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"Possibilities in this game are tremendously large," said Wright. "Also there's a much higher percentage of weirdness."

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Revising original Sims

Electronic Arts creates new version of popular game

by Matthew Yi, Chronicle Staff Writer

Dina is a young woman who is attracted to Mortimer, a rich older man.

Living down the street from her is Don, a dashing bachelor who is engaged to Mortimer's socially awkward daughter, but who has trouble keeping his focus on just one woman.

Then there is Brandi at the other end of town. She's a single mom struggling to raise two boys.

It may sound like a daytime TV soap opera, but it's actually Sims 2, the sequel to the most popular PC video game ever.

After months of delays, Electronic Arts in Redwood City is finally getting set to deliver the title, a game that allows the player to create characters and control their lives -- everything from choosing a spouse and a career to what to eat for dinner and when to go to the bathroom.

The new title has a host of improvements including detailed 3-D graphics, better artificial intelligence and a new movie-making feature that allows the gamer to record character interactions in this life-simulating game.

"It's a shot in the dark," said Will Wright, the video game icon who created the original Sims and who helped with the sequel, referring to the movie-making feature. "It's one of those things that is not quite there yet ... but it's a cool feature, and I'd like to see what people do with it."

The first Sims has been a phenomenon. Not only have millions of people played the game, but scores of fans have put up Web sites offering for free their own custom-designed wallpaper, clothes, chairs, tables and other virtual objects to be added into the game.

Wright said he wasn't sure how well the first Sims would do in stores when it hit the shelves four years ago.

"We weren't sure what people would do with it," said Wright, who originally thought about naming the game Doll House. "We didn't really understand Sims well enough. But it was remarkable how much people were reading themselves into the game."

Neil Young, general manager of EA's Maxis Studio which oversees the Sims franchise, said that when his firm was getting ready to release the first Sims in 2000, it expected to sell 158,000 copies, a respectable number for a PC game.

Instead, "We've done nearly 40 million Sims, including (six) expansion packs," he said.

Young estimated that figure represents about 6 to 10 percent of the entire PC video game software market.

He wouldn't say what EA's estimates are for Sims 2, but there has been plenty of hype and anticipation for the sequel, which is scheduled to hit store shelves on Sept. 17.

It will have plenty of competition. PC game Doom 3 is already out, and Half-Life 2 will be available this month. Also coming this fall are console games Halo 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Gran Turismo 4.

The new PC titles should help the PC game market, which -- unlike the console game segment -- shrank from $1.4 billion in 2001 to $1.22 billion last year, said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities.

But he estimates that even with the big titles this year, the PC gaming market should be about the same as last year.

Still, Sims 2 is a big deal for EA, which is likely to sell 2 million to 2.5 million copies this holiday season, said Pachter, who doesn't own EA shares and whose firm doesn't have a banking business with the game publisher.

EA says it isn't worried about the competition because, unlike the shooting, racing or strategic games that attract the typical 18- to 34-year- old males who dominate the market, the Sims franchise has attracted a significant number of women and what the industry calls casual gamers.

"A lot of hard-core gamers bought the first Sims and played it for a while, but ... it was their wives and girlfriends who ended up playing more," Wright said. "This time ... we didn't want to lose the core Sims audience ... (but) we need to reacquire the hard-core gamers. We need to give them a much deeper strategic game play."

That's where Sims 2's new features come into play.

While the new game is still based on making sure that the basic needs of the characters are met, such as getting enough food, sleep and fun, EA has added another layer of humanity: desire to fulfill lifelong dreams.

The new game has an additional panel on the bottom of the screen that shows a character's four wants and three fears. These can be anything from wanting to meet new friends to getting a job promotion. Fears can range from illness to the death of a spouse.

Depending on the situation at the moment, different wants and fears will pop up, and a gamer, if he or she chooses, can make sure the characters achieve those desires.

Furthermore, a character's wants and fears are also dictated by his or her aspirations.

For example, a character whose aspiration is to raise a family will want to get married, have kids and spend as much time as possible with his spouse and children. Then there are characters bent on gaining knowledge, friends, romance or money.

Lucy Bradshaw, executive producer of Sims 2, said aspirations, wants and fears are meant to attract traditional mission-oriented gamers.

Adding that new layer to the game delayed the game's release six months, said Young, the general manager.

Some of the other major upgrades in Sims 2 include characters that look more realistic and are smarter. For example, if one character gets into a fight with another, they won't get along so easily the next time they meet.

Also, the characters in the new game age over time. Couples can have babies that inherit both their looks and personalities.

"Possibilities in this game are tremendously large," said Wright. "Also there's a much higher percentage of weirdness."

For example, one neighborhood has an alien family that just moved in, and there will be alien abductions.

While Sims 2 has managed to keep its teen rating, the company has added more risque situations, such as "Woohoo" -- a sexual encounter between two characters under the blanket in bed or underwater in a hot tub. As in the first version, there is no nudity, only pixilated body parts when a character jumps into the shower.

"It's important for us to have the teen rating, but you also don't want to make it vanilla," said Bradshaw. "It makes for a more interesting, realistic experience ... and we treat it humorously rather than salaciously."

Young said EA plans to follow up with a number of expansion packs. After the first Sims came out, EA was rolling out two expansion packs a year for a total of six. These smaller add-ons allowed characters to have pets, go out on dates and take vacations.

Young wouldn't say what the first Sims 2 expansion pack would look like, but added the plan is to have it out in the first quarter next year.

"It definitely is one of EA's top franchises," said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at SoundView Technologies Group. "The initial numbers may not rival (EA's popular Madden football game), but over time, it has the potential to be one of the company's top titles."

THEN
The 2-D characters looked like paper dolls and had only basic needs such as eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom.

NOW
The 3-D characters are more realistic.
Improved artificial intelligence gives them memory.
They also have stronger emotional needs.