The Sims Online is in a stunningly popular multiplayer version of the smash hit The Sims series of PC games. Game makers are an incredibly bright group of people, and have quickly realized the huge potential in massively multiplayer online games. Not only are they dominating the market these days, they also contributed to a very hefty bottom line as far as profits go. The well-known single player games, like The Sims series, are a one-time purchase and then that's it. Massively multiplayer online games have to first be bought and then continuously subscribed to with a monthly fee. This is an example of something called continuity sales, which simply means that there is a revenue stream in addition to the original purchase. From a business perspective, MMO games are much more lucrative. The reason why I bring all that up is that I think its important to keep that fact in mind when reviewing MMO style games like The Sims Online, youve got to keep dishing out money to play. While in the more traditional MMO games like Everquest players have some clear cut goals and objectives dangled just out of their reach at all times to keep them playing, The Sims Online appears to be lacking direction. Sometimes the single player Sims games appear to be without purpose. What I mean by that is you could play God and your little world and be the creator, but there was never any clear cut purpose to what you were doing and therefore after a while it would become boring. But the Sims online you only have control over a single player and that can really get old. The single player Sims gave characters different chores and tasks that had to be completed, such as jobs or errands, but The Sims Online has a much looser set of objectives. You still have tasks to perform and still have to eat, but you objectives aren't clear, nor is the timeframe in which to do them. The idea behind it, I manage, is to be able to interact with the other players. While its kind of fun to dawn a digital mask and interact with people on the digital format because you certainly not be able to do this and realize, it doesn't take very long before it begins to feel like some kind of graphical chat room. The few in game goals that there are, like making money or setting up a house, have severe restrictions and arent really all that rewarding due to an overall lack of depth to the in game economy, so really the only point I found to keep playing was to meet people. Seeing how there are free chat rooms all over the place, I guess I just dont feel like The Sims Online is worth a monthly fee, and maybe not even the original purchase price. There are other computer software teams out there that I feel you get a much better bang for your buck with. You can just pop on the Internet and do a search on video games, or computer games and come up with thousands of titles to choose from. There are also a whole bunch of reviews that you can read in order to make comparisons. So go ahead and check out the Sims online, but be sure to check out the other offerings that are out there. |
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