The Sims Social is live on Facebook; kiss your (real) social life goodbye

UPDATE: 3:30 P.M. EST: And Sims Social is down again. A Sims rep says this is because the game is "not officially launched" and is in open beta, so the people behind the scenes are still running tests on the game. So, take that to mean that the game could be fairly unstable until ... well, it's not. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Sims Social seems to be up and running again. Sims Social was live earlier today, but is now having connection problems. More news as soon as we got it.

The day has finally come to retreat to the comfort of your computer from the heat ... and other people. Well, at least in the flesh, as EA and Playfish London have launched The Sims Social on Facebook. First revealed officially at this year's E3, the game takes the classic "god game" play style that made the PC versions of The Sims so insanely popular and injects some interesting social features never before seen in a Facebook game.

The game features an incredible amount of character customization from head to toe, as well as some interesting character archetypes that will somehow play a role in how you interact with your friends. But the unique social interactions go farther than that. As we learned yesterday, friends can become "frenemies" and eventually transform into archenemies, but can just as easily become lovers and later make "WooHoo," as Playfish London GM John Earner put it to us in a recent exclusive interview.

The Sims Social, like almost all Facebook games, uses an Energy system to govern how long players can enjoy the game for free daily. However, you can visit your friends and perform unique helpful or harmful actions to their Sims any time you wish. Keep in mind, though, that Sims have a mind of their own--just like in the original games--and will ultimately decided for themselves whether to listen. There are a number of interesting things to do in The Sims Social already, and as Earner told us recently: "We're just getting started."

Gallery: The Sims Social on Facebook

The Sims Social maker EA wants you ... to make it lots of ad money

And unfortunately, it doesn't sound like you'll have much of a choice. EA, co-creator of Playfish's The Sims Social on Facebook (and arch nemesis to Zynga at this point), has announced EA Legend.

This is the company's new platform to provide marketers and advertisers with "campaign and audience insights across mobile, social, online and console games reaching over 300 million people worldwide," a release reads.

In other words, you're more valuable to EA than you might already know. The publisher wants to use the information you provide them inadvertently through gameplay to rope in ad and marketing deals not just through its Facebook games but all of its games. More specifically, EA said it can provide advertisers with (prepare for buzzword overload):

    Key cross-platform campaign performance indicators such as impressions, clicks, unduplicated reach, demographic profiles, social media buzz, and ROI metrics.

    Segmented audience insights based on demographic, psychographic, and social data.

    Ability to drill down into the factors that impact campaign effectiveness including audience engagement, audience segmentation and type of creative all measured over time.

EA Legend
What's that again--psychographic data? This may all sound like something out of "1984," but it's nothing new. If you think other game creators don't do this type of stuff, then here's your wake-up call. We won't know exactly what information about us EA will provide to advertisers through Legend until it makes advertisers see green at this year's Advertising Week event in New York City on Oct. 4. And if EA keeps using words like psychographic, we may never know.

[Via All Facebook]

What do you think about this new EA Legend program? Do you think it's something worth worrying about, or is this just business as usual? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment

Sims Social survey lets you sound off on item prices, favorite features and more

It's that time folks - time to let your collective voices be heard! EA wants to know how much fun (or not) you're having with the Sims Social on Facebook, and they've released a fairly long survey to help you tell them. This survey contains all sorts of questions, ranging from the basics of how often you play the game, to allowing you to rate your opinion on item pricing (are they too cheap? too expensive?) and what some of your favorite features are in the game.

Of course, the point of all of this is to gather enough opinions to actually sway the way the game develops in the future. Hopefully, with questions dealing with how much we like to "build" items with parts (bookcases, double beds, etc.), and the option to say that you don't like it at all, we may actually see a lessening in those kinds of items, if enough users agree. You can even rank various gameplay features (decorating your house, visiting friends, customizing your Sim, etc.) in the order that you like them. In this way, perhaps we'll see more focus being placed on the most (overall) liked feature, and you'll be able to say you helped to make that happen.

Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of survey that will allow you to give your opinion on future item sets, but there are plenty of blank text boxes for you to say exactly what you want to the developers in a place that you know they'll see it. Again, this survey is prety lengthy (when compared to other Facebook game surveys anyway), so you'll want to make sure you have around 5-10 minutes to set aside to take it.

We've taken this survey as well, and if we start to notice any gameplay changes arising because of options listed here, we'll make sure to let you know. In the meantime, head over to this link right here to take the survey for yourself.

The Sims Social beats FarmVille, attracts second most daily players

Boy, people sure do love to play god. According to Appdata, The Sims Social has surpassed Zynga's iconic FarmVille with the second most daily players of any Facebook game. Since its launch just a month ago today, EA and Playfish's ambitious social rendition of The Sims has amassed over 9.3 million daily players--that's over 1 million more than FarmVille's 8.1 million.

The Sims Social still has a way to go to the number one spot, which is, of course, held by Zynga's most popular game CityVille at just under 14 million daily players. Regardless, it's unprecedented for a game to grow this quickly in daily players, at least for a game that wasn't built by Zynga. Not to mention this is despite the hiccups the game faced along the way including days worth of downtime.

So, that's the power of The Sims, huh? Well, not so fast. While The Sims Social has certainly showed its might when it comes to gripping players (and keeping them there ... so far), the game is still in fourth place in terms of monthly players at just over 34.3 million. This number could grow in time naturally as daily players spread the word and through advertising, but it's nevertheless telling of the limits a Facebook game faces when it doesn't have a massive existing player base, like Zynga's games.

In other words, EA and Playfish have quite a lot of work ahead of them, if they want The Sims Social to be on top in all regards. But judging from the game's performance thus far despite its early setbacks--and in the face of the most popular Facebook games to date--perhaps Simlish could become the dominant language in Facebook gaming.

Have you been one of the over 9 million locked into The Sims Social? What do you think of the game so far? Share with us in the comments.Add Comment