The Sims

With millions of fans around the globe and more than 150 million copies sold worldwide, The Sims series is one of the most popular videogame franchises of all time. To celebrate The Sims birthday this February 4th, Electronic Arts has released a new infographic highlighting some fun facts and surprising statistics about this global gaming phenomenon.

NowGamer: EA Bright Light and Maxis working on new IP according to online CVs.

EA is having a sale on many of its hottest titles in digital download games at Origin. Try several games or DLC packs from the Battlefield, Command and Conquer, Need for Speed, and The Sims video game series for just $4.99 each.

Joystiq writes: A fan site of all things Simlish, called Infinite Sims, recently uncovered a handful of web domains registered by the ever-stealthy, third-party outfit Corporate Domains, Inc. These reserved addresses could be an indication of an upcoming expansion to the Sims universe -- one that could take the bright, cheerful world of Sunset Valley back into the Dark Ages. The reserved domain names all include some variation of thesimsmedieval or thesimsgetmedieval,&quot ; which might hint at the subject matter of the next batch of content for the highly successful franchise. Hey, we wouldn't mind trying to move up the Sim caste system. Maybe learn how to joust? Perhaps go pheasant hunting in the northern wilds? Learn how to relieve ourselves properly in a sturdy waste bucket? No, wait. That last thing sounds terrible.

New URL registrations point to possible medieval spin-off for popular life simulation series. Expansion packs for The Sims have proved a highly lucrative business for publisher EA in the past, and a host of new URL registrations point to a possible new direction for the series in the future.

The company could've snapped up Maxis and Will Wright's Sim-based phenomenon, but decided against it. Speaking at the Dice Summit 2010 in Vegas, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick offered a compelling history of the company's origins and detailed some of its biggest misses through the years. All my life I was the rebel flying the Millennium Falcon and suddenly I wake up and I'm on board the Death Star, joked Kotick, whose inspired keynote took audience members back to his early days when he attempted to acquire Mediagenic, ... which was the name given to Activision after they no longer wanted to be a game company. So here I was in 1990 and I was wondering who the fu** would call a company Mediagenic when you have the name Activision? he said.

The Electronic Farmyard writes: A few amazing facts regarding our Virtual Neighbourhood A Decade later. The EA Play Label of Electronic Arts Inc. announces the celebration of the ten year anniversary of The Sims, 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.

Electronic Arts CFO Eric Brown says the advent of digital distribution has put the PC on track to becoming the largest gaming platform in the world.

TVGB: EA has just announced during its financial conference call that there will be an entire downloadable city for The Sims 3 available on day one for free. EA is doing big marketing campaigns on the street, the internet and on television as well to get the word out. It will be available at retail and online with no DRM on June 2.

From the article: Don't get me wrong, sales data is great, and I always love pouring over the monthly NPD reports to see just how much more money Nintendo has managed to print; and when I hear that World of Warcraft has passed the 11.5 million subscriber mark, it certainly makes a mental impact. But the questions always remain: When people bring that Nintendo Wii home, do they actually play it? Just how dedicated are these WoW players? Thanks to the Nielsen ratings, which measure usage for the Top 10 PC titles and all major consoles, partial answers to both those questions and more await you after the break.