Do you think we will get another expansion this year?

"Erpe;c-16495711" wrote:

"simgirl1010;c-16495701" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16495697" wrote:

"IceyJ;c-16495018" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16494147" wrote:

"IceyJ;c-16494076" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16494015" wrote:
@SimTrippy I know. But in EA’s terminology “soon” usually means about 8 months and “for years out” could just be some wish he said deliberately ignoring what he knows about TS5 because he isn’t allowed to talk about TS5 yet. If he could guarantee that TS4 still will get new packs at least until 2020 then why doesn’t he say so?

Yes, he knows that simmers always have wanted more and also about everything from TS2 and TS3. But instead everything has been simplified and there is no way that he suddenly can guarantee that it all will come anyway. He also has to encourage us to buy more though. So is this just what he attempts with loose promises that he knows he won’t fully be able to fulfill anyway?

So this is what being in denial looks like, lol. Grant literally said 'expansion' in the earlier tweet and has made it clear TS4 isn't going anywhere for years. Too proud to concede, huh? :D

Your guess is as good as mine. But Grant isn’t EA’s CEO or even on EA’s Board of Directors. So I don’t believe that EA’s top have told him that he can continue to just make EPs for TS4 at least 5 years more ;)

He may not be CEO, but as lead producer of EPs and the game in general, he surely knows how many years in advance they've planned out packs. So if they're planning packs for years out, they're obviously not ready to release TS5. Logic.

The logic isn’t that obvious to me.

A thing that I noted was that when TS3 was about to end then EA increased the number of yearly EPs from 2 to 3 and afair more other things were increased too in 2012-2013 and even after TS4 already had been announced. I wondered why? Sales numbers obviously still were high enough to make this profitable even though they must have become lower than they were in 2009-2011. So why did EA suddenly release more just before TS4 was about to be released anyway?

My guess is that the reason mainly was that each new basegame (and especially TS4) are targeted at new simmers and that EA knows that simmers who already own the old game will hesitate and often wait a couple of years before they maybe will buy the new game anyway. But then EA wants to give them a little more packs to buy until they switch to the new game. But those packs still sell best anyway if they are released before the new basegame is released. So if EA increases the number of yearly packs then this could actually be a signal that a new basegame soon will be released (and still mainly targeted at new simmers).

I am not sure that EA plans which packs to release even years before they are released because EA has often changed the schedule and suddenly made unplanned packs with short notice. Apparently EA studies the market all the time and is ready to make changes whenever they feel that this could be profitable. But if even EA’s top don’t know then Grant sure doesn’t know either. I agree though that he knows much more than he tells us because TS5 must have been in development in the same building and he surely knows how far the development of TS5 is now. He just wants to encourage us though and therefore mainly wants us to be exited about the remaining packs for TS4 for now.

Well all I can say is have fun waiting for your announcement. :)

Do you have an old hat that you can eat if the announcement comes anyway this summer? ;)

Don't think we'll be eating hats. And I still sincerely doubt you'll get a TS5 announcement this year. I don't think we'll see TS5 before 2020 anyway, and if that's the case, they've got plenty of time to announce next year.

But of course, you could be right. You should just not make estimations & then, when they don't come true, make up stories for why your estimations are right anyway. Sometimes, we just guess wrong. And that's what you're doing, just like anyone else here, guessing :D

"SimTrippy;c-16495898" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16495711" wrote:

"simgirl1010;c-16495701" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16495697" wrote:

"IceyJ;c-16495018" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16494147" wrote:

"IceyJ;c-16494076" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16494015" wrote:
@SimTrippy I know. But in EA’s terminology “soon” usually means about 8 months and “for years out” could just be some wish he said deliberately ignoring what he knows about TS5 because he isn’t allowed to talk about TS5 yet. If he could guarantee that TS4 still will get new packs at least until 2020 then why doesn’t he say so?

Yes, he knows that simmers always have wanted more and also about everything from TS2 and TS3. But instead everything has been simplified and there is no way that he suddenly can guarantee that it all will come anyway. He also has to encourage us to buy more though. So is this just what he attempts with loose promises that he knows he won’t fully be able to fulfill anyway?

