EA Investor Day 2024 had quite a bit to say about the future of The Sims, including The Sims movie and several upcoming experiences for players and creators.
The Sims is a leader in the life sim genre, and the player stats prove it. The series has had over 500 million lifetime players. In the past year alone, players have spent over 1.2 billion in The Sims 4, also watching 210 million hours of The Sims 4 content.
The Sims has one of the biggest gaming communities in the industry. EA is looking to capitalize on that, with four different pillars of The Sims Universe.
The first part of The Sims Universe is Project Rene. This will be a mobile experience that lets players connect with creators. Players will be able to follow creators and see what’s trending in user-generated content.
Another mobile experience, Project Stories, is on the horizon as well. This will be focused on telling and sharing stories set in the Sims Universe.
EA is also expanding MySims, the self-defined cozy Sims series geared toward a younger audience, after being dormant for years. The Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase last month showed off the MySims Cozy Bundle, coming later this year. More in the series is coming in the future.
The Sims 4 will be the central point for nearly everything, along with The Sims Hub. The Sims Hub will be a place for all user-generated content, and AI will power and supercharge it. Players will be able to use images to search content and create characters.
In the past, the Sims UGC has relied on words and vague filters to look through it all. Being able to search images is supposed to get around language barriers, a pretty prevalent problem in The Sims 4 because of its worldwide player base. However, this touches on EA’s CEO’s words about AI becoming a core part of its business, a sentiment that has many worried.
Besides the upcoming experiences, The Sims Movie will also be coming. Amazon MGM Studios, Lucky Chap Entertainment, and Vertigo Entertainment will be in charge of the movie. Directors Kate Herron (Loki) and Briony Redman (Doctor Who) are directing the upcoming movie.
EA summed up the goal for the next five years of The Sims like this:
“Build the world’s largest online gaming community for creators at the speed of pop culture.”
EA is aiming to double The Sims annual net bookings over the next five years. It feels confident that it can do this because of emerging player trends, which happen to align with The Sims already.
The Sims itself hasn’t had much competition in the open life sim genre. However, with upcoming games like inZOI on the horizon, that may change in the future.
