The Sims - the best-selling computer game of all time and one of the first to experiment with the idea of virtual communities – may part with tradition and let players interact with one another using the web.

A senior executive at Electronic Arts (EA), the company which owns the Sims franchise, said that in light of the popularity of virtual worlds and other computer games which allow players to compete with each other via the web, the Sims may soon become a multi-player game.

Nancy Smith, head of the Sims Division at EA, said that the company, one of the world's largest game publishers, "would continue to invest in more and more robust community features" in the Sims. Two spin-offs from the franchise, including one called Sims on Stage, in which players compete against one another in singing and dancing contests, have incorporated online elements.

A move into the territory traditionally inhabited by so-called massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft would signal the effect the web is having on community-based games such as the Sims.

Ms Smith said that an online element "could be of interest" to the game's fan base, and that the game's producer would "definitely think about it," although it wasn't what the company had on the market at the moment. "We're constantly exploring new kinds of content and experiences," she said.

In The Sims, which has sold 100 million copies worldwide since its release eight years ago, players nurture the lives of virtual people known as Sims, taking control of every activity in their life, including their sleeping, eating and washing habits. The original designer, Will Wright, conceived of the game as 'a digital doll's house'.

To date The Sims has been a single-player game, meaning that players cannot meet and interact with one another 'in game', though they are able to share ideas and content - such as furniture that they design for the houses their Sims live in - using online forums.

In the past couple of years - since the rise of social networking sites and other web-based communities, The Sims has faced competition from computer games that allow players to interact with one another in real time using the web, such as World of Warcraft, which has ten million players, and the virtual world Second Life.

Ms Smith was adamant, however, that The Sims would not break wholly with its past, and would continue to require players to buy and install software on their machines before being able to play. Some virtual worlds, such as Club Penguin and Habbo Hotel, can be played entirely within a web browser.

She said that the complex graphics and tools in the game, which allow players to create their own animated movies, were too complicated to be managed within a browser. "Just because you can paint with coloured markers because they're the new technology doesn't mean everyone wants to,” she said. “Some people prefer to paint with luscious oils."

The Sims franchise would also continue to explore new revenue models that have become associated with virtual worlds, she said, including sponsorship and the sale of 'virtual goods', as on the fashion-focused virtual world for teens, Stardoll.com.

At present, all the virtual furniture and other goods that can be downloaded in the Sims is free, although EA has recently announced a partnership with Ikea, the furniture chain, which will allow players to download a fixed quantity of Ikea-branded furniture for £14.99. A similar deal is in place with H&M, the fashion retailer.

"Micro-transactions will be important, but I think people will continue to pay [a one-off fee] for client software," Ms Smith said. "If you think about the hours of entertainment people get from interactive entertainment, you'll find that software is enormously well-priced. I don't think we're experiencing price ceilings just yet."

Ms Smith dismissed suggestions that The Sims, which markets itself as a creative community in which users can showcase film-making, design and other artistic talent, was threatened by social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which allow people to upload all manner of user-generated content.

"MySpace is like an open gallery where you can hang things, but The Sims is actually allowing you to paint," she said, adding that more than 100,000 animated films made using The Sims' own tools had now been uploaded to YouTube.

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