Sims Online rebranded and now free

Electronic Arts has rebranded Sims Online - it’s now known as EA-Land - and, perhaps more importantly, have removed the pricing model, making it completely free to use.

This must now be seen as a direct competitor to Second Life.

I would like to introduce you to EA-Land, a world that is free-to-play, and based on a re-engineered The Sims Online architecture. Yes, free.

The Sims Online (TSO) was made of 12 different cities (AlphaVille, Blazing Falls, etc..) and we are moving all of those cities inside EA-Land (this is called ‘the merge’ by the users!). We have a huge new map: it is 100 times bigger than the previous size of any city. We had to add a whole new zoom level to let users see it. The internet is faster now than when TSO was launched, so we have been able to let each house have more simultaneous visitors. A lot of new users are constantly joining us and we expect more. If you played TSO before, I think that you ought to own your lot in this new land, and I want you to have the ability to grab the best location before we open the gates. As an EA-Land subscriber, you will be able to have several Sims in the same “city” unlike in TSO where you were limited to one Sim per city.

This really is a major announcement. With new content, a new economy system, the introduction of web services and social networking, I can see the former Sims Online now taking off and hitting the big time.