EA evaluating Sims 3 launch window… wait, is that news?

NOOOOO!

Yes, I’ve been closely following the discussion of whether the Sims 3 is delayed, on various forums and websites. And yes, this is not entirely a wholesome activity ;) One of my friends is about to stage an intervention >< Mostly I’ve refrained from posting about it here, but now we have something that looks a little more like concrete news, in the form of an article on Eurogamer, which says in part

EA issued the following statement:

“We are evaluating the launch window. The game looks great and in the near future we’ll have more information.”

Up to now, what we’ve mostly had is lots of reports of suppliers telling their customers the game is delayed, countered by lots of reports of other suppliers sticking with the original Feb. 20 release date. So it seemed that EA was putting out mixed messages. On the face of it, this latest quote just confirms EA’s ambivalence. However, personally I find it unlikely that a company like EA… famous for sticking to its release schedule regardless of bugs… would confess to ambivalence; seems more likely that it’s just “softening up” the public for a delay.

Risky Business: The Sims 2 Store

Shop till you drop... some cash

Microtransactions are very hip these days among game publishers. The most popular version of this trend is to give a game away and finance development solely by selling in-game items to players for a buck or two (as with many recent MMOs such as Runes of Magic). However, games you already bought and paid for are in the act now too. A few well-known cases: in 2006 Bethsoft was widely criticized for charging $1.99 for horse armor for Oblivion; they lowered the price and increased the content and wound up with a modest success on subsequent offers. In WoW you have a chance at random in-game vanity items by buying playing cards. And in July of last year, EA opened the beta of the Sims Store (a distinct entity from the EA Store, where EA sells full games online).

Is this economic model bad for games or gamers? A lot of gamers find the whole thing distasteful, but these are usually folks who would rather get the stuff for free (or included in the game at no extra charge). We all like free stuff, but game developers don’t owe it to us. Unfortunately, in the case of the Sims 2 Store, it’s the way microtransactions are implemented that’s the problem.