Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Sims Online:

Sims Online: Hi! I have a great licence! I'm a game you can play while going to get a sandwich. My creator appologized for me, but we promise I will get better! Wanna play? I'm only $10 per month.

Consumer: Umm... So I sit around and click on a book for six hours until my character gets reading +3? No thanks.

Sims Online: No really, I will be a great game someday. You will be able to pick your character's color while clicking. Yay! Doesn't that sound like fun? Hey, where are you going? Awww....

Analyist 1: Hmm. The Sims Online is a terrible failure, only raking in one million dollars per month. I wonder what it could be?

Analyist 2: They have a great licence. They're positioned well to get the elusive 20 to 40 year old female market. We spent 20% of the budget on advertising. Yet we aren't seeing the return expected.

Consumer [knocking on window]: Dude, your game sucks!

Analyist 1: The market must not be ready to support online gaming. Everquest, Asheron's Call, and all of Korea must be a fluke.

Consumer [knocking on window]: Dude, take this crappy thing back!

Analyist 2: People just aren't prepared to pay monthly fees. Perhaps if we abandoned the service-provider model and moved to a cable TV model we could see synergies dwarfing those of AOL Time Warner.

Analyist 1: A 50 dollar a month fee to play a catalog of online titles... That just might fly. We just need to hire a college intern to program an emulator in Java and we will have all of the content we need!

Consumer: Dude, this Sims thing is worse than Clippy. Get it off me!

Sims Online: No, just give me one more chance! I swear I can change!

Analyist 1: Yes, the industry is headed for dark times indeed. How's your golden parachute looking?