Ten years ago the first edition of The Sims saw the daylight, after several years of development by Will Wright and his team. In the meantime we've seen two more sequels, various spin-offs, Sims games on any platform you can game on and of course a ton of expansion and stuff packs. The Sims team is celebrating by giving away some freebies. The Sims is a hugely successful franchise; expansion packs often top the sales charts, resulting in over $2.5 billion in revenue to date. From its launch in 2000 to 2004, The Sims was the best selling PC game worldwide; The Sims 1 for the first four years, The Sims 2 in 2004. The Sims 3 was EA's biggest launch ever, with 1.4 million copies sold in the first week, again being the best selling game of the year worldwide. Congratulations, EA!
The Sims series will be 10 years old in February, and we have to celebrate this! A couple of fansites including SimTimes and SimFans have received many cool renders from EA Germany, which fansites and fans can use to create cool stuff. I did not want to skip the 10th birthday of The Sims. So I created a bunch of wallpapers, in pretty much any resolution!
Furthermore a short note that our frontpage has been quiet lately, but I haven't disappeared. I have been busy for a while now behind the scenes working on the new version of SimsNetwork and SimsNetwerk. I can't tell you anything else yet, just keep an eye on the website. If something big is about to happen, I will make sure I'll post a message on the frontpage!
I was planning to upload this earlier but was busy so it got postponed. It's finally online though! The Christmas Baubles set in fuchsia and also one in blue! Featuring a couple of new patterns.
I don't just play Sims games. I decorate my home with Sims items. And if I don't have something Sims, I'll create it myself. I created paintings before, drawings, and now also snow sprayed Sims items for Christmas:
Have you made something Sims for Christmas? Show it on our forums or send me a link in the comments area of my Snow Stencils blog post.
EA released the Create a World tool yesterday. With this tool you can create your own worlds like Sunset Valley and Riverview. The tool is still beta, so there is a chance you'll come across some bugs. But you shouldn't let that stop you! Download the tool today and see what the buzz is all about!
There is also a manual on the official website for the Create a World tool.
You can read a blog from La Shawn (also known as Rain) from EA here. When on Rain's profile, click on the My Blogs tab to read it.
EA released a new patch for The Sims 3 and World Adventures on Tuesday. You can read a whole list of changes on this page.
Update: The patch causes problems for some people. I also had some issues trying to patch my game. EA is aware of the issues and is trying to solve these issues.
It took a while, mainly because I had a lot of issues with the game. It arrived later than expected. And after I installed it, I started working on the review right away. But I lost my review neighborhood. I had to start all over. But it's here now! And I tried my very best.
Click on the image above to start reading our review.
Now I haven't had time to collect all the links to other fansites' reviews. But I am going to collect them now and I will add them later on today!