Electronic Arts have announced that the new Sims title has “sold thru more than 1.4 million PC/Mac units within the first week”, and that makes it their most successful PC launch ever. Given that last month’s top selling PC game in the US was The Sims 2 Double Deluxe, it’s a fair bet that The Sims 3 will continue selling in the months and years ahead. And there should be no surprise about that, The Sims 3 is an incredibly well designed and silly soap opera of a game. Seized by my normal Sims-response malevolence, I set up a family of nightmarish redneck freaks, complete with horrifying clown-faced patriach (above), and I was intending to do a couple of posts about their trials, tribulations and inevitable psychiatric collapse over the coming weeks. But the problem is that I can’t get near The Sims 3 when it’s running, probably because I still haven’t built my girlfriend that gaming PC I’ve been promising for the past two years… Hmm.
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roBurky’s Kev and Alice is a real RPS worthy story. Do read.
I played a bit of Sims1 pre-expansions and watched my g/f now wife play all the expansions and Sims2.
I didn’t really get hooked. My playing consisted of trying to max out a career, then trying to get enough money to buy the most expensive house and all the cool stuff. Then I tried to build the most impressive house. But once those goals were reached I ran out of reasons to play.
Don’t kid yourself boys, it is Virtual Dollhouse 3 by another name.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but I just prefer to play a Sim like Sim City 4 where I can continually strive to build bigger and more complex/efficient systems. You know. Man things.
The wife now has The Sims 3 (fortunately on her gaming laptop), and I might give it another go, the life goals could be interesting.
Having a kleptomaniac sim is almost cheating, but fun.
I have a family of thieves, they live in a smallish house, but it has a separate warehouse on the lot to store all the stolen goods. They have about two cars each, the contents of a gym and art gallery and the big statue from the park. Items from community lots seem to regenerate, so it’s also a rather profitable trait if you sell everything.
They can also cause chaos to another household by stealing the toilets and beds. Tehe.
Hmm, I seem to be shifting my enthusiasm for Dragon Age onto this now. Seems like enthusiasm can neither be created nor destroyed, just shifted about.
Rather funny to read so many positive comments about this one having in mind all put-downs for the earlier installments … when there is so little difference in gameplay and storytelling potential between it and expanded Sims 2.
My wife always serves in this regard as an excellent common person bellwether. Sims 3 leaked online like 2 weeks early. However my wife came home from work quite concerned because she had heard a rumor that the early leak was missing half the game. Does anyone know if EA intentionally spread that? Sounds like what they would do after some of their more recent pathetic attempts. Tip i just use cheat engine 5.5 to give her more in game money. If you can post a comment here you can use cheat engine.
I’m confused:
http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/207984/wrath-of-the-lich-king-breaks-sales-records/
wrath claimed to sell 2.8mil in 24hours – how does that compute?
@ spinhaden: It’s EA’s most successful launch.
I highly recommend the Awesomemod hack to anyone who wants to build their own custom NPCs to interact with their custom freak family – otherwise the Story Progression is just a wee bit too progressive, with people buying babies off the internet and then vanishing into holes in the ground, never to be seen again.
@Man Raised By Puffins
Ah yes thanks. I missed the key word “their”.
I’d assumed there was some clever wordplay involved but I guess I was being overly cynical.
Thanks
I wish it had an autosave, though. There’s something really disheartening about losing five hours of play if the thing crashes.
Thanks Man Raised By Puffins, now I can get down to the long, complicated process of working out which haircuts are BEST. So that I can spend my SimPoints on them.
I bought it but have put it aside till a patch comes out. There are some serious bugs in the game that have already put me off. Still, from what I have played it is a lot of fun to mess around with.
Mmm, just wondering… Is there a man that assumes to play and like The Sims and not because a woman in his family plays it?
I really can’t understand the prejudice against The Sims games. They are so sandbox and you may play it in which ever way you like, so they can be as casual or hardcore as you play it.
And they can also be as girly or manly as whoever plays it. So, some people may concentrate on building houses, other prefers to create a soap opera, others play it like an strategy game, trying to get to the top of the career, etc, etc, etc.
Why is it that now, ten years after the first game was released, most people say The Sims is a casual game for girls? Especially strange considering how intelligent RPS readers seem to be.
And The Sims 3 is an amazing and the best game in the series and has no DRM, so I can recommend it to everybody.
I remember making a serial killer in the first one, who would trap people in the walls of his house. Great fun, though it became increasingly difficult to maintain him, as he didn’t have a job (I was going for a cinematic Jason/Michael Myers type), and needed to have at least some level of social acceptance, so victims would come over in the first place — and of course he was tormented every night by the ghosts of his victims. Gosh that was a good time.
Please don’t call the police.
That gives me the idea to make a black widow. And see how many mansions I can inherit.
Did anyone really expect this game to NOT sell like crazy? It’s common knowledge by now that the only games on the PC to get these kinds of numbers are casual games aimed at housewives and children. The thousands of people pirating this game before it’s release were never going to make up the bulk of its sales, people who have no idea what a torrent is are.
So long as games like this being the only things that sell, expect more and more of them to come out. I expect much like the last few years, PC sales charts are going to be 50% Sims and Sims expansion packs, and 50% Blizzard (WoW + exp).
Um, that pic made me think of “John Wayne Gacy” for some reason. Hope I can sleep tonight… *clowns*.
There you have it… PC gaming is dead and unprofitable…
Wait…
I made up my Sim’s kitchen into a silent hill otherworld-esque hellhole.
Instead of walls it’s only separated from the rest of the house by a rusty chain-link fence and everyone within it in covered in a layer of rust and/or meaty flesh.
Do you still feel like eating? DO YOU STILL FEEL LIKE EATING?! DO YOU WANT TO EAT IN MY MURDER-KITCHEN BECAUSE YOU’RE ON THE MENU BROTHER!!!
God I am sick of the ‘housewives and children’ label being placed upon games. Total accessability should not somehow mean ‘NO HARDCOAR GAMERS!’.
I’ll pick this baby up when I get the chance. I’ve been looking forward to this.
As soon as this family dies I’m making an entire otherworld house!