FEB. 26, 2008 • EA has relaunched The Sims Online as EA Land. The original MMO did not match the popularity of single-player Sims games, and was discontinued after a year in October 2003. The widely held reason for the MMO’s lack of success was not supporting player-made content. So the original subscription revenue model has been discarded in favor of a free-to-play model that encourages purchases of player-made content with Simoleans, EA Land’s in-game currency. Players can earn Simoleans by helping other players, selling custom-made objects, running a retail store, or purchasing the currency directly from EA. Consumers who played The Sims Online can re-register within the first month to gain access to all of their old characters and in-game items. The 12 cities that existed in The Sims Online, and all other previous game content, have also been transferred into EA Land.

Impact: While we think the name EA Land is a little on the creepy side, the business model makes a great deal of sense. The Sims franchise has been the one to prove that virtual worlds can actually get consumers to spend big bucks, even in the absence of the social/community features that in theory are supposed to be the big attration of these products. A huge part of the Sims experience is virtual items and EA has made a fortune from add-on packs that are mainly just a whole bunch of new items. Thus the idea of expanding the business model to allow players to purchase items ala carte makes a great deal of sense. But EA Land?…we don’t quite get that.