I have to admit to feeling a certain amount of glee over EA’s new press release… since many avid sims fans on various boards kept saying “if EA says it’s Feb 20, it’s Feb 20″. What if at one time EA says it’s Feb 20, and then at another time says it’s June 2? These kids need a basic course in temporal logic :)
Update: The page I linked above has been taken down, at least for now. Here is the full text of the statement that was posted. (Some fans are arguing that this is not genuine, but I see no reason not to believe that it’s the final statement, inadvertently posted a bit early — note the time — and taken down a couple of minutes later.)
EA announces New SHIP date for the Sims 3
February 03, 2009 21:20 PM
Highly-Anticipated PC Game from Best-selling PC Franchise Slated to Ship June 2, 2009
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., February 3, 2009 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that The Sims™ 3, the highly-anticipated flagship game from the best-selling PC franchise, The Sims will launch across the PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch and mobile devices summer 2009. The Sims 3 PC will ship to store shelves worldwide starting June 2, 2009.
“The Sims 3 is an incredible game that lets you play with life, create art and show off your creations,” said Ben Bell, Executive Producer, The Sims 3. “In the game, players are inspired by endless creative possibilities like the new Traits and Lifetime Wish features which allow players to create Sims with real personalities and destinies. Players can then take their Sim into town to interact with other Sims in the game and capture the action on video to show off online.”
“The June launch combined with the break-through game the team is building gives us the perfect runway to create awareness for The Sims 3,” said Russell Arons, Vice President of Marketing for EA. “The Sims 3 will be the original IP summer blockbuster of 2009 as we build off the success of the best-selling PC franchise of all time to create awareness with both loyal Sims fans and new players.”
Anyway, the press release makes the best of what must be a bad financial shock for EA, already in some economic trouble, by promising us an advertising blitz.
Some of us don’t need any more awareness than we’ve got, but at least we can be happy that we’ll get a more polished game. And I can absolve EA of the charge of preferring an on-time release to a functioning software product.
February 27, 2009 at 8:34 pm
It’s interesting how they didn’t think of setting the release date for June 2nd before deciding earlier to do Feb 20th. You’d think as a marketing director you’d know what good strategies to take. To say you’ve changed (a few days before release) to a few months later for better marketing .. to me seems like a lie. Of course they will use marketing ads during this time, but I’d think it’s either programming delays or if marketing a new way to build off of excited-depressed-excited fans .. which I don’t recall working well with many other companies.. I personally feel it’s programming problems. and if that’s the case, the June 2nd 2009 will be delayed to 2010 or so. Such as Spore was. and they’ll probably have to reduce things in the game because they can’t fix the issues.. Just an opinion.
March 3, 2009 at 6:42 pm
A release date is just a projection. What is called in business a “forward-looking statement”. If you’ve been around games a long time, you know they are frequently delayed, sometimes rather late; it doesn’t come as much of a surprise, especially since EA had been signaling it for weeks.
In other words, I see this as business as usual in the game publishing biz.