So this is what being in denial looks like, lol. Grant literally said 'expansion' in the earlier tweet and has made it clear TS4 isn't going anywhere for years. Too proud to concede, huh? :D

Your guess is as good as mine. But Grant isn’t EA’s CEO or even on EA’s Board of Directors. So I don’t believe that EA’s top have told him that he can continue to just make EPs for TS4 at least 5 years more ;)

He may not be CEO, but as lead producer of EPs and the game in general, he surely knows how many years in advance they've planned out packs. So if they're planning packs for years out, they're obviously not ready to release TS5. Logic.

The logic isn’t that obvious to me.

A thing that I noted was that when TS3 was about to end then EA increased the number of yearly EPs from 2 to 3 and afair more other things were increased too in 2012-2013 and even after TS4 already had been announced. I wondered why? Sales numbers obviously still were high enough to make this profitable even though they must have become lower than they were in 2009-2011. So why did EA suddenly release more just before TS4 was about to be released anyway?

My guess is that the reason mainly was that each new basegame (and especially TS4) are targeted at new simmers and that EA knows that simmers who already own the old game will hesitate and often wait a couple of years before they maybe will buy the new game anyway. But then EA wants to give them a little more packs to buy until they switch to the new game. But those packs still sell best anyway if they are released before the new basegame is released. So if EA increases the number of yearly packs then this could actually be a signal that a new basegame soon will be released (and still mainly targeted at new simmers).

I am not sure that EA plans which packs to release even years before they are released because EA has often changed the schedule and suddenly made unplanned packs with short notice. Apparently EA studies the market all the time and is ready to make changes whenever they feel that this could be profitable. But if even EA’s top don’t know then Grant sure doesn’t know either. I agree though that he knows much more than he tells us because TS5 must have been in development in the same building and he surely knows how far the development of TS5 is now. He just wants to encourage us though and therefore mainly wants us to be exited about the remaining packs for TS4 for now.

Well all I can say is have fun waiting for your announcement. :)

Do you have an old hat that you can eat if the announcement comes anyway this summer? ;)

Don't think we'll be eating hats. And I still sincerely doubt you'll get a TS5 announcement this year. I don't think we'll see TS5 before 2020 anyway, and if that's the case, they've got plenty of time to announce next year.

But of course, you could be right. You should just not make estimations & then, when they don't come true, make up stories for why your estimations are right anyway. Sometimes, we just guess wrong. And that's what you're doing, just like anyone else here, guessing :D

I never said that my guesses can’t be wrong because I don’t have inside information from EA and EA has earlier postponed a new basegame for about half a year even after it had been announced. Unforeseen technical problems can always cause such delays.

But at least my guesses are based on the fact that EA always has released a new basegame after 5 years (except after TS1 which wasn’t designed to have many EPs and therefore only lived in 4 years) while you just use wishful thinking in your dreams about TS4 living until it has as many EPs as the previous games had. Wishful thinking usually only ends up in disappointments. Therefore I don’t use it myself (and I don’t care about TS4’s life length anyway).

I feel that we could, but at the very end of the year, so like late November/early December (before Christmas anyway). It's a good time for sales, and now when they've done two big packs (Cats&Dogs and Seasons), maybe they can speed up with expansion packs a little bit.

"Erpe;c-16495949" wrote:

"SimTrippy;c-16495898" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16495711" wrote:

"simgirl1010;c-16495701" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16495697" wrote:

"IceyJ;c-16495018" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16494147" wrote:

"IceyJ;c-16494076" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16494015" wrote:
@SimTrippy I know. But in EA’s terminology “soon” usually means about 8 months and “for years out” could just be some wish he said deliberately ignoring what he knows about TS5 because he isn’t allowed to talk about TS5 yet. If he could guarantee that TS4 still will get new packs at least until 2020 then why doesn’t he say so?

Yes, he knows that simmers always have wanted more and also about everything from TS2 and TS3. But instead everything has been simplified and there is no way that he suddenly can guarantee that it all will come anyway. He also has to encourage us to buy more though. So is this just what he attempts with loose promises that he knows he won’t fully be able to fulfill anyway?

