EA's John Riccitiello speaks out on The Sims Social Facebook launch date... or doesn't

In EA's most recent earnings / conference call, CEO John Riccitiello was questioned about the expected popularity of EA's upcoming (and highly anticipated) Facebook game, The Sims Social. While the game's Facebook fan page already has 868,000 Likes, Riccitiello still wouldn't reveal just what percentage of the franchise's user-base are predicted to make the transition to this new social version.

That's not all Riccitiello held back though, as a launch date will likely never be released before the game suddenly appears on the platform. Why? Competitive advertising. As reported by Gamasutra, Riccitiello explained the company's decision, both on the lack of an announced release date, and on withholding any predictions as to traffic:

"We aren't going to put out the stats. They're highly sensitive competitive comparisons, which is one of the reasons we're also not giving you a launch date. It's relatively easy for a competitor to buy all the relevant advertising, say 24, 36, 48 hours prior to a release."

This, says Riccitiello, would greatly impact (and not in a good way) EA's chances of marketing the game itself, as its competitors will have beaten EA to the proverbial punch. Alas, for now, that seems to be all we'll be told about the game's launch date beforehand, but you can be sure that we'll let you know when the Sims Social finally goes live. We can't wait!

Sims Social survey lets you sound off on item prices, favorite features and more

It's that time folks - time to let your collective voices be heard! EA wants to know how much fun (or not) you're having with the Sims Social on Facebook, and they've released a fairly long survey to help you tell them. This survey contains all sorts of questions, ranging from the basics of how often you play the game, to allowing you to rate your opinion on item pricing (are they too cheap? too expensive?) and what some of your favorite features are in the game.

Of course, the point of all of this is to gather enough opinions to actually sway the way the game develops in the future. Hopefully, with questions dealing with how much we like to "build" items with parts (bookcases, double beds, etc.), and the option to say that you don't like it at all, we may actually see a lessening in those kinds of items, if enough users agree. You can even rank various gameplay features (decorating your house, visiting friends, customizing your Sim, etc.) in the order that you like them. In this way, perhaps we'll see more focus being placed on the most (overall) liked feature, and you'll be able to say you helped to make that happen.

Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of survey that will allow you to give your opinion on future item sets, but there are plenty of blank text boxes for you to say exactly what you want to the developers in a place that you know they'll see it. Again, this survey is prety lengthy (when compared to other Facebook game surveys anyway), so you'll want to make sure you have around 5-10 minutes to set aside to take it.

We've taken this survey as well, and if we start to notice any gameplay changes arising because of options listed here, we'll make sure to let you know. In the meantime, head over to this link right here to take the survey for yourself.