Stuff Pack Stuff: an open letter to EA
Stuff Pack Stuff
Going through the suggestion forum is just one long litany of "I want," "I want."
However, I want to take a moment to thank you. Playing wasn't fun anymore for the last couple years but with terrains tools, better roofing tools, the liveeditobjects catalog and the contents of the last few packs, I can make builds that I really enjoy and settings for my Sims that I take pleasure in so I have started playing again. Also, you have really stepped up your rug game.
I'm going to do something different. I'm going to write you a business plan. I'm going to use the word 'leverage' a lot. Leveraging is when you take an existing item and extend it's usefulness or 'reuse' it. You know, like how some of the Island Living fish are just recolors of old fish. Or the new Jungle Adventure plants are just saturated green recolors of other plants. Or how the...anyway, leveraging is a good thing! It creates immersion. And you can't deny you set a precedent for this.
For Stuff Pack Stuff I am going to curate some assets with very high desirability as well as very low difficulty. In other words, a good candidate for leveraging or the biggest profit for the least amount of work. And my concept for Stuff Pack Stuff is like no other because the build/buy items will enhance PREVIOUS packs. They are mostly not new items but items that are kind of there but being re-imagined or used in a new way. They will be leveraged from items from specific packs or simple items that should have been in that pack. You only get them if you own that pack.
Let's start with the budget. This budget is for manpower only. I am assuming that physical assets like office space and computers are already in place. I'm not including advertising costs. Salary estimates from Glassdoor. The time estimates will seem on the low side but most of the items are chosen to be simple or reworking existing meshes. Except for one premium item, we're not reinventing the wheel. There are no CAS items in this pack and there's no need to come up with a new theme or a lot of art direction.
3d modeler 3 weeks/$1200
Two weeks to polish up the existing meshes, one week for the premium item
Animator 4 weeks/$2000
One week for each interactive item, slides counting as one.
Graphic artist 3 weeks/$1200
Help with the textures, get the box art and other branding ready
Coder/project leader 4 weeks/$1500
Integrate the assets and facilitate communication between team members
Marketers 2 x 4 weeks/$1000
Press packets and launch with the usual Youtubers, gamechangers and media outlets.
Total payroll: $29,200
This pack will end up with around 30-35 build items (counting all leveraged items). Moschino has 38 build items but clearly the windows and seating are not each unique and The Libearian is probably left over from City Living so we are right on trend.
Okay, let's go through the packs.
Luxury Party
Open stock dinnerware.
There are tons of shelves in the game and barely anything will sit on them except trophies. Open shelving is very popular in kitchens right now but items from debug will get cleared away. Let's get some wine glasses, bar ware, plates and bowls out of debug and retag them. Brighten up the textures and make some nice stacks and groupings.
Perfect Patio
In-ground hot tub, detached umbrellas.
No new meshes here either. Just put that hot tub in the ground. Call the guy that did the Mother Pit. Only the enter/exit animations need be new. Take the umbrellas off the tables so we can make our own combos.
Cool Kitchen
Contemporary counters/cabinets.
Seriously, how does a pack titled Kitchen just have one counter. Counters are complicated, but you already have them. You are not ripping out your whole kitchen and remodeling, you are just switching out the doors. We need a clean, contemporary counter with some great textures that will go in a variety of modern and industrial loft builds. Think Ikea. (Have we heard from them lately, by the way? Could they take a minute to send us a text?)
Spooky
Deco tires/wheels.
Okay, I lied just a little bit because we are going to invent the wheel. We need a wooden spoke wheel for our traveler caravans, hay wagons and such. However that is a very simple shape and can use any number of existing wood textures. Grab one off one of the wheelbarrows and grab a regular tire off one of the vehicles for our other trailers and campers.
Movie Hangout
Commercial version of the popcorn machine, movie popcorn clutter.
The animations for this might end up being a little work but you can't give us that movie marquee from Get Famous and not flesh out a movie theater. Simple shape and textures for the deco item.
Romantic Garden
Wisteria.
