the-sims-2 posts

The PC game industry owes a lot to The Sims franchise. Developer Will Wright's people simulation series, an extension of his Sim City games, remain some of the biggest PC game ever made, sales wise. But there might actually be one or two of you who haven't played the games.

Direct2Drive is making it easier this week by putting all of the previously released games in The Sims series on sale for 40 percent off for the entire week. That includes the latest game in the series, The Sims 3, along with its expansion packs. The next game in the franchise, The Sims Medieval, is due out later this year.

So we bet a lot of people who see you play action games or first person shooters think you are wasting your time. Not so, according to a new study from the University of Rochester. The study suggests that playing such games can help players with improving "a wide variety of general skills."

The study, to be published in the journal Current Biology, the authors tested " dozens of 18- to 25-year-olds" who apparently don't normally play games. Some of them spent hours playing action games like Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament while others played the decidedly non-action game The Sims 2. After playing the games each group was asked to perform some other tasks and answer some questions. According to the study, the players of the first person shooter games "were up to 25 percent faster" in completing their tasks and correctly answered the questions at the same rate as The Sims 2 players.

The researchers say that by playing first person shooters, players could improve in handling tasks like "multitasking, driving, reading small print, keeping track of friends in a crowd, and navigating around town."

[Via Blue's News. Photo courtesy of University of Rochester]

As we mentioned earlier this week, Electronic Arts is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of the first game in The Sims series. Today EA revealed some more info on the people sim game franchise. The Sims series is still one of the best selling game franchises of all time. EA claims that the entire series has sold over 125 million copies worldwide (that includes expansion packs) and has generated a total of $2.5 billion in revenue for EA.

The latest game in the series, The Sims 3, was launched in June 2009 and has so far sold a total of 4.5 million copies worldwide. There have been over 110 million downloads of player created content for the game since its launch.

Ten years ago this week, a game that was considered a big risk was first released by Electronic Arts. The Sims, developed by Will Wright and his team at Maxis, was a more personal extension of his previous best selling Sim City series. Instead of controlling the growth of a massive urban area with unseen humans, the game had players control the lives of "Sims", humans with their own odd language.

The game was unlike any other PC title ever released and it struck a cord with a large mainstream audience, especially women. The game, along with its many expansion packs and two full sequels, have sold a total of well over 100 million copies making The Sims the best selling PC game franchise in history.

The makers of the current game in the series, The Sims 3, are celebrating the 10th birthday with offering some special free items for the game which includes some new in-game paintings for your Sims's abode.

The NPD Group may have decided to forgo releasing weekly lists of the top 10 best selling PC games in the US but they are still releasing their regular monthly top 20 lists for the same catagory. Today it was revealed, to no one's surprise, that the debut of Electronic Arts' The Sims 3 was the top selling PC game in retail stores for June in the US.

In fact Gamasutra states that The Sims 3 sold a total of 820,000 copies in June in US retail stores. That made the game the number one best selling game title of the month, console or PC. The Xbox 360 version of Prototype was the number one best selling console game in June but sold just 419,000 copies.

1. The Sims 3 - Electronic Arts
2. The Sims 3 Collector's Edition - Electronic Arts
3. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
4. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
5. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
6. Spore: Galactic Adventures - Electronic Arts
7. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
8. Spore - Electronic Arts
9. Empire: Total War - The Creative Assembly/Sega
10. StarCraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
11. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - Blizzard
12. Reel Deal Slots Adventure - Phantom EFX
13. Civilization IV: Complete Edition - Firaxis Games/2K Games
14. WarCraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
15. SimCity Box - Electronic Arts
16. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
17. The Sims 2: Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
18. Prototype - Radical Entertainment/Activision
19. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GOTY Edition - Bethesda Softworks/2K Games
20. Ghostbusters: The Video Game - Terminal Reality, Atari

While we are firmly in June, the NPD Group has gone ahead and set out their top 20 best selling PC games in the US for the month of May. As you can see there's a lot of familar games in the top 20. In fact not one of the games listed was released in May. That will likely change for June with The Sims 3 and possibly other titles.

Blizzard took seven out of the top 20 slots for the May list and three of the top five, including the number one slot for the MMO expansion World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
4. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
5. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
6. Spore - Electronic Arts
7. Left 4 Dead - Valve
8. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
9. Fallout Trilogy - Interplay
10. StarCraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
11. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
12. Demigod - Gas Powered Games/Stardock
13. Real Deal Slots Adventure - Phantom EFX
14. The SimCity Box - Electronic Arts
15. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
16. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
17. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition - Bethesda Softworks
18. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
19. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II - Relic/THQ
20. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor - Relic/THQ

The NPD Group's latest list of the top 10 best selling PC games in retail stores is, well, boring with little change from the previous week's list. The list below is for the week that ended on May 30. However we expect the next week to see The Sims 3 on top of the list in its debut week:

1. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
2. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
3. Spore - Electronic Arts
4. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
5. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
6. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
7. Reel Deal Slots Adventure - Phantom EFX
8. Civilization IV: The Complete Edition - Firaxis/2K Games
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
10. Left 4 Dead - Valve

Perhaps because of this week's launch of The Sims 3, the people sim's previous entry, The Sims 2 Double Deluxe, managed to outpace World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King to sit on top of the NPD Group's latest list of the top 10 best selling retail PC games in the US.

There's little else that's different in this week's list (for the week ending May 23) other than a n ppearance for the casual game Reel Deal Slots Adventure! by Phantom EFX (which was released over a month ago).

1. The Sims 2: Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
2. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
3. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
4. World of WarCraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
5. Spore - Electronic Arts
6. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
7. Fallout Trilogy - Interplay
8. Left 4 Dead - Valve
9. Reel Deal Slots Adventure! - Phantom EFX
10. The Sims 2: Apartment Life - Electronic Arts

It's good to be working at Blizzard. The massive PC game developer continues to rule as its various games sell, sell and sell more copies. The NPD Group's list of the top 20 best selling PC games for April 2009 (via info from US retail stores) shows that Blizzard-published titles took up a full third of the games on the list

Also of note are two strong debuts for Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor at number four and Demigod at number 6. And an ultra-cheap price point has put Illusion Softworks' 2004 released WWII shooter Hidden And Dangerous II at the number 20 slot.

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
4. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor - Relic/THQ
5. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
6. Left 4 Dead - Valve
7. Demigod - Gas Powered Games/Stardock
8. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
10. Spore - Electronic Arts
11. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
12. StarCraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
13. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
14. Warhammer 40, 000: Dawn of War II - Relic/THQ
15. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
16. The SimCity Box - Electronic Arts
17. Bejeweled Twist - PopCap Games
18. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
19. The Sims 2 Pets - Electronic Arts
20. Hidden & Dangerous 2 - Illusion Softworks/2K Games

The NPD Group's top 10 best selling PC games list (for sales of games at US retail stores) has a new edition for the week ending May 2 and in a bit of a surprise a new bundle of three classic Fallout games from its original developer Interplay made the list at number 7.

The $20 retail bundle called Fallout Trilogy contains the RPG titles Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 along with the spin-off game Fallout Tactics. It just goes to show even games made over 10 years ago can find new audiences. The rest of the list contains repeats from the last two weeks with World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King continuing to top the list.

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. Left 4 Dead - Valve
4. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
5. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
6. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
7. Fallout Trilogy - Interplay
8. Demigod - Gas Powered Games/Stardock
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
10. Spore - Electronic Arts