The single-player game "The Sims" has been the biggest selling game of all time. According to some metrics, it was the #1 game for 2000, 2001, and 2002. Its core version, not counting expansion packs, has sold 8 million units. Including expansion packs, that number soars to 24 million units.

Electronic Arts put $25 million into the online version of the game, "The Sims Online," and the marketing push for TSO was bigger than I'd ever seen for *any* online multiplayer game.

They were hoping to capture at least 10% of the 8 million players of "The Sims" to sign up for subscriptions, at $10/month. So far though, they have only sold 100,000 units, of which 80,000 people have signed up for free trials, and 40,000 have paying subscriptions. So instead of 10%, they've got less than 1%.

Though TSO is technically a competitor with my own games, I can't say as I'm happy to see these numbers -- I know and like several of the people on the TSO team, and feel badly for them. Things may change in the future though -- I look forward to seeing how things pan out!

Early Numbers on 'The Sims Online'