I'm not talking about the stupid free-to-play pay-to-advance flash games on Facebook, but real developed games that competes with The Sims? That simulates life but takes a different approach than EA does?

I'd love to see that actually...

Anyone know what the legal situation is when it comes to games similar to Sims? I feel there are so much competition on other games, so that's why I'm curious.

(also I wanna create my own Sims.... )

There is no legal situation. There are about 10 or 15 game companies at the very least that make first person shooters. In short any company that wants to make a life simulation game can do so if they choose. The Sims is the top selling pc game franchise of all time. Quite simply it would appear that no one wants to take that on. Especially when it's going to cost big bucks to go up against EA

Well, exactly... So there is a legal situation, since "it's going to cost a lot of money to go up against EA"... Do they have copyright on the whole idea of life simulation?

The thing is.. even if they had competition I don't think they'd do anything differently. You see the whole Sim City fiasco. It's a city simulation game that doesn't give you the option to create a subway. Meanwhile Cities XL is MILES better, it has everything Sim City has and more, but it didn't push EAxis to create a better game, because they know many people would still be loyal to the franchise.

You can't copyright a game genre. Example Capcom makes the Resident Evil series, Valve made Left 4 Dead, both zombie games. I could make a game tomorrow called Life and make it exactly like the sims, but my characters couldn't be called Sims. It's no different than Call of Duty and Doom. Both first person shooters made by different companies. Cost is not a legal situation



Bingo. Exactly what I said in another thread.

Well, screw EA. If there would be competition then WE would have a choice. If EA doesn't wanna do anything differently then it's up to them...

I'm more curious to if EA has some extremely strong copyright policies that anything that even remotely reminds a gamer of Sims, will get sued.

But what do you guys mean by "going against EA"? Would they sue you? If you're an indiedeveloper doing a life-like game, for example.

"going against"=competing



I already covered that, you can't copyright a gaming genre. If you could ID would have sued every company that made a FPS game since Doom was basically the first one back in the 90's

IKR? Many people don't even know there's competition to Sim City and some others (myself included) have bought it anyway because of the quirkness of the series that other games don't have. I personally think it'd be hard for me to enjoy a life simulation other than The Sims, because after all it has all those quirky details that captivate me.

The Sims is a seriously tough act to follow

Kenny, didnt read your reply before I had already posted mine. Sorry, I'm on a phone.

Well, I'm just totally guessing, but I would say part of the reason is cost and return on investment. EA already has "The Sims" franchise which is a big name, lots of recognition. They have a huge budget and wrote their own game engine. They've already got the infrastructure, staff, and a tried-and-true product to build upon. For a new company to break into the genre and start from ground zero, assembling a team for the project, building an engine from scratch - all that would be very expensive, and they'd have to advertise the hell out of it get even a fraction of the recognition of The Sims, with high success of failure. When you consider companies exist to make money, they might look at all that cost and decide, "you know, we'd get way better return on investment by licensing an existing game engine and releasing a shooter".

I see it kind of like eBay. Everyone complains about eBay, how they hate the fees, the rules. Everyone asks why there's no alternative to eBay. Well, there are, but nobody knows about them and nobody wants to use them, because eBay already has the recognition, infrastructure, and resources that makes it almost impossible for a competitor to succeed.

I would think that, at least part of the problem, would be retailing. Suppose you DO build an excellent life simulation game. Can you get it into Target? WalMart? Can you generate enough interest in the game to get those stores to continue stocking it on their shelves? Featuring it in their ads? Using your store displays? Do you have enough cash to create store displays? Websites with hints, help and forums? Magazine articles to stimulate curiosity about your game? If your game does start to take off, what happens when EA goes to Target and says "You can stock KennyLife, or you can stock the Sims?"

When Sims1 came out and was such a surprise hit, there were quite a few life simulators produced to jump on the bandwagon. I vaguely remember trying a couple, though I can't even remember their names. Most were half assed ripoffs, but a couple were decent, and were promptly stomped on.

Yeah.., *le sigh*

Never good for the customer when there's no competition but I obviously understand the financial suicide it might be to try to break into that genre.

Thanks for the replies.

I guess I have to wait until I have endless amounts of money before I launch my totally awesome CC-friendly Zimz.

