Print this article | E-mail this article | Comment on this article

Sims Online closing after more than five years

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

April 30, 2008, 11:40 AM

In February, EA's six-year-old Sims Online MMO underwent a serious format change and re-branding, becoming a free-to-play world called EA-Land. Already, the team responsible for EA-Land has announced its termination on August 1.

Yesterday, in the official EA-Land blog, it was announced that the "lifetime of the game has drawn to an end, and now we will be focusing on new ideas and other innovative concepts in the games arena." Resources consumed by EA-Land/The Sims Online will be focused on "future games."

EA's reasons for changing the game's name and promptly killing it are currently unclear. Sims Online developer Luc Barthelet said in his own blog announcement, "Decisions such as these are never easy and the rationale for closing EA-Land is particularly complex."

Development of the improved Sims Online began in 2007, re-engineering the game's architecture to DirectX 9, and opening the ability for user-customized content -- a feature which the game originally lacked, that some felt negatively impacted its success.

Paying subscribers with accounts dating up to April 29, 2008 will receive one of two compensatory gifts from EA: $15 off any game at The EA Store or three months of Club Pogo subscription time.

Add a Comment (9 Comments)

BetaNews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

By Tori131426

edited Nov 21, 2008 - 1:17 AM

EA-Electronic Arts (also known as Evil Arts to many) has never made a more bigger of a mistake than shutting down TSO. Thousands of people who had connected and become close friends and a times - even closer than friends and eventually married in real life.
So unless they create a new Sims Online, I will never forever buy another EA game. And then they come out with a game like SPORE???? WTF IS SPORE? Some stupid little germlike things that can mate? Make more Spores? And you kill them off??? What a freakin waste!!

For now, I will be playing Tirnua.com, where the ex-sims online team left EA and created their one "Sims Online-type" game. Come join me! www.tirnua.com :)

Score: 0

By Connie Johnson

edited May 14, 2008 - 9:19 PM

http://www.playercampaigns.com

I am a beta tester for the sims online i have been paying and playing for almost six years for 4 accounts and 1 year on a new account.. I know its really hard for people to understand what happen you have to have been there to understand the hurt, the rage, that some are feeling about EA’s closing of our game. Six years we have worked, played, and helped each other through all the bugs the botters exploits, the fact that ea left us out in the cold years ago.. When luc and his team come in it was a sigh of relief.. no updates had been made in years none what so ever. No dev team nothing new.. most of us thought our game was gone.. but that my friends turned out to be bitter sweet. We love our game truely its a part of our everyday lives we sit and relax and play our games. The new team comming in was a god sent… none of us I mean none of us were ready for that horrific post on the blogs.. Our dev team worked harder then any dev team that I had seen in years in game. There were promises of new and upcomming updates, they emailed old players said come back well give u amnesty.. they changed the date on that pushed it back and then the day before boom we got hit with… EA closing Ea land. They took our game name they took the name of our sims and changed them to so called avatars, they wanted to change the name of our money.. our game got lost some where it was no longer the sims online we know and love and none of us were ready for that but went along for the ride.

Our homes our lives in game were changed forever. Six years of waiting it all out to hopefully see changes all lost.. People were heart broken alot come back just to see the new changes there was alot of hope in alot of people.. we used their atms it was to better the game when they made the price of living in there so bad that we could not live any more. We supported them through bad bugs horrible game play lag.. to be told screw you were closing with out any warning at all.. some sims used atms and put as much as 200 plus dollars in at one time…

We are heart broken ea has never done us right their advertizing for our game has been almost nill.. their customer support is what killed the game to begin with… errors would happen people would loose their things to get the run around when reported to ea nothin has ever been givin back to the players that they worked so hard for.

They took all our devs away bam no warning.. 3 weeks before with no word all the updates stopped.. (and there were plenty scheduled they kept us advised of what they were working on and when it possibly be implimented)
Closed us down the day before we were to get all our gifts back with amnesty. Told us we would no longer be charged after that date.. that we would all have free play till aug 1, 2008.. and free club pogo subscriptions.

We were outraged to say the least.. our hard earned real money waisted in atms. Promises not kept.. Months of next to no game play because of updates bugs and mishaps and us still stickin in was all for nothin. They said that our game play would continue as always… well it hasnt.. they have decided to do refunds on all the atm charges and our subscription fees for a month… which the atm charges no one has seen yet to my knowlege and that was posted I’d say at least a week ago. Players are still being billed by ea even after they said they no longer would. They promised us stable game play till the end and most of our custom content has dissapeared. You cant get on a lot because the game locks you up. The lag that was fixed is back in droves. When they reimbersed us our game play (we had to call to get it) they changed our accounts to free play in which you cant hardly do anything in the game not like a premium player. Yet another call to get that fixed… none of us have been treated right or fairly for along time its not just since the new dev team come in to update the game.. people need to understand just how long ea has owned the sims online.. and the horrible customer support we got. To understand just how much we have been through, you had to have been there. And all for the love of the game we staid we enoured and in the end we have lost… There is a rally to save our game even after all we have been through… Why you say after all this??? Plain and simple we love our game… how many games do u know would their players go through all of this and still want their game???? We want our game to be sold to a company that cares about their player and will manage the game right.. Things could have been done and should have been done to make the game successful and plain and simple they just werent and we the players are the one that paid the ultimate price for it with our hearts.[/quote]Help Save Our Sims
Connie Johnson

Score: 0

By ingram091

posted May 1, 2008 - 3:21 AM

lol EA kills yet another franchise... Can't say I'm surprised. EA, the place great games go to die...

Score: 0

By jennny

edited Apr 30, 2008 - 11:43 PM

I have been a paying member for 5 years. What makes me angry is that EA Games spent several months re-designing the game to make it better. During this time we were rarely able to play, but were still paying $9.99 per month. I was patient. When the new and improved game was launched a month or so ago, people were able to exchange real money for Sim money(pretend money). EA promised that game players could "cash in" the pretend money for real money at any time. Now, they will not refund anyone for the money they bought which is now useless. Thank goodness I only spent $20 on this "refundable" pretend money. I will never buy an EA product again.

p.s. The game is still for sale online. Even Amazon has it for sale. I hope no one buys it since it will no longer be usefull after July 2008.

Score: 0

By Tori131426

posted Nov 21, 2008 - 1:20 AM

Yeah it's STILL on Amazon and other places for sale! I hope if people DO buy it, it's for sentimental reasons and nothing else...

Score: 0

By Bienchen

edited May 6, 2008 - 9:03 AM

I am writing this letter in response to the disappointing news that EA-Land,
the online version from the Sims of Electronic Arts will be closing its virtual doors on August 1, 2008.

Even though I am an adult , I truly enjoy playing the game with my 2 boys (14 and 16 years).

EA-Land is also a genuinely safe place for kids to interact with each other.
It's nice to know that in these times of cyber bullying and cyber crime that there is such a place for kids to play.

Most importantly, I think most of us who play EA-Land would miss the friendships that have developed.
Even though most of us have never met and may never meet, EALand pals are true pals.

With EA-Land gone where do we turn?
Sure we can turn Second Life, WOW and even Pirates Online,
but the truth is, we all want to be a little selfish, we all want that great feeling that only TSO (Ea-Land) can provide us with.
The magic that we are Sims!! The magic there is a game without fights, sex, war and monsters!

Please help us and make Electronic Arts reconsider their decision to close EA-Land.

like we do on http://www.playercampaigns.com/

sincerely
Bienchen