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The Sims Online about to be closed

"It is with mixed emotions that today we are announcing the EA-Land experiment will soon draw to a close." (EA-Land)

EA-Land, successor of EA’s multiplayer online version of its popular The Sims-franchise will be closed in August, just weeks after its debut. The game’s homepage is already re-routed to a developers’ blog, where the team officially apologizes: “It is with mixed emotions that today we are announcing the EA-Land experiment will soon draw to a close. Since 2002, EA-Land / TSO has attracted a very special group of players (of which you are one) and we certainly appreciate your participation in the EA-Land community. The lifetime of the game has drawn to an end, and now we will be focusing on new ideas and other innovative concepts in the games arena.“

At the same time EA offers an immediate termination of billing, as well as a coupon and three free months for EA’s Club Pogo for former subscribers. Nonetheless, the announcement has stirred up a storm in a teacup, with 203 comments on the article ranging from sadness to angry abuses. Some commenters indicate that they were being billed in the past days, even though they already terminated subscriptions. Others raise the question if The Sims Online was just rebranded into EA-Land to be shut down later without harming the successful Sims-brand—which is pure speculation; it doesn’t come as a big surprise that harsh decision need to be made sometimes when an idea doesn’t really fly.

And TSO did seemingly not fly well enough. According to (admittedly a bit outdated) reviews, TSO suffered from sluggish connections, technical restrictions when compared with the Sims-franchise, lack of content and seemingly unbalanced gameplay. A fatal blow probably was a money-cheat enabling players to get large amounts of Simoleons (the Sims Online currency), effectively destroying the already broken in-game economy and rendering many of the objectives of the game useless.

With the termination of EA-Land, EA seems to silently admit to be unable to address these shortcomings.

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