"simgirl1010;c-17183914" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-17183590" wrote:
"Writin_Reg;c-17183387" wrote:
"Felicity;c-17183330" wrote:
I wish I could change my vote to "It's Too Late." Seriously. The DLCs seem to be so, well, lacking in content that they must make a huge profit even if they lose some customers over them. Whales are where it's at, and it's becoming more and more apparent with most devs, including EA, that $$ comes before quality.
I also think they'll keep Sims 4 going for as long as possible as DLCs are cheap to make and super profitable, and games are not as much. Is it FIFA which now makes more from microtransactions than game sales? One of EA's devs does, which bodes very badly for the video game industry as a whole.
I actually have been playing on a Nintendo Switch lately (my college-bound daughter decided it wasn't for her any more). For just a little more than what IL cost, I got a new Mario side scroller and an open world RPG ($50 a piece). And you know Nintendo isn't losing money on them.
Actually they are way up 55 percent higher according to today's quarter update at EA. Better than ever apparently.
Isn’t that because they gave away the game for free for a while? EA going awesome doesn’t equal us going awesome. You’re actually not contradicting what @Felicity said (“I also think they'll keep Sims 4 going for as long as possible as DLCs are cheap to make and super profitable, and games are not as much”).
Almost 7 million players downloaded the game during that time. In addition to the base game promotion, total expansion and game pack downloads also increased 55% year-over-year in Q1.
Yeah, YOY is an iffy measure to use, especially given the year before was horrendous for EA and packs are not coming out on an even basis and the base game had a major drop this year in price. Even more iffy when the share report names sales numbers for some games and just the YOY percentage of the Sims 4. However, it does not matter. Even if YOY were the gold standard of growth (it is not), it doesn't contradict what I'm saying at all.
They have lost some customers, they've gained some customers; more importantly, they're working out how to give people those dopamine hits that we find so addictive (which is probably why Sims 4 is so goal oriented and social -- it feels great when someone likes a creation and it feels satisfying when we get that aspiration step and party goal). And this isn't isolated to the Sims 4. Every major PC dev with the exception of CDPR and perhaps some Microsoft devs are working out how to maximize $$ through DLC and microtransactions (which are also DLC) while prolonging the lives of games because they cost so much more to develop. CDPR and MS have similar motivations for going against the grain here, but they also are going for a profit motive as games make tons and tons even without the crazy DLC train we're on now.
Edit: I just realized you said they used Q1 for the YOY, which makes it even less useful. But that does explain why in Q1 2020 they gave away the basegame for an extended period of time if you are correct. As I said before, though, it doesn't matter. As long as those DLCs are highly profitable, as long as they find the price/value ratio that works out best for them as far as $$ goes, that's what they'll sell.