Get that pretty wisteria tree out of debug, make it Seasons compatible and add a few more blossom colors, pink, lavender, purple. Take some brambles from the Vampire pack, enlarge and rotate them and make some wisteria vines to go against a fence. Again, recombining existing assets to add on value.
Kids Room
Board game stack, detached playground slide.
You put out a Kids Room pack and not one item in it is tagged as clutter. Why not do a a stack of board games with the top one being Wake the Llama, of course. Simple rectangles, plenty of llama images in your library.
The playground slide can use most of the animations and most of the mesh from the pirate ship.
Backyard Stuff
Pool slide.
Leverage the playground slide. Just a little more work and we can have a pool slide too.
Vintage Glamour
Wallpapers.
Two or three more of those great art deco patterns.
Bowling Night
Vintage kitchen.
Leverage the counters we just made. Do them in white, aqua, pink and butter yellow and add a little cut-glass knob. Recolor the frig and stove from Jungle Adventure to match. Again we've added desirability to Get Famous by because this will work with all those great mid-century items.
Fitness Stuff
Exercise bike.
Okay, this. Yes, this is a lot of work, but it should have been in the pack. You know it, we all know it. With all the other assets having been strategically chosen, you can really showcase this premium interactive item. If you can throw in a spin-cycle class using the game play mechanic from Spa Day, I wouldn't say no. This makes up for no CAS.
Laundry Day
Stone fireplace and deco.
The stone fireplace from Sims 2 fits right in to the Sims 4 world. If the situation calls for it, go ahead and convert something. You don't need to start from scratch every time. We're all building witchy little cottages for Realm of Magic. We need this and a set of fireplaces tools and a wood basket to go with it.
Toddler Stuff
Detached lights.
Just take those string lights off the pole so we can get more creative about using them. Easy Peasy.
My First Pet
I don't know. I think a lot of people would like a dog house. Mesh from Sims 2. Don't work so hard.
Moschino
Counter-height windows.
Those windows are life. Counter-height, please, and whatever other sizes you have time for. Again, an existing item with a lot of demand for extended forms.
Okay, on to sales projections. You guys are pretty tight-lipped about your sales figures but most estimates put the number of Sims 4 copies at 10 million. One rumor has it that Seasons sold 800K but was second to Cats and Dogs which then must be around a million copies. Another rumor has it that 30 million add-on packs have been sold. EA also announced that total revenue for Sims 4 passed 1 billion so in the most round numbers possible:
Base Game $40x10M
Expansions 7x$40x1M
Game Packs 7x$20x1m
Stuff Packs 15X$10x1m = 970 million or pretty close.
As in any business plan, let's address the negatives. It's true that this pack won't be very appealing in a cost-per-item way to players who only own a few stuff packs. The marketing team needs to clarify that this is an ongoing thing and buyers will receive those items whenever they purchase the appropriate pack in the future. Also, this will avoid the resentment created when you take paid content and tag it for base game. Other players will feel they should have gotten these items for free. We're in business to make money and the buyer may decide personally if the item represents enough value.
I spent $30 at the movies last week and $60 on a pizza party for the household. The entertainment lasted about 2 hours each. I probably spent 6 or 7 hours just perfecting my new cottage and many more playing the Sim who lives there. Coming from the category of player who owns quite a few stuff packs, I can say that I desire every single thing in this pack and I desire most of them desperately. I can't say that about any other pack. I only have 9 of the 15. The others as is don't represent enough value to me. I'm not being facetious here, this is the truth. I would definitely buy 5 of the last 6 to get those items.
Even if we go with a low projection and estimate the sales of Stuff Pack Stuff at 500K copies or half that of a typical pack, with such low development costs profit is close to 5 million. However, due to the now enhanced value of the older, less desirable packs, if 20% of the buyers purchase 1 more stuff pack and 10% purchase two more, with no additional investment, profits are now $7 million. If we exceed our sales goals, I also have ideas for the Game Pack Pack and the Expansion Expansion.
You don't even have to give me a free copy, just a credit. Hope you can knock this out by Christmas.
