While we'll admit that The Sims was never more than a stone's throw away from being an all-out casual series anyway, EA will continue to dress the franchise in casual attire in MySims Kingdom, the sequel to last year's 3 million unit selling MySims. Shipping this fall worldwide for the Wii and DS, the game was first announced earlier this year as one of a handful of new dumbed down casual-themed takes on The Sims. However, EA today released the first details about the game, calling MySims Kingdom "a story of adventure, discovery and exploration to help King Roland and his subjects revitalize the Kingdom."

The gameplay, which once again sounds more than a little like Animal Crossing, will center on exploring and developing a kingdom through The Sims-style customization, with the DS version adding emphasis on mini-games as players try to turn aside a rival evil king. Adds The Sims studio head Rod Humble, MySims Kingdom will include "rewarding quests, building houses, bridges or even making contraptions powered by electricity or water." The game eschews much of the larger franchise's sandbox appeal for backstory, leaving us waiting for until next year's The Sims 3 before we can know the joy of deleting the ladder from the neighborhood pool.

We always found The Sims to be sort of depressing. While creating a virtual replica of your life may seem like an amusing activity at first, you -- like us -- may find the distant view through an LCD window to be both startling and uncomfortable. Yes, we can see our house from here. And we can see that it's an empty, meaningless shell bereft of human interaction outside of the occasional pizza delivery boy teleporting into the driveway. Having said that, we're definitely keen to try The Sims 3, as it'll enable us to virtually do something we've never done before. Venture "outside."

You could visit different areas in earlier games, but according to 1UP, The Sims 3 will feature a large and seamless neighborhood where a step out of the door is a step into a "much bigger sandbox." The myriad of meters indicating your Sim's moods and motives will also see an overhaul, with players encouraged to be less anal about living and more focused on living it up. You can expect more information to be tucked within the April/May issue of the official Games for Windows Magazine. Don't forget to check back with on March 19th when the official Sims site stops teasing us.

[Thanks, TechNick]

If there was any doubt that EA would continue to milk the lucrative cash cow that is Will Wright's Sims franchise, that doubt can now be officially expelled. EA has created an official page for the next title in the series -- titled, appropriately enough, The Sims 3.

The site features little else besides the above image, which teases more details coming on March 19. Our Holmesian deductive reasoning lets us assume that this title will be a return to form for the Sims series, as opposed to another entry in the adorable but divergent MySims line. With work on Spore wrapping up after eight years, it's also possible that Mr. Wright himself may take an active role in the game's development. Guess we'll all have more information come March 19 (finally, something to anxiously look forward to besides Brawl).

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Electronic Arts has put a new casual – well more casual – spin on its popular The Sims franchise by announcing a new collection of downloadable Sims titles over EA's casual games service, Pogo.com. The line, titled The Sims Carnival, currently includes two different titles, neither of which come across as particularly compelling nor innovative, a line of thinking with which we think EA should be intimately familiar.

The first of these new titles, The Sims Carnival Bumper Blast, asks players to shoot at Sims-styled bumpers before their ammo supply runs dry, while the other, a rather tepid-sounding Tetris clone called The Sims Carnival SnapCity, has players construct a city out of falling blocks. Both games are bundled together for download for $19.99. The announcement is the latest in EA's not so secretive move to establish a significant foothold in the casual games space, and while we appreciate the effort, it will be interesting to see if The Sims branding alone is enough to convince gamers to hop on board ... or simply break Will Wright's heart in twain.

As if there wasn't enough worthless gibberish on the internet already, EA has seen fit to stick the gobbledygook speaking Sims down one of the internet's most popular tubes, YouTube. The Sims On Stage is essentially a Sims-branded (you might say Sim-ian) YouTube, with the added dangers of karaoke, video poetry and of course, The Sims content. You can thank / blame EA's acquisition of SingShot Media back in February if you want.

Of the many make-your-own-video features the beta site offers, encouraging users to squeal their way through "thousands" of available karaoke songs and upload the recorded results is by far the most terrifying. EA's press release assures us that it's all for the sake of expressing "creativity," a term we feel may have been confused with one meaning "penchant for torturing complete strangers." It's a penchant we share, since we've embedded one of the first obnoxiously loud creations to be spawned by the site after the break.

"Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?"
"I'm modeling a car for Need For Speed: Pro Street, what does it look like?"
"I just stepped out for lunch... I was using this workstation for the The Sims team."
"The the sims? You got a stuttering problem there? You nervous about something?"
"No, I was referring to the team working on The Sims. This is our computer."
"Really? I don't see your name on it."

Well, obstinate fictional employee, there soon will be! EA is planning to reorganize its business in the coming months into four primary and distinctly labeled groups, each equipped with dedicated studio and publishing teams. The labels are as follows:

• EA Games: Home to the likes of Need for Speed, Medal of Honor, Spore, Command & Conquer and the EA Partners publishing business.
• The Sims: If a game features a nonsense dialect, emotion gauges and a mechanical imitation of your own life, it'll come from this team.
• EA Casual Entertainment: A group dedicated to easily accessible titles for the non-gaming folk. Franchises like Harry Potter and Boogie fall under this label, as does EA's online casual game service, Pogo.com.
• EA Sports: What could this section be working on? Answers on a postcard.

EA notes that all four labels will be supported by two new groups, namely Central Development Services, a technology group overseeing operations and EA's online platform, and Global Publishing, the marketing muscle and distribution, uh... diaphragm.

Movie studio execs, we need to have a talk. We just don't understand the video game properties you're turning into movies now. First, there was The Sims, which still has us throwing up in our mouths a bit. Now, Transformers producer Tom DeSanto has picked up the rights to the City of Heroes MMORPG. There are apparently plans to turn it in to a big budget film and then into a TV series. Honestly, what are you guys doing?

Now, don't get us wrong, we'd love to see the first good superheroes vs. aliens flick since Independence Day (you didn't know Bill Pullman was a superhero?). And we can certainly understand the financial motivation. But what are you really buying with City of Heroes? Is it the name recognition? That won't help you with the mainstream moviegoers. Is the characters? Are you really dropping coin for The Statesman? We just don't get it, why call it City of Heroes? You know, you make a movie called Flying Town or Metropolis of Super-hard Punching, and you don't have to pay a dime. It can be the exact same thing, just with a different title. This, of course, comes as bad news for producers of Sims movie, as there's already a film about people speaking gibberish for 90 minutes and then dying in a room filled with their own fecal matter. It's called White Chicks.

[Via Sci Fi Wire, Thanks, Ryan Gioia]

Now, is this just a crass ploy to get up in the Matchbox 20 money that The Sims series pulls down? No, not according to Sims Studio head Rod Humble. He says it's all about the story. "The Sims has done an interactive version of an old story, which is what it's like to have infinite power and how do you deal with it," he said. "Given that that's an old story, you can imagine how easily that would translate to traditional story telling." Gross, now we've got synergy all over our keyboard.

Oh, lest we forget the best part, a guy who helped write Scary Movie 3 is writing the screenplay. So, yeah, enjoy. We're going to go kiss Uwe Boll on the mouth.

[Via Arrogantics]

A new wave of e-currency is almost upon us with the announcement from Blizzard that they are offering World of Warcraft themed Visa cards that turn real world spending into fake world game time. The card will take 1% of what you charge and turn it into minutes that you can use to visit Azeroth. So, if you want to rack up a lot of time, hand this to a big spender.

This comes on the heels of The Sims credit card, which will likely be something similar. MAKE magazine said we'd be seeing something like this a year ago, and it looks like they were right. Here's hoping they take our real world purchases and turn them into in game money, because they don't take credit cards in Ironforge, and some of the stuff we want is pretty darned expensive.

[Via WoW Insider]

At GDC, Maxis Game Designer Robin Hunicke spoke about her process of transferring The Sims to the Wii. Her team was excited to be working on a Wii title because of its new controller and Nintendo's history, but Hunicke's most important lesson was to stay true to the defining elements of a franchise instead of starting over for a new console.

