The Sims Online

Community

People have taken paths in The Sims Online that EA nor Maxis expected to be available. Although the main concept was to create a friendly environment were new people could meet, a dark side grew as well. There were scams, money tricks that disturbed the economy (known as mazing), account hacking, explicit sexually oriented communities, prostitution, censorship, terrorist forces and counter terrorist organizations, ... In fact, TSO resembled real life much more than was originally planned, while Maxis and EA did everything to keep an artificial, friendly community that doesn't scare away new players.

Controversy

Peter Ludlow, a player of TSO, posted an article in his blog-type TSO newspaper The Alphaville Herald about the spreading of brothels in The Sims Online. EA terminated his account for this. Comedy Central's The Daily Show did a comedic investigation on the matter in February 12 2004.

Shutdown

In March 2007, EA renamed The Sims: Online to EA-Land. On August 1, 2008, EA closed down the servers, shutting down the game.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • April 2003 (Issue #225) – MMO of the Year (Readers' Choice)

Information also contributed by LepricahnsGold and Zack Green