Going through the suggestion forum is just one long litany of "I want," "I want."
However, I want to take a moment to thank you. Playing wasn't fun anymore for the last couple years but with terrains tools, better roofing tools, the liveeditobjects catalog and the contents of the last few packs, I can make builds that I really enjoy and settings for my Sims that I take pleasure in so I have started playing again. Also, you have really stepped up your rug game.
I'm going to do something different. I'm going to write you a business plan. I'm going to use the word 'leverage' a lot. Leveraging is when you take an existing item and extend it's usefulness or 'reuse' it. You know, like how some of the Island Living fish are just recolors of old fish. Or the new Jungle Adventure plants are just saturated green recolors of other plants. Or how the...anyway, leveraging is a good thing! It creates immersion. And you can't deny you set a precedent for this.
For Stuff Pack Stuff I am going to curate some assets with very high desirability as well as very low difficulty. In other words, a good candidate for leveraging or the biggest profit for the least amount of work. And my concept for Stuff Pack Stuff is like no other because the build/buy items will enhance PREVIOUS packs. They are mostly not new items but items that are kind of there but being re-imagined or used in a new way. They will be leveraged from items from specific packs or simple items that should have been in that pack. You only get them if you own that pack.
Let's start with the budget. This budget is for manpower only. I am assuming that physical assets like office space and computers are already in place. I'm not including advertising costs. Salary estimates from Glassdoor. The time estimates will seem on the low side but most of the items are chosen to be simple or reworking existing meshes. Except for one premium item, we're not reinventing the wheel. There are no CAS items in this pack and there's no need to come up with a new theme or a lot of art direction.
3d modeler 3 weeks/$1200
Two weeks to polish up the existing meshes, one week for the premium item
Animator 4 weeks/$2000
One week for each interactive item, slides counting as one.
Graphic artist 3 weeks/$1200
Help with the textures, get the box art and other branding ready
Coder/project leader 4 weeks/$1500
Integrate the assets and facilitate communication between team members
Marketers 2 x 4 weeks/$1000
Press packets and launch with the usual Youtubers, gamechangers and media outlets.
Total payroll: $29,200
This pack will end up with around 30-35 build items (counting all leveraged items). Moschino has 38 build items but clearly the windows and seating are not each unique and The Libearian is probably left over from City Living so we are right on trend.
Okay, let's go through the packs.
Luxury Party
Open stock dinnerware.
There are tons of shelves in the game and barely anything will sit on them except trophies. Open shelving is very popular in kitchens right now but items from debug will get cleared away. Let's get some wine glasses, bar ware, plates and bowls out of debug and retag them. Brighten up the textures and make some nice stacks and groupings.
Perfect Patio
In-ground hot tub, detached umbrellas.
No new meshes here either. Just put that hot tub in the ground. Call the guy that did the Mother Pit. Only the enter/exit animations need be new. Take the umbrellas off the tables so we can make our own combos.
Cool Kitchen
Contemporary counters/cabinets.
Seriously, how does a pack titled Kitchen just have one counter. Counters are complicated, but you already have them. You are not ripping out your whole kitchen and remodeling, you are just switching out the doors. We need a clean, contemporary counter with some great textures that will go in a variety of modern and industrial loft builds. Think Ikea. (Have we heard from them lately, by the way? Could they take a minute to send us a text?)
Spooky
Deco tires/wheels.
Okay, I lied just a little bit because we are going to invent the wheel. We need a wooden spoke wheel for our traveler caravans, hay wagons and such. However that is a very simple shape and can use any number of existing wood textures. Grab one off one of the wheelbarrows and grab a regular tire off one of the vehicles for our other trailers and campers.
Movie Hangout
Commercial version of the popcorn machine, movie popcorn clutter.
The animations for this might end up being a little work but you can't give us that movie marquee from Get Famous and not flesh out a movie theater. Simple shape and textures for the deco item.
Romantic Garden
Wisteria.
