World's Most Popular Virtual Neighborhood Celebrates a Decade of
Simulation, Innovation and Reinvention
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Feb 04, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The EA Play Label of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) announces the
celebration of the ten year anniversary of The Sims(TM), the groundbreaking
game that allowed players to create and live a virtual, simulated
life on a computer. Since the original The Sims debut on February
4, 2000, the unstoppable, award-winning franchise has produced three
core games - The Sims, The Sims 2, and The Sims 3 -
supported by dozens of expansion and stuff packs with lifetime unit
sales eclipsing 125 million worldwide. As the best-selling PC game* in
nearly every major video game market worldwide, The Sims has
continuously reset the bar over the past decade delivering new content,
gameplay elements, platform support, and partnerships that resonate with
its global fan base in meaningful ways and take the play experience to
new levels of fun and entertainment.
"The success of The Sims is something gamers and the gaming
business as a whole can be proud of. With its charming and quirky style,
lovely emergent game mechanics and user created creativity that delights
every day, The Sims is a game that can be enjoyed by everybody
and reflects what you put into it," explained Rod Humble, Head of the EA
Play label. "The future of The Sims is going to be a lot of fun;
it is rare for an entertainment franchise to be gaining momentum a
decade after release, so this is a particularly pleasant moment for
everyone who has worked on the games."
"No other game in the history of electronic entertainment has ever had
the broad, nearly universal appeal of The Sims franchise," said
Logan Decker, Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer magazine. "Everybody plays it:
hardcore gamers, young women, celebrities, conservatives, professors,
soldiers, grandmothers, even people who say they don't like computer
games. And the game--or, rather, the experience--has thrived throughout
ten years of sequels and countless expansion packs because EA has kept
the environment fresh and infinitely customizable while never getting in
the way of the game's primary focus--the player's imagination and the
natural inclination of all human beings to create meaningful stories."
Just how popular is The Sims?
The franchise has
generated more than $2.5B of revenue, putting it in the same class as
blockbuster films Avatar, Titanic, and The Matrix Trilogy.
The Sims, available in 60 countries and 22 languages, remains a
worldwide cultural touchstone for its enormous and growing fan base by
continuing to evolve its content and remain current. Since its June 2009
launch, The Sims 3 has sold more than 4.5 million units worldwide
to date and holds the #1 best-selling PC title for 2009 in North America
and Europe*. The Sims 3, like its predecessors, allows players to
create, download and share player content on its online exchange fueling
nearly 110 million downloads for The Sims 3 alone in a matter of
months. The Sims 3 community site alone, www.TheSims3.com,
welcomes up to six million unique visitors monthly, handles 300 content
downloads every minute and more than 1.8 million uploads have been made
to date, including 20 movies each hour. The Sims 3 App for iPhone
and iPod touch became the top selling game on the App Store for 2009 and
reached the #1 position in the top paid Apps in nearly 40 countries
worldwide in the same year.**
What does it feel like to host 6 million visitors each month?
Invite
the entire city of San Francisco to drop by your house and you'll get
the gist.
Social networking sites play a significant role in the ongoing
popularity of The Sims with pages on Facebook, MySpace,
Twitter and YouTube, amassing a following of a million friends to date
worldwide. That's enough people to fill the world's largest stadium,
North Korea's Rungrado May Day Stadium, more than four times. The
Sims 3 YouTube Channel is the second most subscribed to sponsored
channel of all time with nearly 55,000 subscribers and over 26 million
video views. Through social networks, The Sims development team
shares the latest news and content, hosts contests and showcases player
creations, and provides answers to game-related questions.
Sims are the trendiest virtual people on the block.
In
2008, nearly 1,000 H&M stores worldwide featured a garment designed by a
player of The Sims for purchase, and real-world IKEA home furnishings
could be used to decorate living spaces and more with the releases of
The Sims 2 H&M Fashion Stuff and The Sims 2 IKEA(R) Home Stuff packs.
The Sims has continued to hold magnetic appeal because it is
relevant, quirky, edgy, and fun; it's a microcosm of society. The games
give players the ability to create and control another life for
themselves complete with relationships, children, homes, travel,
business and pure entertainment.
If the games were buried in a time capsule, when unearthed in 100 years, The
Sims would give future generations an instant understanding of how
people lived between 2000 - 2010. For example, music would come alive
from blockbuster recording artists such as The Black Eyed Peas, Nelly
Furtado, Katy Perry, Natasha Bedingfield and Depeche Mode, all of whom
have recorded songs for various The Sims games in Simlish, the
official language of The Sims.
The popular franchise has also kept pace with societal trends such as
"going green" with The Sims 3 allowing players to live off the
land, grow their own food and or use pedal power or a Toyota Prius to
travel, all in an effort to reduce their personal carbon Sim footprints.
For more information about The Sims, visit http://thesims.ea.com/.
Press materials and assets can be found at http://info.ea.com/product.asp?s=2715.
* According to NPD data, Chart-track UK, Gfk France, Gfk Spain, Gfk-MCC
Germany and EA internal estimate
** iTunes 2009 Rewind
About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is
a leading global interactive entertainment software company. Founded in
1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive
software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless
devices and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under
four brand names: EATM, EA SPORTSTM, EA Mobile TM
and POGOTM. In fiscal 2009, EA posted GAAP net revenue of
$4.2 billion and had 31 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 Mobile, POGO, and The Sims are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other
countries. H&M (device mark) (R) and H&M (word mark) (R) are trademarks of H
& M Hennes & Mauritz AB. IKEA is a registered trademark of Inter IKEA
Systems B.V. IKEA furniture designs and other product rights are
protected by © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2008. 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.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6167542&lang=en
SOURCE: Electronic Arts Inc.
EA Play Label
Brooke Bauguess, 310-754-7312
Senior PR Manager
bbauguess@ea.com
or
Angie Newman, 650-628-2877
PR Manager
anewman@ea.com
Copyright Business Wire 2010