why not join the forums?!

Will Wright Leaves Maxis

In a rather perplexing piece of news EA today announced that Will Wright has left the studio he founded with Jeff Braun back in 1989. Will Wright has had an internal group in Maxis known as the Stupid Fun Club, which will now become a studio for creating games, movies, TV Shows, and Toys according to the press release. Maxis will continue on the Spore franchise along with any new IPs, while the Sims Division will continue the Sims Franchise. EA will publish all of The Stupid Fun Club's games, just as if he still was at maxis. You can check out the official site here

There are a few articles which i will point you to, first is just an article from kotaku, the 2nd is an interview with IGN's Steve Butts.

Kotaku - Will Wright Leaves EA, Does Something Stupid [Kotaku]
IGN: Will Wright Leaving Maxis [IGN.com]

Wired Magazine Preview

Wired recently recently had a hands-on preview with The Sims 3, and they put up a preview about many different aspects of the game.

The Sims 3 also does away with some of the duller parts of virtual life management. Keeping your Sims in good spirits is key to making friends and staying employed, but earlier games forced players to do a lot of babysitting. The Sims are now a bit more autonomous, and dramatic status changes will trigger "moodlets" that alert a player when a Sim's needs have become dire.

Check out the preview here

Forums are Open!

The forums have launched, and you can now access them via "The Simmers News Network" are of the blog on the right Navigation bar, or at the bottom!

The Sims 3 Advertisements Popping Up

"Let there be Sims!" That is what new Advertisements for The Sims 3 have been saying as they pop on across billboards, and even buildings.

The Simmers News Community Forums Launching Soon

I know, i know, i probably shouldn't be launching another section of this site if i can't keep this site up to date, but i promise that over the coming weeks you will see a bunch of new features integrated into Simmers News!