EA-Land.... The Sims Online: Let's try this again

I found this on Kotaku today.

To summary, EA is bringing The Sims Online back, making it free, and calling it EA-Land. They are also adding connections with Facebook and enabling user-generated content, among many other improvements.

Here is the EA-Land official site.

With the addition of user-generated content and the ability to buy simioleans (currency) with real dollars, it seems to me that EA wants to create a competitor to the popular Second Life. I'm just confused as to why they decided to use the architecture from The Sims Online but not leverage the "Sims" brand in the name.

Second Life

I plan on starting my Second Life adventure soon and I really don't know what to expect. Mainly, I have no idea idea whether or not its going to be fun. Most of the online games I have played involve shooting guns and/or slaying monsters. I've never played an online game that did not have a clearly defined objective.

Is Second Life even a game? It certainly looks like one. You control a 3D avatar in a virtual enviroment, similar to many games I've played. Or is Second Life just an extremely embellished social tool? Maybe its both.

A big issue I have with Second Life is that spending real money to buy fake money. I've never really liked the idea of buying virtual dollars, it seems like a waste to me.

We'll see how it pans out once I enter the world. I already created my avatar (Roland Schuttelanz) and completed the tutorial, but I haven't done anything beyond that.