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The Sims Online Evolution: A Case Study Growing the Game Currently, the TSO live team releases new game content at a fairly regular cadence. We've added 20+ new features that give new dimensions to TSO, filling in the gaps as seen by players. Some of these features were based on the original pre-launch designs, while others were created in response to player feedback and our new design direction. For example, one new feature is the addition of clothing racks. After seven months of forcing players to wear the same thing (besides temporary costume changes), players finally have the ability to buy new, never-seen-in-the-game-before outfits. The other side to this feature is the chance to sell clothes, adding the ability for players to profit from selling skins purchased from the game to other players. There is also a new secure trading feature we implemented post-launch, allowing players to trade objects that they originally purchased in the catalog. Both of these features add value to the existing property category know as "stores." These two new features added depth to the game and were highly requested by players. Also, they were developed and launched in by the live-team, demonstrating that we can react to the players' feedback and grow the game. TSO players have been seeing new content integrated with existing content ever since beta. The clothing racks and secure trade features are examples of this - neither was present at launch -- and they exceeded our expectations when released to all of our production cities. Our community was very pleased. Clothing racks were designed to enable players to maximize their own creativity and direction of how they may play the game. Continuing down this path isn't growing the game to the extent we've identified. Going forward, the goal of our content will be attracting a new audience with the "new and improved" game including service NPCs, pets, new immersive job environments and levels of achievement, not just the post-launch-content. Dogs and cats, as seen in The Sims Unleashed, will be in TSO soon. Players will individually own and have to take care of these pets, giving players more of the familiar dollhouse-like gameplay. These pets will have their own motives, and will search out different ways to fulfill these needs without player direction. If a kitty becomes bored, she may begin looking for an object "advertising" fun like a scratching post or maybe another pet to play with or scare. Another feature we are adding is service NPCs. A player will be able to hire an NPC, like a maid, to automatically show up and clean their TSO property. This feature was first seen in The Sims, and as our players become busier entertaining other players or going to work, they won't have the time to keep their property neat and tidy. Both pets and service NPCs add an element of autonomy and unpredictability never seen in TSO before, and is believed to be a big win with the community Spreading the word of these ongoing injections of content has been crucial to growing our audience and retaining existing players. The game cannot appear stagnant. Word moves quickly within the community when new teaser content is added to our "Test Center" (TC) city, creating a buzz among players. (The Test Center is a known temporary city where we add, test, and take away features regularly. This provides the development team a last minute tuning and bug check before implementing the features to all of the regular cities. For instance, we found out that outfits on the clothing racks were not expensive enough. We increased the price ten-fold before dropping the content to the other cities. With
the upcoming changes to TSO, we are counting on word of mouth communication
to create a positive, fresh buzz and get new people into the game. So
we'll be leaning this strong grapevine between the various Sims
and TSO communities. Balancing the current game experience while we move towards our new goals is a delicate procedure. It may turn out that particular areas of the game get updated differently. If we add more NPCs to the game to pursue a similar feel as "townies" in The Sims Hot Date expansion pack, we risk depleting our internal team resources to enhance other existing features and make optimizations. An example of where limited resources have affected the game is the lack of direct focus on the economy. Currently our marketing plans and design priorities are forcing us to focus on issues that aren't strictly related to the economy. That's a decision that some of us find painful, since the economy is a very important part of the game and if we neglect it too much, the game weakens. If this becomes a substantial threat to the game, we'll have to change focus and react appropriately. Production, design, engineering and QA will need keep an eye on the overall game as they continue balancing the finer points of the new content. Another
lesson we've learned is that live content updates are challenging. We
want to deliver all sorts of new content, but the reality is that adding
new content means that players have to download all of this new content
to their PCs. We need to be sensitive to this, since most of our audience
isn't used to this kind of process in their game experience. We've explored
creative solutions to the distribution of new content, including a method
similar to how we handled beta CDs: send us $5 for shipping and handling
and we'll mail you the new CDs. But that means that we have to verify
that each person is an existing player, and we have to be sure players
aren't selling these CDs to others. We're tempted to let players continue
to get content updates via downloadable "updates" and perhaps
reward them with in-game perks or community events in exchange for their
patience. Marketing, production and design put a lot of effort into researching where the product is and mapping potential audience segments to just the right kind of content. We also had to keep delivering content to the current community while at the same time make a plan about how to take our product to a new market and content direction. Reevaluating some of the fundamental game designs was not easy, but the team bought into it and came up with great solutions. Most recently, we have started rolling out the new features to the community. We are counting on the community to create an enthusiastic buzz in existing TSO circles, which will hopefully compel new players to join TSO. The positive results of some of our efforts have already been validated by our current community on the Test Center city. If the TSO community broadens, we'll know we've been successful. Reports indicate that players love the similarities to The Sims, and many are recommending the game to their friends who play The Sims.
TSO is still a relatively new online game compared to most other MMOGs on the market, and we'll continue to modify the game to suit the desires of our player community and retailers. We will also closely watch the player demographics, gameplay styles and listen to the community. The Sims Online will continue to evolve.
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