Music

Katy Perry Goes Virtual in New Sims Game

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Any online gamer can own a piece of Katy Perry – or heck, even be her — with EA’s announcement that the “Teenage Dream” singer will be coming to their popular The Sims gaming series.

EA announced that they’ll be developing multiple games featuring Katy Perry including special in-game items, environments and virtual goods. Perry’s likeness will first pop-up in The Sims 3 Showtime: Katy Perry, a collectors’ edition of The Sims launching in March 2012.

The Sims is a role-playing game that lets players control an avatar as they go about their daily lives. Showtimeis an expansion pack to The Sims 3 where players can try to turn their avatars into digital superstars including professional singers, acrobats, magicians or DJs.

The Katy Perry version of Showtime includes downloadable content such as hairstyles, props, guitars and even a stage venue all pulled from Perry’s life. Perry, who has always championed a positive, do-anything attitude, felt the series spoke to her own aspirational message:

“I love how you’re able to play out different stories through your Sims characters – giving them different careers and watching them succeed. It’s cool to see the Sims’ stage performances in The Sims 3 Showtime decked out just like my California Dreams Tour – even my cotton candy video screens are in there! I always like to think of myself as a cartoon, and now I’m a Sim!”

Of course the partnership isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, Perry will be featured in new advertising and marketing campaigns around her game and the series at large. The Sims have been doing gang-busters even without Perry. Since its launch in 2009, The Sims 3 has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and was the best-selling PC title for 2009 in North America and Europe. The franchise has expanded to Facebook whereThe Sims Social, released in 2011, attracted more than 50 million monthly active users in just its first month.

The Sims, as a series, has become a global gaming phenomenon. The Perry partnership is meant to continue that forward march while, presumably, attracting a younger, female demographic. Perry is also no stranger toThe Sims. In 2008, Perry recorded a version of her hit song “Hot n Cold” in “Simlish,” the made up gibberish language spoken by Sims characters. The recording, featured The Sims 2 is the most popular Simlish music video to date: “Being a gamer myself and a big fan of The Sims, I had a blast recording “Hot N Cold’ in Simlish,” Perry said in 2008.

The Sims 3 is available on basically every gaming platform including PC, Mac, iOS devices, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and Wii. The Sims 3 Showtime Katy Perry is available for pre-order for $39.99.

Is the pairing a match made in heaven? Let us know what you think of celebrities showing up in your games

Facebook Launches ‘Listen With,’ Lets You DJ for Friends

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Facebook wants you to listen to music with friends — even if you’re not in the same room.

The social network announced a new feature Thursday called “Listen With” that gives users a chatroom in which to share songs. They get to DJ the tunes they are streaming via services such as Spotify andRdio.

Real-time sharing from such services was introduced with Open Graph in September. Users can already see in that chat sidebar what friends are listening to, and click on those songs to play them, but they don’t have the option to listen together in a unified virtual environment.

The new feature, as Facebook’s introductory blog post puts it, makes it so “when your favorite vocal part comes in you can experience it together, just like when you’re jamming out at a performance or dance club.”

The feature will start rolling out within the next few weeks. To use it, look for a music note in your chat sidebar. This shows who is listening to music. When you hover over someone’s name, you’ll see a “Listen with x” button that plays the song through whatever service your friend is using. When your friend chooses a new song, you’ll continue to hear what they hear.

Multiple people will be able to listen in on one friend’s music, and the entire group will be able chat together. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a lot like Turntable.fm without the avatars or the “awesome” button.