Type of site Video Game Journalism Owner Spon1Player | Available in English Created by Judson Hudson | |
Alexa rank 17,792,230 (November 2013) | ||
BeyondSims previously SimPrograms is a video game news fansite specializing in The Sims and Spore News and Content. The site was founded in 2000 by Judson Hudson. SimPrograms features news on The Sims 3, The Sims 2, MySims, SimAnimals, SimCity, and other Sim games. Its sister site, also run by the same administration is SporePrograms which is related to Spore news. The site was featured in GamesRadar's list of "sites any The Sims 3 player should visit". SimPrograms attended a special Spore community-journalism day at Electronic Arts campus in California. This was pre-release marketing for Spore. SimPrograms and SporePrograms are both listed on the Spore.com website's fansite directory. SimPrograms has also had many exclusives from EA including a Spore Hero interview with the developers alongside other fansites Sporedum and SporeOperations. In May 2010 it was announced that the podcast format at that time would be dropped and replaced with new material, such as stories, tutorials, etc.
History
Simprograms was founded in mid-August, 2000 by Hudson as a project to manage programs and modifications (or simply, Mods) for The Sims series. Originally, the site was created as an extension to The Sims Resource before being moved to its own domain and website later on.
In early 2007, SimPrograms started using WordPress and begun delivering news on both The Sims and Spore.
At August 2010, Simprograms celebrated its 10th anniversary.
On April 19, 2012, Judson Hudson announced he would be stepping down and handed the site over to Bryce Frier (The Black Scorpion). His reasons for stepping down was his decline in interest of The Sims franchise.
As of October 2012 SporePrograms, the sister site to SimPrograms, no longer exists and the content has been merged into SimPrograms.
In November 2012 Bryce Frier, whom took ownership of SimPrograms after Judson Hudson left, transferred ownership of the site to "Spon1Player".
On December 5, 2012 SimPrograms was rebranded and begun operating under the name of BeyondSims. Spon1Player, the new owner of the website, said this was due to the site no longer focusing on offering programs.