Hi Simmers!

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Graham Nardone, and I've been a producer on just about every expansion and stuff pack released for The Sims 3 thus far.  It’s a great job where I get to work with very creative and talented teams to build some of the most amazing games. My job has also made it possible for me to meet many of you, The Sims 3 community members, both in person and within The Sims 3 forums. We’re all very grateful for your passion and love for The Sims and do everything we can to uphold your trust.  As one of the many people working on The Sims 3, I try to engage with you all frequently, listening to your feedback and suggestions, and responding to your comments when the opportunity arises. 

2012 has gotten off to a great start. The release of The Sims 3 Showtime introduced a lot of new gameplay elements, plus for the first time ever in The Sims 3 franchise, new connected features that allowed you to share updates with friends while in-game. In addition, there is a lot of exciting content to look forward to in the upcoming The Sims 3 Katy Perry’s Sweet Treats and The Sims 3 Diesel Stuff Pack. Be on the look-out for more announcements as there’s plenty more to come...and soon!

As promised at the beginning of the year, I wanted to be sure that we’d be communicating more frequently with all of you and have a stronger presence on the forums. Communicating with you all is very important to us and we strive to be as active within the forums and on our social networks as our schedules allow. 

I want to reiterate that we really do listen to your comments and take them seriously, so please keep posting them; we love hearing from you.  We’re also always trying to understand the issues that people have reported in order to work with our QA team to resolve them.  Please understand that the team is very grateful that you bring forward these issues, and we want to be sure your expectations are met.  The team is dedicated to balancing the needs of addressing bugs with the importance of developing creative and innovative new content that will enhance your gameplay.

We’ve released a lot of new content for The Sims 3 franchise making the experience something that is fun for everyone. We hope that our releases will provide you with the creative outlet to tell new stories and extend your gameplay experiences. We’ve seen your tremendous creativity and love that you share your stories and Sims’ worlds with us. Keep building, experimenting and of course, playing!  

From time to time, we provide an update to The Sims 3, which helps to improve your game. We incorporate design improvements, including some that have been suggested by Simmers, as well as fixes for outstanding issues.  Anything from obscure bugs we have found and fixed to driver updates and also new hardware support can be included in these updates.  As you can imagine, game updates are complex and play a major role in our testing and engineering process as each change has to work across all variations of The Sims 3 products. We have a very dedicated QA team that continuously strives for accuracy and efficiency in identifying, understanding and implementing what needs to go into these updates.

During the life of The Sims 3 we’ve released more than two dozen updates with each including the latest bug fixes, revisions and modifications.  In addition, we’ve released six major expansion packs and six stuff packs, plus have created new worlds, venues, items and more available through The Sims 3 Store.  We test all updates thoroughly and across a wide range of system specifications, both for PC and Mac.  We also check the forums to see the bugs you are reporting. When we receive your reports of a new bug we add it to a list of issues that is maintained and monitored daily.  We try to fix and resolve just about each bug that comes to our attention and we believe we have gotten to a significant number of them.

In addition, we want to inform you of the resources that are available outside of The Sims 3 forums and The Sims’ social networks that will help make your playing experience a better one. If you do see a bug, we want to hear about it. The best way to report any issues will be to contact EA’s Origin Customer Support. Start by visiting https://help.ea.com/contact-us and talk to a live representative, chat with one or submit your inquiry via email.  This page also includes an archive of support articles that you may find helpful in resolving an issue you have encountered. We also know the community has some very strong contributors who are very technical, so if you have an idea about a fix, please let us know that too. 

From all of us at The Sims Studio, thank you for being such a fantastic community, and for all the many contributions you make to The Sims. Stay tuned for more updates, developer blogs, FAQs and more!

 
Graham Nardone
The Sims 3 Assistant Producer

These Showtime tips and tricks initially were published as news items in the My Page Wall, but if you missed them there we’ve collected them here for easy reference.  From Magic Gnomes to making new performance venues, this is your guide to some of the little known features of Showtime. Did you know them all?

• Try to have your performer Sim compete at a SimFest at each of the different venue types and collect all of the unique trophies!

• Know your audience!  While your Sim is performing, keep an eye on the audience requests via thought bubbles. Performing requests will result in a better performance and increase long term relationship status!

• If  you can manage to set up your Sim’s (or a visiting Sim’s) stage, using all of the props available in a complete stage set, you will get an initial boost in the performance!

• Another way to get an initial boost is to place a new magic gnome on stage as part of the set-up!

• You have 24 hours real hours to accept a SimPort Tour Request, before it expires. If you don’t accept within the 24 hours, your friend who sent the request will get a message that you never made it to the show!

• If you throw something on stage during a friend’s visting Sim’s performance, they will most likely have it in their inventory when they return!

• If your Magician Sim dies while performing in the Box of Danger, he/she will finish the show as a ghost!

• It’s all who you know! Developing a relationship with proprietors prior to auditioning will increase your chances of getting a gig.

• By the time your Sims gets to level 7 in their performance careers, they’re a pretty big deal and will no longer need to audition to get a gig. Proprietors will be calling, begging your Sim to peform at their venues!

• If your Singer Sim is multi-talented and wants to perform with a guitar, all you have to do is buy one and put it in his/her personal inventory!

• Sims (including visiting Sims via SimPort) are not restricted to performing in Starlight Shores, as long as you have the appropriate venue. These can be accessed in Edit Town, under the Community Lots Tab. Place a Big Show Venue, Live Show Venue, Coffeehouse, Private Venue, or Big Park in any world.

• The Hypnotizer from The Sims 3 Store gives your Magician career more options! Add this item to your stage to mesmerize your audience. Never been to The Store?  Try it out by downloading our special poster (info below).

And, as a special thank you from The Sims 3 Store team, click here to claim your Katy Perry inspired Showtime poster!

As The Sims 3 Katy Perry's Sweet Treats first look trailer has now reached 240K views our giveaway is over.  Thank you all for participating and supporting our YouTube channel. The following Simmers were randomly selected to receive the Steampunk Kitchen Set from The Sims 3 Store.

NilesDuff
abdiikhlover
decembermouse
ashleighanne90
martyu3
ShyneSmurf
moneykrazie1288
iBelieve2121
Gemsims Sims
Mary Venture

Congratulation to the winners. Check back soon for our next giveaway opportunity!

Who is Freezer Bunny?

Some of you may remember Freezer Bunny's first appearance in The Sims 2 when Sims would spot the little pink guy in the freezer section while doing some grocery shopping. Since then he's been spotted on various clothing and gnome form! In The Sims 3 you might see him being pulled from the toy chest or on a Sim's pajama top. Even the little Sims can dress as our favorite bunny!

So what's all this talk about this little guy anyway? Well, we declared that today is Freezer Bunny's birthday!  How does one celebrate the birth of a bouncy-looking pink bunny with irregular-shaped eyes? Some celebrate by having their Sims treat themselves to a Freezer Bunny-shaped popsicle.


Some opt to have their Sims show off the bunny's likeness on their clothing.


Maybe you might channel the mind of Freezer Bunny and immortalize him in your notebook during class lectures. However you celebrate Freezer Bunny's birthday, why not share it with us?

Happy Birthday, Freezer Bunny!