Electronic Arts has released Q3 FY20 financials, stating that The Sims 4 has hit 20 Million unique players worldwide. Additionally, EA CEO Andrew Wilson also mentioned that online features will start to become part of the ongoing Sims experience in the years to come.
Great question on the Sims. A little known fact, I guess, for many, the Sims will be 20 next week. And that Maxis team and the teams that have been part of Maxis over the years continue to deliver unbelievably innovative and creative content for a constantly growing Sims community globally. As we think about The Sims, again, I referenced the motivations of why we play games earlier: inspiration, escape, social interaction, creation, self-improvement, competition. Typically, what the Sims has done is really focused on fulfilling the motivations of inspiration, escape, creation, self-improvement, these stuff, and not necessarily focused as much on social interaction and competition. But a few things are, in fact, true over the years. One is that The Sims community has continued to grow, and with the broader social platforms, continue to connect with each other and share what they do in and around the game they play.
And we’ve seen that manifest in games like Sims FreePlay, which was a more social experience for us. And we’re also seeing that the competition nature of The Sims is also rising up. And we’re seeing people compare and contrast not competition in the traditional sports sense, but how they create and what they create and how they use their imaginations and what they’re able to build inside of their Sims universes. And so as Maxis continues to think about The Sims for a new generation across platforms in a cloud-enabled world, you should imagine that while we will always stay true to our inspiration, escape, creation, self-improvement motivation that this notion of social interaction and competition like the kind of things that were actually present in The Sims FreePlay — sorry, in The Sims online many, many years ago, that they will start to become part of the ongoing Sims experience in the years to come. We’re very excited.
