Dear EA, please do not make Sims 5 like Avakin Life.
Avakin Life is fun in its own way, but if EA does with Sims 5 what Lockwood does with Avakin Life, it will lose most of its players.
1. Avakin Life is only playable while connected to the internet. It has no single player option.
2. Avakin Life is full of microtransactions and commercial brands - sure they make Lockwood money, but they lock out a lot of the players who have trouble using TapJoy, which by the way is not terribly reliable in its customer service if promised rewards are not delivered. If I wanted limited time content and microtransactions, I would be playing Sims Freeplay and Sims Mobile a lot more than I do. There is literally almost nothing for free in Avakin Life although one can start playing for free. (To advance past about level 5 requires either watching lots of ads, taking lots of surveys that pay out in game currency, or paying real money in exchange for game currency. A typical shortcoming of mobile and free to play games.) This also gradually drains all the fun out of playing the game, unless you have already made friends in game. Moreover, to pay out "free" rewards for watching ads, Tapjoy requires ad tracking be turned on for ipads, quite invasive of privacy, and in some cases location tracking as well. The ad system in Sims Freeplay and Sims Mobile is way better.
3. While there are "Petkins" in Avakin life, there are no toddlers. Players have asked for toddler petkins, but for numerous reasons (including player neglect of their petkins) there are no toddler petkins. Petkins work sort of like pets except they are confined to very limited areas of the game. This is gradually being expanded, but with the exception of dog petkins, petkins cannot go outside the lot they are placed in. No toddlers is a big dealbreaker for future major Sims series games.
4. There is no multitasking in Avakin Life. Multitasking is one of the features I miss most, followed by clubs, when I play previous Sims games (ie Sims 1, 2, and 3).
5. The emotions of all the avatars exactly mirror the emotions expressed by the players in game because only one avatar is usually allowed per player (or else per social media account and email address). For better or worse, players are usually pretty good at projecting their own emotions onto their characters. (This also applies to previous Sim games - this is how previous Sim games largely simulated emotion - by simply hinting at it and letting the player's imagination doing the rest of the work instead of announcing to the player the Sim's mood. Then the player would choose certain interactions based on the perceived mood of the Sim, instead of the Sim receiving weird moodlets that may or may not coincide with the player's story plans.)
6. Very few of the in-game furnishings can be interacted with by Avakin avatars. This is gradually changing as new furniture with animations is added, but they are wayyyyyy behind the Sims. There are cars in Avakin life, but like Sims 4 they are for decoration only and cannot be interacted with, only parked to look pretty in the driveway. However, they do have a wider variety of decorative car (and truck, and Jeep) sculptures than Sims 4 currently does. Heck, they even added their version of the back to the future Delorean and made the doors open.
1. Avakin Life is only playable while connected to the internet. It has no single player option.
2. Avakin Life is full of microtransactions and commercial brands - sure they make Lockwood money, but they lock out a lot of the players who have trouble using TapJoy, which by the way is not terribly reliable in its customer service if promised rewards are not delivered. If I wanted limited time content and microtransactions, I would be playing Sims Freeplay and Sims Mobile a lot more than I do. There is literally almost nothing for free in Avakin Life although one can start playing for free. (To advance past about level 5 requires either watching lots of ads, taking lots of surveys that pay out in game currency, or paying real money in exchange for game currency. A typical shortcoming of mobile and free to play games.) This also gradually drains all the fun out of playing the game, unless you have already made friends in game. Moreover, to pay out "free" rewards for watching ads, Tapjoy requires ad tracking be turned on for ipads, quite invasive of privacy, and in some cases location tracking as well. The ad system in Sims Freeplay and Sims Mobile is way better.
3. While there are "Petkins" in Avakin life, there are no toddlers. Players have asked for toddler petkins, but for numerous reasons (including player neglect of their petkins) there are no toddler petkins. Petkins work sort of like pets except they are confined to very limited areas of the game. This is gradually being expanded, but with the exception of dog petkins, petkins cannot go outside the lot they are placed in. No toddlers is a big dealbreaker for future major Sims series games.
4. There is no multitasking in Avakin Life. Multitasking is one of the features I miss most, followed by clubs, when I play previous Sims games (ie Sims 1, 2, and 3).
5. The emotions of all the avatars exactly mirror the emotions expressed by the players in game because only one avatar is usually allowed per player (or else per social media account and email address). For better or worse, players are usually pretty good at projecting their own emotions onto their characters. (This also applies to previous Sim games - this is how previous Sim games largely simulated emotion - by simply hinting at it and letting the player's imagination doing the rest of the work instead of announcing to the player the Sim's mood. Then the player would choose certain interactions based on the perceived mood of the Sim, instead of the Sim receiving weird moodlets that may or may not coincide with the player's story plans.)
6. Very few of the in-game furnishings can be interacted with by Avakin avatars. This is gradually changing as new furniture with animations is added, but they are wayyyyyy behind the Sims. There are cars in Avakin life, but like Sims 4 they are for decoration only and cannot be interacted with, only parked to look pretty in the driveway. However, they do have a wider variety of decorative car (and truck, and Jeep) sculptures than Sims 4 currently does. Heck, they even added their version of the back to the future Delorean and made the doors open.
