"thevogel;c-16415315" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16415283" wrote:
I agree with that other game companies could make similar games. No doubt about it.
But you can’t just compare the big Sims games with SimCity and Skylines. Those games aren’t based on the idea to make a very expensive basegame with a special game engine which it takes years to make and then get all the money back just by using this game engines ability to make a huge number of packs very cheaply.
The problem for other big game companies isn’t that they couldn’t make such a game too because of course they could. But their problem is that they can’t be sure to be able to beat EA’s version. EA would almost certainly fight back by making more attractive packs just to fight off the competitor. This would of course be a dream for all us simmers. But the other game company would risk a fortune if EA was able to fight them off and keep the market anyway. The other company could then even be close to going bankrupt. So therefore no other game company has until now had the courage to attempt it.
I only made the comparison to prove that it can be done. The sims is an entirely different animal... still to assume that no other company would take it on would be naive. If done right... it would be a huge pay off.
Another company is not going to launch a game like that without knowing what they are doing. They would know the risks and that would almost guarantee that the game itself would be a worthy rival. Don't sell short the idea before it's even happened. It would be healthy for EA to finally make a game that is functional and engaging, based on competition. No more poorly designed content to charge $10 and $20 bucks a pop for.
But it still hasn’t happened even 18 years after the release of TS1. There are reasons for that which you understandably choose to ignore because I would have liked it to happen too. When I don’t believe that it will happen it is because I started wondering about it already about 12-13 years ago in the Sims 2 days.
But only Virtual Families, Virtual Families 2, Singles 1 and Singles 2 have been similar games. They were smaller games just like TS1 was. But they became never nearly as successful.
When you say that another game company easily could make a similar game then you also ignore the fact that EA has tried to expand the Sims games to other platforms too but without much success until recently. TS2 for consoles, TS3 for consoles, the 3 mobile versions of TS3 were all experiments that weren’t very successful. So even EA didn’t easily find a way to make such games successful even without competition. Therefore it is very understandably for me that no other game companies have wanted to try.
Also the idea about making the basegame more complete such that it wouldn’t need all those packs is doubtful because it was exactly that idea that prevented the mobile versions of TS3 from being successful. EA hasn’t even updated those games such that they still can be sold and work under the new versions of android and iOS even though that would be easy and even though the PC version of TS3 and its packs are still sold for high prices.
So this shows to me that today it is almost impossible for another company to start out with a small game like EA did with TS1. TS3 and TS4 have only been successful in the PC versions because they get all these packs all the time to expand them. If that wasn’t the case most simmers would likely just stop playing them. But now simmers even still play TS3 because they have all those packs too.