Get that pretty wisteria tree out of debug, make it Seasons compatible and add a few more blossom colors, pink, lavender, purple. Take some brambles from the Vampire pack, enlarge and rotate them and make some wisteria vines to go against a fence. Again, recombining existing assets to add on value.
Kids Room
Board game stack, detached playground slide.
You put out a Kids Room pack and not one item in it is tagged as clutter. Why not do a a stack of board games with the top one being Wake the Llama, of course. Simple rectangles, plenty of llama images in your library.
The playground slide can use most of the animations and most of the mesh from the pirate ship.
Backyard Stuff
Pool slide.
Leverage the playground slide. Just a little more work and we can have a pool slide too.
Vintage Glamour
Wallpapers.
Two or three more of those great art deco patterns.
Bowling Night
Vintage kitchen.
Leverage the counters we just made. Do them in white, aqua, pink and butter yellow and add a little cut-glass knob. Recolor the frig and stove from Jungle Adventure to match. Again we've added desirability to Get Famous by because this will work with all those great mid-century items.
Fitness Stuff
Exercise bike.
Okay, this. Yes, this is a lot of work, but it should have been in the pack. You know it, we all know it. With all the other assets having been strategically chosen, you can really showcase this premium interactive item. If you can throw in a spin-cycle class using the game play mechanic from Spa Day, I wouldn't say no. This makes up for no CAS.
Laundry Day
Stone fireplace and deco.
The stone fireplace from Sims 2 fits right in to the Sims 4 world. If the situation calls for it, go ahead and convert something. You don't need to start from scratch every time. We're all building witchy little cottages for Realm of Magic. We need this and a set of fireplaces tools and a wood basket to go with it.
Toddler Stuff
Detached lights.
Just take those string lights off the pole so we can get more creative about using them. Easy Peasy.
My First Pet
I don't know. I think a lot of people would like a dog house. Mesh from Sims 2. Don't work so hard.
Moschino
Counter-height windows.
Those windows are life. Counter-height, please, and whatever other sizes you have time for. Again, an existing item with a lot of demand for extended forms.
Okay, on to sales projections. You guys are pretty tight-lipped about your sales figures but most estimates put the number of Sims 4 copies at 10 million. One rumor has it that Seasons sold 800K but was second to Cats and Dogs which then must be around a million copies. Another rumor has it that 30 million add-on packs have been sold. EA also announced that total revenue for Sims 4 passed 1 billion so in the most round numbers possible:
Base Game $40x10M
Expansions 7x$40x1M
Game Packs 7x$20x1m
Stuff Packs 15X$10x1m = 970 million or pretty close.
As in any business plan, let's address the negatives. It's true that this pack won't be very appealing in a cost-per-item way to players who only own a few stuff packs. The marketing team needs to clarify that this is an ongoing thing and buyers will receive those items whenever they purchase the appropriate pack in the future. Also, this will avoid the resentment created when you take paid content and tag it for base game. Other players will feel they should have gotten these items for free. We're in business to make money and the buyer may decide personally if the item represents enough value.
I spent $30 at the movies last week and $60 on a pizza party for the household. The entertainment lasted about 2 hours each. I probably spent 6 or 7 hours just perfecting my new cottage and many more playing the Sim who lives there. Coming from the category of player who owns quite a few stuff packs, I can say that I desire every single thing in this pack and I desire most of them desperately. I can't say that about any other pack. I only have 9 of the 15. The others as is don't represent enough value to me. I'm not being facetious here, this is the truth. I would definitely buy 5 of the last 6 to get those items.
Even if we go with a low projection and estimate the sales of Stuff Pack Stuff at 500K copies or half that of a typical pack, with such low development costs profit is close to 5 million. However, due to the now enhanced value of the older, less desirable packs, if 20% of the buyers purchase 1 more stuff pack and 10% purchase two more, with no additional investment, profits are now $7 million. If we exceed our sales goals, I also have ideas for the Game Pack Pack and the Expansion Expansion.
You don't even have to give me a free copy, just a credit. Hope you can knock this out by Christmas.
