‘Sims Online’ Gives Creators a Painful Reality Check

Deana Morss’ one-word take on “The Sims Online”: boring.

“My screen saver is more entertaining,” the 31-year-old college student from Casper, Wyo., said of the ambitious and closely watched computer game from Electronic Arts Inc.

Morss’ gripe echoes complaints from thousands of gamers disappointed by a title that EA had hoped would broaden the appeal of online games and persuade a mainstream audience to shell out $10 a month to play.

But after being heralded on the cover of Newsweek and on “60 Minutes,” the $25-million “Sims Online” has turned into an expensive letdown for Redwood City, Calif.-based EA. Sales are sluggish, reviews have been merciless, and many in the video game industry wonder whether online games will ever find a large following.

“In retrospect, we allowed ourselves to become more optimistic than we should have been,” EA President John S. Riccitiello said.

“The Sims Online” is a key product for EA because it tests the broader market for subscription-based online games, which are attractive to publishers because they generate continuing revenue beyond the initial sale of a packaged title.

The game, built on the successful “Sims” franchise, takes place online, in a world where thousands can play at once. Players control characters who live out virtual lives by making friends, buying houses, marrying, building businesses and developing careers.

Pamina Elgueta, a 24-year-old student at UC Irvine, has been playing the game for a month with her brother and best friend. The three have been collaborating, both online and in person, to build a virtual resort. For Elgueta, the game is a way to meet new people.

“It’s the most interesting aspect of the game,” she said. “This gives it a social dimension. There’s another person behind every character.”

But many players say there’s just not enough to do.

“It was fun for the first couple of hours, but then it became very monotonous,” said Phil Lochner, a 28-year-old Web designer from Campbell, Calif., who said he was unlikely to pay the monthly fee once his 30-day free trial is up. “Ultimately, there didn’t seem to be any point to the game.”

Other players have blasted the game as “shallow,” “pointless,” “tedious” and “repetitive.”

EA executives say they are doing all they can to fix things. Because the game occurs online, EA can tinker with content to make it more fun, something the company can’t do with offline titles.

Developers at EA’s Maxis studio in Walnut Creek, Calif., have been shoveling in new features daily. To goose sales, EA dropped the retail price $10 this week to $39.95.

“Do I wish we shaped the expectations differently? Of course,” said Gordon Walton, the game’s executive producer. “But all we can do now is cope with what’s happened. The way we’re doing that is to give players what they want as quickly as we can.”

As EA scrambles to mend “The Sims Online,” others in the $20-billion video game industry are transfixed by the company’s effort to reach out to mainstream players. Hard-core gamers are familiar with multiplayer games that charge monthly fees, but the idea of a subscription-based game is relatively new for casual players.

“People in the industry want to know whether you can bring casual game players into a pay-for-play environment,” said Mark Jacobs, chief executive of Mythic Entertainment, which produces “Dark Age of Camelot,” a fantasy-based online game that caters to more experienced players.

Even with broad media exposure, “The Sims Online” sold 105,000 copies, or only about a quarter of the initial shipment in December. Since then, 82,000 users have registered to play the game for the 30-day trial; of those, about 40,000 have run out of free time and are paying the monthly fee, Riccitiello said.

The disappointing sales were partly blamed for the only blemish in EA’s holiday quarter results, reported last week. Although the company posted overall sales and net income gains, its EA.com division, which includes results for “The Sims Online,” lost $70 million.

“The Sims” franchise is one of EA’s most successful, generating more than $650 million in sales, $200 million in profit and 8 million players worldwide since 2000. The original 3-year-old game and its add-ons continue to be among the top 10 best-selling computer games week after week, according to market research firm NPD Group Inc.

EA executives figured that if 10% of those fans subscribed, the company could take in $96 million a year in fees. That figure, however, remains elusive. The company now hopes to reach half the original goal, or 400,000 subscribers, by December.

Although that seems modest compared with the 22 million “Sims” games and add-ons that EA has sold, it’s an aggressive goal for an online game reaching out to a new audience.

The country’s most successful online game, “EverQuest,” took three years to accumulate its 435,000 subscribers. EA’s own “Ultima Online” has 220,000. Unlike offline games, which typically have initial sales spikes and then quickly drop off, the growth curve for online games tends to be more gradual.

“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” EA Chairman and CEO Larry Probst told Wall Street analysts during a conference call last week.

“What the subscription level is after six or eight weeks is not important,” he said. “It’s what happens after 18 months.”