This is an interesting bunch. I say "interesting" in the most teeth-gritting way possible. This site seriously shytes me. I can understand (if not condone) creators who want to charge money for the work they do, even on content that doesn't, strictly speaking, belong to them, but this mob charge for just being there: they make no content themselves, they just make money off the people who do.
This site hosts all of the following sites:
Artistic Habitats
ArtSIMz
Candace's Sim Bazaar
Elektrafied Sims
Elemental Sims
Empire Sim
Enchanted Sims Curio Co.
Even More for Sims
Hans Christian Andersim 2
Hullabaloo
It's Simply Similicious
KILLERSIMS
Mocha Sims
My Funny Simentine
Nana's Sims 2
Pompkyn's Sims Boutique
Seasonal Sims 2
Sexpot Sims
Similarity Sims
Simmage
SiMonet
Sunny Side Sims
The House Depot
The Sim Republic
The Sims 2 at SimsHost
The Sims Lady
Troll Sims
Vintage Sims
The Wooden Simolean
Yuppie Sims
Plus a lot of Sims 1 sites.
The aim of Simshost is to provide a "low cost" site for those with Sims sites to host their files. It does this by collecting subscriber fees from anyone who wants to download anything from any of these sites. The thing is, simshost collects money on behalf of the sites.
They charge everyone to download from these sites, even the items listed on the sites themselves as "free":
3. You can download things without a subscription; however, it is usually less expensive if you subscribe. Non-subscribers pay an additional fee per download. All users pay a download fee based on how much they download. These charges are detailed in the following table:
Subscription monthly cost $2 per month for continuing subscribers
Subscription activation fee $4.00
Subscriber download rate $0.10 per megabyte downloaded
Non-subscriber download rate $0.10 per megabyte downloaded
Non-subscriber download fee $0.50 per download
If something goes wrong with a download, they offer the following "protection" to users:
Refunds and Payments from SimsHost
If an error occurs during a download or you receive a defective download, and your download account is charged for it, you can request a refund for that item from your personal account activity screen. Just find the item in your list of downloads and follow the link next to it to report the problem and have your account automatically reimbursed for the cost of that download.
SimsHost will refund the unused balance of your account at any time, subject to administrative fees, as follows.
The administrative fees for any payment from SimsHost depend on the method of getting the payment to you:
Admininistrative Fees
Applied to All Refunds
Paid to your PayPal account $4.50
Paid to your Credit Card $4.50
Company check sent to your address in the USA or Canada, payable in US$ $6.00
Company check sent to other locations, payable in US$ $7.00
The administrative fee will be subtracted from your account balance before any refund is made and is not refundable.
Yet:
Typical Download Costs for The Sims 2
Type of Item Typical Size (bytes) Download cost (US $) Downloads per $
Skins (Body) 300000 $0.0286 34
Skins (Hair) 500000 $0.0477 20
Wall 40000 $0.0038 262
Floor Tile 15000 $0.0014 699
Bed
(All Sims 2 double beds
are love beds.) 1535000 $0.1464 6
Don't forget that if you have a SimsHost account but do not activate your subscription, your account will be charged an additional $0.50 per download. If you only see a couple of things among all the dozens of sites that you really want right now, it might be less expensive not to subscribe; however we expect that for most people a continuing subscription will be the best way to go.
Also don't forget to include an extra $2 per month for however long you want your subscription to stay current. And if you are activating a new subscription or renewing an old one that expired more than 30 days ago, add in $4.00 for the subscription activation fee.
So, if you have problems with, say a site that you've downloaded 34 skins from, you've only been charged a dollar, (plus ongoing subscription fee), yet you would have to pay at least $4.50 to get your money back. In other words, there are no refunds, folks.
Who they really are:
Who the heck is The Lunar Resources Company?
The Lunar Resources Company is a privately held corporation, incorporated in Texas.
We've been around since 1994. Our main line of work is research and development that leads to establishing permanent human settlements on the moon. In the process we've developed relationships with other companies and even founded companies in the network software and services industries. Because of that, we're able to do things like Moon Sims and SimsHost as sort of a corporate hobby. We hope you enjoy them!
And they claim:
Are you earning lots of money from this?
Nope. Although we expect that SimsHost will eventually reach break-even, we are currently still subsidizing it; albeit not as much as we do for Moon Sims. We do want SimsHost to reach a stable break-even point because that will assure that the Sims sites will be able stay on line forever, independent of the vagueries of the dotcom and aerospace industries where we earn the money that enables us to host the Sims sites for you. (Wanna buy a spaceship? We'll make a special deal for SimsHost subscribers!)
We know that several people hope to make big profits from operating Sims sites, but frankly, we don't think the market will support it. If your goal is to make money, the best thing going right now seems to be to have a "free" site where you sell "donator gifts" for $1 to $10. However, you will mostly likely still earn less than minimum wage doing this, and we're worried that people will eventually grow weary of donating to "free" sites.
Sims stuff is really not a lucrative industry, so if money is your only goal, we recommend that you instead apply your talent to something like professional graphics or 3D modeling. We don't recommend the web design industry, either; there are already far too many people chasing too few contracts and the big companies with the big bucks already have their own in-house web teams.
While in the same breath saying:
If I subscribe to SimsHost, does it help support the Moon Sims sites?
Frankly, yes. The less we have to subsidize SimsHost, the better the chances that we can afford to keep Moon Sims going as it is, without need for subscriptions or moving sites to SimsHost or whatever.
We're really the same group of guys doing both Moon Sims and SimsHost. Although we hope that SimsHost will eventually reach a break-even point, currently we are subsidizing it out of our pockets. So yes, if you want to provide financial support for the hosting of the Moon Sims sites, the best way to do that is to subscribe to SimsHost.
Right now, the future of all the Moon Sims sites depends on our success in the volatile dotcom industry. We've survived the shakeout quite well, but we would be more comfortable if we could tie our support to those sites with the size of the Sims fan community who really need the resources.
Moonsims is a supposedly free
Sims 1 site.
They also tell us:
When you sign up, you agree not to share or distribute any material from any site hosted by SimsHost.
Therefore, they are a
corporation in breach of EA's TOS for both the Sims 1 and Sims 2 games.
Apologies if everyone's already aware of this particular site. My son tried to subscribe (thinking that the items on "free" sites would be exactly that, free, if he got a "free" subscription from simshost, the
only way to get any items from any of the sites). The site requires extensive personal information from you when you join (real name, address, etc), whether you intend to use your credit card or not. And they do not delete accounts even if requested, it seems.
PMBD
Author