Hunicke said, "The Wii is so cool ... oh my gosh. ... Almost everyone on my team is a Nintendo fan. Almost all game developers are Nintendo fans. ... We were really excited to build a [Wii] game." But since the team began work well before the console's launch, they only had tradeshow experiences and Nintendo ads to approach the MySims design.

Hunicke noticed the clean lines, family oriented approach, and tactile aesthetics of the early Wii marketing material. She followed those elements instead of trying to build the game around flailing controller movements. Hunicke said, "We wanted to bring The Sims to the Wii in a way that we could say we were at home on the Wii."

Remember that whacky, Japanese-centric version of The Sims that EA cooked up for the Wii? Well, they finally got around to announcing it for us! MySims will be making its way to the Nintendo Wii and DS this Fall and boy are we ever excited.

Ever since The Urbz (Serious question: Does anyone even remember The Urbz?) The Sims have been due for a serious makeover. Turning them into adorable, toy-like kiddies seems like a step in the right direction. At least until we get over that whole "Uncanny Valley" nonsense, anyways.

EA also launched a new website to promote the game where you can view an English language version of the original trailer. Check out the screenshots below and start hoping for some sort of WiFi Connect gameplay to pop up in the months to come.

Each cycle of consoles brings with it the exaggerated tale of PC gaming slipping into the abyss, slowly coughing binary blood into its pillow and begging for a merciful shutdown sequence. The last batch of NPD results, recently updated to include data for PC software, indicates that PC gaming still has some life left in it. GameDaily BIZ reports that the PC sector saw revenues in excess of $970 million, a one percent increase over last year.

A minimal improvement, to be sure, but a turn-around from a steady decline witnessed in the last few years. Blizzard's World of Warcraft being the biggest selling game of 2006 is no surprise, but the rest of the top ten might raise an eyebrow or two (three for our deformed mutant readers). PC gaming might not be dead, but it is being dominated by a single game -- The Sims. Five of the ten top-selling titles are part of the Sims franchise, with The Sims 2 and a duo of expansion packs besting even Bethesda's Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Though WoW has several stereotypical nerd connotations, it actually boasts a lot in common with The Sims. Both have been shown to draw in male and female players, presenting experiences that unfold within as much time as the user dedicates to the game. They both center on a social experience, even though that's largely personified by lumps of polygons and AI routines in The Sims. Is a more social, more casual experience the key to retail success in PC gaming? It seems that way. It could also be attributed as the source of PC gaming's supposed death, with hardcore gamers feeling alienated and seeing fewer traditional titles climbing up the charts and onto their hard drives.

Just in case you haven't had your fill of being an insidiously manipulative being who rearranges the furniture in a man's house while he sleeps, EA has announced a trio of new Sims games. The Sims Stories is composed of three different standalone titles, namely Life Stories, Pet Stories and Castaway Stories. Getting all three will presumably allow you to follow the journey of a stranded couple forced to eat their beagle and flee from vicious seagulls intent on pecking their eyes out.

That's not true, but it should give you another idea of what the standout feature is for The Sims Stories -- it's, umm, a storyline! According to EA's website, "the new and engaging directed Story mode" promises to "take your Sims through a unique and entertaining storyline full of romance, conflict and dramatic twists." We're guessing said twist involves the the entire universe being uninstalled.

EA is labeling the games as "laptop friendly," which really means they don't require fancy 3D graphics cards to run. Get involved in a compelling, virtual love story on your laptop this February.

[Via The Last Boss. Thanks Tom.]

As noted earlier, a list published by UK newspaper The Independent reveals what many already assume; Nintendo's Mario is the best-selling franchise of all time. Coupled with the second best-selling franchise Pokémon (also a Nintendo property), the two series, which have sold a combined 348 million games worldwide, account for nearly 34% of the total sales of the top-twenty best-selling franchises; which include two additional Nintendo IPs ranked in the top ten, Donkey Kong and Zelda. So what's Nintendo's secret?

Cross-culture appeal, spin-offs (e.g., racers, sports titles, puzzlers), brand saturation (e.g., apparel, card games, TV shows), and E-ratings all appear part of a profitable formula built for the long haul.