It may be difficult for the hard core gamers among us to fathom that one of the most popular and best selling game franchise around is The Sims from EA. The casual game has sold more copies than most games ever dream of. I have played The Sims before, and even reviewed the recent title The Sims Castaway Stories for Computer Shopper and found it to be a fun game.

As such a popular game the number of expansion packs is huge and most of them center on stuff that you can add to your Sim characters home. With so much available in expansion packs EA has decided to make getting new stuff for your Sims characters easier with a new online store called The Sims 2 Store. The store is in beta form now, but allows gamers to shop for items offered in all the expansion packs and exclusive items to buy.

The items can be downloaded directly into your copy of The Sims 2 for play. To make things even more attractive to players of the series, EA is offering every person who registers at The Sims 2 Store six free download items. The items are sold based on SimPoints that you purchase with a credit card, very similar to how you buy stuff on Xbox.

The Sims 2 Store