So this is what being in denial looks like, lol. Grant literally said 'expansion' in the earlier tweet and has made it clear TS4 isn't going anywhere for years. Too proud to concede, huh? :D

Your guess is as good as mine. But Grant isn’t EA’s CEO or even on EA’s Board of Directors. So I don’t believe that EA’s top have told him that he can continue to just make EPs for TS4 at least 5 years more ;)

He may not be CEO, but as lead producer of EPs and the game in general, he surely knows how many years in advance they've planned out packs. So if they're planning packs for years out, they're obviously not ready to release TS5. Logic.

The logic isn’t that obvious to me.

A thing that I noted was that when TS3 was about to end then EA increased the number of yearly EPs from 2 to 3 and afair more other things were increased too in 2012-2013 and even after TS4 already had been announced. I wondered why? Sales numbers obviously still were high enough to make this profitable even though they must have become lower than they were in 2009-2011. So why did EA suddenly release more just before TS4 was about to be released anyway?

My guess is that the reason mainly was that each new basegame (and especially TS4) are targeted at new simmers and that EA knows that simmers who already own the old game will hesitate and often wait a couple of years before they maybe will buy the new game anyway. But then EA wants to give them a little more packs to buy until they switch to the new game. But those packs still sell best anyway if they are released before the new basegame is released. So if EA increases the number of yearly packs then this could actually be a signal that a new basegame soon will be released (and still mainly targeted at new simmers).

I am not sure that EA plans which packs to release even years before they are released because EA has often changed the schedule and suddenly made unplanned packs with short notice. Apparently EA studies the market all the time and is ready to make changes whenever they feel that this could be profitable. But if even EA’s top don’t know then Grant sure doesn’t know either. I agree though that he knows much more than he tells us because TS5 must have been in development in the same building and he surely knows how far the development of TS5 is now. He just wants to encourage us though and therefore mainly wants us to be exited about the remaining packs for TS4 for now.

Well all I can say is have fun waiting for your announcement. :)

Do you have an old hat that you can eat if the announcement comes anyway this summer? ;)

Don't think we'll be eating hats. And I still sincerely doubt you'll get a TS5 announcement this year. I don't think we'll see TS5 before 2020 anyway, and if that's the case, they've got plenty of time to announce next year.

But of course, you could be right. You should just not make estimations & then, when they don't come true, make up stories for why your estimations are right anyway. Sometimes, we just guess wrong. And that's what you're doing, just like anyone else here, guessing :D

I never said that my guesses can’t be wrong because I don’t have inside information from EA and EA has earlier postponed a new basegame for about half a year even after it had been announced. Unforeseen technical problems can always cause such delays.

But at least my guesses are based on the fact that EA always has released a new basegame after 5 years (except after TS1 which wasn’t designed to have many EPs and therefore only lived in 4 years) while you just use wishful thinking in your dreams about TS4 living until it has as many EPs as the previous games had. Wishful thinking usually only ends up in disappointments. Therefore I don’t use it myself (and I don’t care about TS4’s life length anyway).

Your guesses are based on a pattern that occurred in the past and you continually disregard all signs that indicate this version is destined for a longer shelf life, even statements from the gurus. And yes, I know you think you know more than them or they're simply lying to keep the community buying. If anything you're the one relying on wishful thinking. Like I said, have fun waiting for that announcement to come and I'll gladly eat my hat if it comes this summer. Now I'm off to catch up on the Season's news. I'll check back in with you end of summer. :)

"simgirl1010;c-16496068" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16495949" wrote:

"SimTrippy;c-16495898" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16495711" wrote:

"simgirl1010;c-16495701" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16495697" wrote:

"IceyJ;c-16495018" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16494147" wrote:

"IceyJ;c-16494076" wrote:

"Erpe;c-16494015" wrote:
@SimTrippy I know. But in EA’s terminology “soon” usually means about 8 months and “for years out” could just be some wish he said deliberately ignoring what he knows about TS5 because he isn’t allowed to talk about TS5 yet. If he could guarantee that TS4 still will get new packs at least until 2020 then why doesn’t he say so?

