Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) plans to bring online game “The Sims Social” to the hundreds of millions of users on Tencent, China’s largest social network, according to a VentureBeat report.

The game, which was popular last year on Facebook, is being developed for the Chinese market by EA’s Beijing-based Playfish studio, and will be published on the Tencent Open Platform with the title “Mo Ni Shi Guang,” the report said. The expansion will allow EA to stay competitive with rival social-gaming company Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA), which recently launched its “CityVille” game on Tencent.

The Sims Social, a game based on the people simulation game “The Sims”, which has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide in 20 different languages, will be accessible to players on Tencent’s QZone social-gaming network. The Chinese version will mix aspects of the original game with new features created by Playfish for Tencent’s social-gaming platform.

The Sims Social gained more than 50 million monthly active users in the first month after its rollout last year. It has since fallen to only 20.9 million monthly active users, the report said, citing numbers from AppData.

The Chinese version will feature local language and art. Closed beta testing of the game has already begun, and open beta is expected in the near future.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gina Smith at staff.writers@wallstcheatsheet.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Damien Hoffman at editors@wallstcheatsheet.com

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