Inspired by a post on Mashable, I decided to take a look at The Sims Social, the new Facebook gaming app by EA. As a fan of The Sims franchise from my youth, it was all-too-easy to integrate this time-killer into my life.

The Sims Franchise is Built on Virtual Micro-Management

In any form, The Sims is an interesting and somewhat disturbing concept. In the various incarnations of the game you control the lives and activities of either one or several virtual people (called “sims”). By performing various activities, your sim is rewarded with money (“simoleons”) that you can then use to purchase new stuff, larger houses, and various other things in the game. The Sims Social operates on the same basic structure but adds some interesting twists.

Facebook Friends make up your Sims Neighborhood

In single-player versions of the game, you create a virtual neighborhood and interact with strictly A.I.-based “neighbors.” The Sims Social modifies that by making your Facebook friends your “neighbors.”

To be neighbors in the game, you simply send requests to your Facebook friends, and after being accepted you can visit their houses, and they yours. While interacting with your neighbors in the game, their actions are still governed by A.I., but their character traits, clothing, design of their house, etc., are decided by your Facebook friends who have made those decisions about their sim. (AJ Glasser has written more in depth on the dynamics of real-world relationships and their interaction with virtual relationships in The Sims Social; check it out here.)

The Need for Neighbors in The Sims Social

Having the ability to interact with Facebook friends in the Sims neighborhood is not just a neat feature of The Sims Social; it’s necessary to make serious progress in the game.

This is how the process worked for me:

I signed up (after agreeing to use the http version of Facebook instead of https), and set up my sim. I was placed in my starter home and unloaded my boxes from storage. I spent some time interacting with the virtual host Bella, who graciously showed me how to get around in The Sims Social. Then I started making some simoleons by doing some work on my computer, guitar, and easel.

After a few minutes, I decided that I didn’t want to have my bed in my living room anymore; I wanted an additional room in my house. I went to the in-game shop to get a bedroom, and it was easy enough to add it on to my house, but I discovered that I couldn’t “build it” until I got three neighbors to help.

I already had some Facebook friends who were playing, so I requested that they be my neighbors without much difficulty, and after waiting around for a few days, enough of them decided they were will to help me build a bedroom.

Situations like this make it clear that EA designed the game to encourage users to get as many of their Facebook friends as possible in on the game. ([Update] Recently I’ve even been getting pop-ups asking me if I want to invite more people to play.) The more neighbors you have, the more likely it is that you will be able to find people to help you with various tasks in the game that require help from others.

EA Exploits Greed for Virtual Goods with Various Currencies in The Sims Social

By using various currencies, The Sims Social creates a desire in achievers like myself to keep playing. There are five aspects of the game that can (to various degress) be defined as a currency:

• Simoleons: The original currency in the Sims, simoleons are earned by completing various work-like activities (e.g. writing a literature review, cleaning a dirty toilet). You can save these for purchasing various things from the Sims shop.
• Social Points: These are also used for purchases in the Sims shop, but instead of having to “work” for them, they are earned by doing things with other sims either on the telephone or in person (e.g. talking on the phone, dancing together, watching TV together, etc.). Their primary purpose from EA’s standpoint is to encourage and increase interaction between players.
• Experience Points (XP): Who doesn’t like to level up? By performing activities of almost any kind in the game, you earn more XP. These XP points combine to increase your level. The higher your level, the more items will be available in the shop.
• Lifetime Achievement Points: When you level up, either a game level or a skill level, you often are rewarded with these LAP, which can then be used to add different traits to your sim, such as longer inspiration, better social skills, and other similar traits.
• Energy: More of a commodity than a currecncy, energy is a vital part of The Sims Social economy. Activities in The Sims Social that earn simoleons or social points usually require the use of an energy point. If you use all of your energy points, you won’t be able to do anything significant until you get some more. You are rewarded an energy point every 5 minutes, up to a maximum of 15. When you visit a sim for the first time that day, you get 5 bonus energy points. If you don’t want to wait or visit anyone, you can consume items that give you energy. These may be items that have been given to you, items that you have created, or items purchased with SimCash. (For more info on getting energy, read this post.)
• SimCash: This is where real-life, hard-earned greenbacks come into play. You need SimCash to buy some things in the shop, like the energy items mentioned above, as well as some other items that can be used in your house.

SimCash and the Monetization of The Sims Social

SimCash is EA’s golden goose in The Sims Social. The game is free to play, but by leveraging users’ greed, EA hopes to squeeze some money out of them through some very clever methods.

Are you feeling crammed in your tiny house? If you want to make an addition to your home, you need the help of friends… or you can use SimCash instead.

Do you want to get some new outfits for your sim? No problem. Click the “clothes” button and pick out what you want… but some items can only be purchased with SimCash.

Want some new furniture for your pad? Use some simoleons you’ve earned through your hard work, but the nicest, coolest stuff can only be acquired with SimCash.

If you’ve been playing for a while, you’ve probably run out of energy. You can use some free methods to get some more, or you can buy some more energy with SimCash.

You start out in the game with a few pieces of SimCash to get started, but to get more, you’ll have to give something in return. EA will trade Facebook Credits, a credit card/PayPal transaction, or a mobile transaction in return for some energy points. Alternatively, you can complete an offer in exchange for some SimCash. Similar to the “incentivized freebie websites” described by some work-from-home strategies like Project Payday, when you complete an offer, such as signing up for Netflix, GameFly, or a Cosmopolitan subscription, EA will return the favor by giving you some SimCash. (Update: there are now ways to get free simcash.)

How EA Leverages The Sims Social for Money and Increased Participation

By allowing users to play a certain amount with free energy, EA successfully allows enough time for the player to get hooked. If the game succeeds at entertaining players, they will be more likely to want to play more to get to the next level, make some more simoleons, or put the moves on their neighbor. Despite the somewhat unsettling nature of the game in general (I have enough trouble making sure all of my own needs are met, let alone the needs of a completely fictional representational avatar of myself), I find it entertaining and habit-forming.

Free energy reduces barriers for would-be players. If the game had cost money up front, I wouldn’t play. Probably most of the 9 million people per day who are currently playing wouldn’t have gotten started, either. By making it free, players like myself–who haven’t spent a dime in the game and don’t really plan to–can still become advocates of the game, thereby increasing its popularity and the likelihood of someone who would spend money finding it and eventually spending that money.

Games are Good for Social Networks

In addition to benefiting EA, successful games on social networks also do a lot of good for the social network itself. Before getting started with The Sims Social, I was hardly ever on Facebook, usually just long enough to check a message or two. Since The Sims Social, I’m on Facebook about an hour every day. That’s in the ballpark of a 1,000% increase in my Facebook usage, and all of that because of this game alone.

Facebook loves this kind of traffic. More users, each spending longer amounts of time on Facebook, creates more opportunities for Zuckerberg to increase the value of his network. This is a lesson that Google has also learned.

Will it Last?

Games like The Sims Social are gaining traction every day as more and more people are signing up on social networks. And as these games are also creating more participation in the social networks, they form a very symbiotic relationship. More social network users create more potential social network gamers, which in turn creates longer visits to the social network.

Because of these benefits for both the game developers and the social networks, I expect we will see more and more social networking games in the coming months and years.

What are your thoughts? Have you played The Sims Social? Have you experienced an increase in your time on Facebook because of it? What are your predictions on the future of social network gaming? Please leave your comment below.