Sims 3 Pets: Big Competitive Threat and Opportunity for Second Life's Huge Virtual Animal Market

Last week Electronic Arts released its much-awaited expansion to Sims 3, and it's all about pets you customize, raise, and breed. Here's a fairly hilarious intro by Randall, he of honey badger fame:

Longtime Second Life users will recognize all these features, because they're all available in the very popular virtual pets offered in SL, such as Ozimals bunnies, cat-like Meeroos, and Amaretto horses. (Side note: Since there's an ongoing intellectual property lawsuit over the copyright to virtual breedable animals in SL, will Electronic Arts also get dragged into court too? Hint: No.)

Anyway, Sims 3 is quite popular with many longtime SLers, so I bet we'll see the virtual pet industry taking a hit (at least temporarily) as many of them rush to raise their sims pets. At the same time, this is also a very good opportunity for them and for Linden Lab, which has been marketing virtual pets in SL as a major feature. So if Sims 3 Pets does well, there's a new market they can market to. Judging by the videos, the SL pets are about on par in graphics quality as the Sims pets, though of course the animations and probably the AI are not as robust. However, SL pets are cheaper (Sims 3 Pets sells for about $32) and probably enable more diversity of activity. And I imagine Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble, who led development on the original Sims 3 game at Electronic Arts, knows all about this Pets spinoff, and is planning to incorporate similar functionality into SL's upcoming virtual animal/NPC functionality.

Another Sims 3 Pets video after the break:

I don't own Sims 3, so if you do and try out Pets, please share your thoughts in Comments!

Thanks for the Randall video link, Stevie Muggins! Meeroo image from SL Marketplace here.

Comments

[Metacam Oh]

Sorry Hamlet, but I severely doubt it. I saw the commercial for this game and I said to myself "flop" The reason people enjoy breeding SL pets is because they are already SL users. People don't come off the web just to breed Scion chicken for a few months for fun and leave, nor who anyone who does breed these animals would go play Sims 3 to play with virtual pets by themselves, alone and leave SL.

[Ezra]

Huh? I don't see why a pet expansion to Sims 3 would have any more of an effect on Second Life than any previous Sims expansion ever.

Did the "Late Night" expansion result in a major loss of nightclubs in Second Life? Does this go beyond Sims 3? Will Dance Central 2 releasing tomorrow put SineWave out of business?

No singleplayer game with whatever similar experience will have a direct impact on Second Life. To believe as much is totally ignoring the true value of anything in Second Life: shared experiences.

[Ananda Sandgrain]

"People don't come off the web just to breed Scion chicken for a few months for fun and leave..."

Oh but they do, they absolutely do latch onto breedables as something to come into SL and do. But they also tend to do it for the same reason as people came for the land rush in previous years - it's like a lottery where there's a chance you'll be able to make some real cash. (Probably not, the game is rigged to benefit the house, but that doesn't stop people from enjoying the idea.)

I'm not so sure that without the trading and lottery aspects that the Sims could be considered at all a form of real competition.

[Hamlet Au]

Good points, Ananda.

And yeah, I do think the launch of Sims 3 in 2009 and the expansions since then are a significant contributor to growing loss of total user hours in SL and slowing user growth. That, and Facebook games, and iOS games, and etc. etc. Anecdotally I see it all the time: I.E., "Sorry I haven't been in SL much, too busy with Sims 3 Medieval!"

[Ziki Questi]

Wait a second here.

"Big Competitive Threat"? Please explain please why people will abandon Second Life to Sims 3. I'm honestly not seeing it hard evidence here from your write-up.

"Anyway, Sims 3 is quite popular with many longtime SLers" ... it IS??? What statistics do you have to back up that statement? And what does "many longtime SLers" mean? 2 years? 4 years?

"SL pets ... *probably* enable more diversity of activity" ... um, how so? In what respect?

[informationchef]

Actually, this announcement isn't nearly as relevant as what Blizzard announced about Pets at Blizzcon this past weekend in the upcoming Pandaren expansion. Collecting "non-combat" pets in WOW has had a huge following, and has proven to be very lucrative in USD and/or gold sink in the existing implementation and they're they simplest of featureless display collector's items (with nice models & animations).
The new features planned blow this out of the water, Blizzard is launching full-bore MMO Pokeman, in 3-D.

[Fuzzball Ortega]

On my days off, I spend some time on Sims 3, and yes, I have the Pets expansion, also I've been a Simmer since the first Sims came out in, what? 2000? Didn't care much for Sims Online.

Then in the evenings, I head in world, since that's when I'm normally in Second Life. The Sims haven't really taken away my SL time. If anything takes my Second Life time, it's real life.

Don't own any of the SL pets, though, so I can't tell you of any similarities, differences, or what nots.

[Jo yardley]

What a horrible vulgar tacky 'commercial'.

[Metacam Oh]

Sorry Ananda, where is your proof that newbies come into Second Life to start breeding virtual pets? You know how much stuff they need to figure out before that starts? I'd say even if people had the intention of logging into SL for the first time for breedable pets, they probably never get there, so I predict zero effect on Second Life. Sims 3 Pet expansion is probably for the 12 and under crowd.

[Flo2]

I don't see either why especially a Sims 3 expansion would have any more effect on Second Life than any other PC game, for example. On my part, I'm waiting for the Elder Scrolls V. Skyrim now (out on Nov. 11th). That will definitely reduce my user hours in SL (but not my spendings!), and will definitely distract me from my SL roleplay (Skyrim is an RPG).

[foneco zuzu]

Funny I used to have (and i still have in one of my old computers, All sim1, sim2 and sim3 games and packs.
I joined Sl in Feb 2010.
Never again i launched any other game or application that is not related with sl (Photoshop, gimp and so on)
So if any can be daid is that Sims lost 1 to Sl!
In fact Sl is so addictive that not only Sims, but also all other games and Tv:)
And pets, there are much more funny ones to deal with on Sl then all you are talking about, but there it goes, the stinky morality that flows in the World, makes all avoid saying that!

[Arcadia Codesmith]

The Sims 2 also had a pet expansion. Second Life is actually a latecomer to the party.

I counterpredict that The Sims 3 pet expansion will have little or no impact on Second Life and its pet sector.

The primary draw in Second Life that single-player games lack is community: buying, selling, trading, bragging, competing and endless nattering about the latest virtual furballs.

There's no single-player functionality that can replicate or replace that. It's not that The Sims series is intended for or marketed to tweens, as was so snidely suggested above. It manifestly is not. But it isn't a social experience (except where it is... the external modding community is a critical component).

What WILL have an impact is how Linden Lab's hints about "NPCs" play out. If it's a system suited to creating pets with emergent autonomous behaviors and learning capabilities, for example, Second Life could rise to the pinnacle of the virtual animal kingdom. I don't expect anything that ambitious, but I am open to being pleasantly surprised.