The success that the game has had in engaging users with online content is the most impressive part, though. In nearly the same breath as the top-selling-game announcement, publisher Electronic Arts said that The Sims 3's official website received six million hits per month in 2009.
The site is host to The Sims Exchange, which allows players to share and download content for the game, including clothes and decorations. Some of the content is released by EA, but some of it is generated by the community. EA boasts that 100 million pieces of content have been downloaded in the exchange.
Game publishers and developers have speculated in recent years that microtransactions like those are the future of the industry — that one-off $60 charges are going to be phased out for all but the most traditional hardcore games. There have been many experiments with the downloadable content (DLC) model and YouTube-like user-generated content; some have been more successful than others. It looks like The Sims 3 has enjoyed some success.