Well, there were adult-only games like Playboy Mansion and Singles: Flirt Up Your Life, there's the Second Life MMO, and there are and have been plenty of social simulator games (Little Computer People [1985], Real Lives [2001], Harvest Moon, etc.). But I think the reason no company's tried to do exactly what The Sims does is partially because it's seen as a niche audience, and partially because there's a lot of programming requirements that go into a game like The Sims. I'm not surprised the games are a bit buggy--I'm surprised they're not buggier sometimes. The Sims is really multiple games all rolled into one: strategy game, social simulator, architectural planner, clothes designer, interior designer, and host to multiple mini-games. That's a fairly significant amount of components that all work together and it takes a large wallet just to put all those eggs into a single basket. So, most of the "competitors" to the game really just focus on one or two of those game elements.

But no one has tried to make a proper simulation of human community, where autonomy is based on a combination of needs and motives, and where sims do stuff autonomously that we would, like get a job when they need money, or take themselves for a walk when they are "stir crazy" etc. There are umpteen train and plane simulators but no human simulator at all. I'd love to see some attempt at AI, even if it was so processor intense that you could only play one lot at a time.

Its not legal reasons or anything.

Its just that most companies know they cannot compete.

There are already 2 i can name at the top of my head that are very close to the sims:

- 7 Sins - Playstation 2 and PC ( This game comes from the developers of CitiesXL, a simcity competitor. 7 Sins plays and looks alot like The Sims 2 console, but there is more focus on doing the "7 Deadly Sins" which include losing your virginity and doing other things that you would never think of doing in The Sims. So yea, its M rated.).

- Supple The Game - PC (Kinda like Sims, but more story based.)

Yeah, I've thought about this and sometimes I do wish there was an alternative to Sims. I wish Rockstar* would make their own version, because they would actually make it edgy. It would be like GTA, but without the missions. :D

I remember SC2K fondly, then came SC3000 and the simulation was amazing. Soon arrived SC4 and it was a great evolution. About that time The Sims had popped up as the micro-management version of SimCity. It was a revolution in simulation. Then came the conceptual SimsVille, never got to completion but its open neighbourhood is the current TS3, so evolution again. Not to mention the huge evolutionary leap from the original Sims to TS2.

Then came SimCity 5 or whatever. Previews had tiny city areas. Constraining access ramps (wtf?!) and city resource sharing with uncontrollable neighbour cities. In my opinion, a complete mangling of the city-simulation concept. I've bought CitiesXL and couldn't be happier.

Now we've been presented with TS4, born as a different game made for players other than the life-simulator gamer. Again something that veers far away, in my view, of the sim concept.

Yes, it's time to welcome the competition. If TS4 is all about emotions, colour me depressed for it.

I think the best way it could work is as an open-source game.

In other words, all of the content; the meshes, animations, and so forth, would be created by the players. So all of the players creating CC for The Sims could create content for a fan-made, open-source game. The problem, of course, would be creating the basic engine. That would be a huge undertaking. There are obviously many different 3D engines available, but I'm not sure any of them would work well for a game like The Sims.

I'd consider using the Unity engine, and a quick Google search reveals a few people have already considered using it for a game like The Sims, but who knows if any of those efforts will bear any fruit?

The only games that came to mind when I read this thread title were "The Movies" and "Ghost Master". My younger cousin owned both.
The Movies is basically The Sims but with a focus on making, well, movies. You run a film studio but it still involves building the actual sets, dressing the actors and making sure you keep them in a good enough mood with good enough relationships so that they will actually perform. Not a propper life simulator I know, but similar.
Ghost Master was on PS2. The fan site states; "Ghost Master has a true state-of-the-art AI engine which means the player gets a sense of natural human behaviour. The mortals will go about their every day lives; cooking, going to work, arguing with others... until they encounter the horrors you control! After these encounters they will become irrational, afraid and sometimes even go insane! As well as horror the game also contains elements of humour."
You controlled ghosts and had to haunt the "mortals" but like it says, their AI had them act out every day normal routines.

I guess many already tried, but no one is willing to release something similar because of the copyright infringement.


"EA Sues Zynga for Copying The Sims Social"
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...6Lhw6p2ptiPG.99

There is also a PC version of Ghost Master. You can buy it on Steam. I actually played it quite a lot. It's an okay game. The interface was terrible. The graphics were similar to a low detail version of TS2. It definitely has a similar look to it, but the gameplay is not at all like The Sims.

I smell a business opportunity!

bling bling bling...

It's time to milking all these people here.

Whatever the reason...i think it is TIME for something awesome to happen. I think EA will do well with some good competition, I mean competition is healthy for the market...it encourages output. It will also encourage them to think twice before pumping out crap.

Besides...I hate the feeling of hanging on every single TS4 news because I know there is no other sims game out there. I would like options.