Sims Online goes live this week. Writes News.com:
“The Sims Online” will expand potential social interactions to thousands of other characters, all controlled by real people. Add a complex, free-market economic system, tools for creating in-game items and multiple chat vehicles, and you’ve got a game that emphasizes creativity and socializing over the swords-and-sorcery dynamics of the fantasy role-playing games that currently dominate online gaming.
Also see a Forbes story, and a more detailed one from Gamespot. An excerpt:
Players would be rewarded for creating as opposed to destroying. In most massively multiplayer games, you gain notoriety by killing. But in The Sims Online, Wright wanted to leverage the creativity of players. “People should be successful because they are making the game interesting to each other,” explains Wright. So if a player created an interesting house that attracted hundreds of visitors a day, they would earn money for this popularity, which in turn would allow them to be even more creative.
In addition, Wright was intrigued by the social angle of online games: He wanted to encourage players to interact with each other. This led to the concept of players being able to co-own a home with up to seven roommates. “In many ways, I wanted to make parts of the game boring so you’d be encouraged to talk with others,” says Wright.
It would be interesting to do something like Sims for SMEs. Simulate a parallel marketplace where one can try out marketing new products.