Yes, he knows that simmers always have wanted more and also about everything from TS2 and TS3. But instead everything has been simplified and there is no way that he suddenly can guarantee that it all will come anyway. He also has to encourage us to buy more though. So is this just what he attempts with loose promises that he knows he won’t fully be able to fulfill anyway?

So this is what being in denial looks like, lol. Grant literally said 'expansion' in the earlier tweet and has made it clear TS4 isn't going anywhere for years. Too proud to concede, huh? :D

Your guess is as good as mine. But Grant isn’t EA’s CEO or even on EA’s Board of Directors. So I don’t believe that EA’s top have told him that he can continue to just make EPs for TS4 at least 5 years more ;)

He may not be CEO, but as lead producer of EPs and the game in general, he surely knows how many years in advance they've planned out packs. So if they're planning packs for years out, they're obviously not ready to release TS5. Logic.

The logic isn’t that obvious to me.

A thing that I noted was that when TS3 was about to end then EA increased the number of yearly EPs from 2 to 3 and afair more other things were increased too in 2012-2013 and even after TS4 already had been announced. I wondered why? Sales numbers obviously still were high enough to make this profitable even though they must have become lower than they were in 2009-2011. So why did EA suddenly release more just before TS4 was about to be released anyway?

My guess is that the reason mainly was that each new basegame (and especially TS4) are targeted at new simmers and that EA knows that simmers who already own the old game will hesitate and often wait a couple of years before they maybe will buy the new game anyway. But then EA wants to give them a little more packs to buy until they switch to the new game. But those packs still sell best anyway if they are released before the new basegame is released. So if EA increases the number of yearly packs then this could actually be a signal that a new basegame soon will be released (and still mainly targeted at new simmers).

I am not sure that EA plans which packs to release even years before they are released because EA has often changed the schedule and suddenly made unplanned packs with short notice. Apparently EA studies the market all the time and is ready to make changes whenever they feel that this could be profitable. But if even EA’s top don’t know then Grant sure doesn’t know either. I agree though that he knows much more than he tells us because TS5 must have been in development in the same building and he surely knows how far the development of TS5 is now. He just wants to encourage us though and therefore mainly wants us to be exited about the remaining packs for TS4 for now.

Well all I can say is have fun waiting for your announcement. :)

Do you have an old hat that you can eat if the announcement comes anyway this summer? ;)

Don't think we'll be eating hats. And I still sincerely doubt you'll get a TS5 announcement this year. I don't think we'll see TS5 before 2020 anyway, and if that's the case, they've got plenty of time to announce next year.

But of course, you could be right. You should just not make estimations & then, when they don't come true, make up stories for why your estimations are right anyway. Sometimes, we just guess wrong. And that's what you're doing, just like anyone else here, guessing :D

I never said that my guesses can’t be wrong because I don’t have inside information from EA and EA has earlier postponed a new basegame for about half a year even after it had been announced. Unforeseen technical problems can always cause such delays.

But at least my guesses are based on the fact that EA always has released a new basegame after 5 years (except after TS1 which wasn’t designed to have many EPs and therefore only lived in 4 years) while you just use wishful thinking in your dreams about TS4 living until it has as many EPs as the previous games had. Wishful thinking usually only ends up in disappointments. Therefore I don’t use it myself (and I don’t care about TS4’s life length anyway).

Your guesses are based on a pattern that occurred in the past and you continually disregard all signs that indicate this version is destined for a longer shelf life, even statements from the gurus. And yes, I know you think you know more than them or they're simply lying to keep the community buying. If anything you're the one relying on wishful thinking. Like I said, have fun waiting for that announcement to come and I'll gladly eat my hat if it comes this summer. Now I'm off to catch up on the Season's news. I'll check back in with you end of summer. :)

We will never agree on this. So let us just agree to disagree.

I agree that it is all about the interpretation of those statements from the gurus. But for me to see most simmers just read the statements to mean what they wish them to mean. Examples:
1. The gurus have said that packs for TS4 will follow a different schedule than for the earlier games. This is obviously true because half of the EPs have been replaced by SPs and GPs.
2. The gurus have said that TS4 now is more of a live service than a traditional games. But live services are something that all game companies have switched to and they don’t mean that the games will live longer. Other game companies have even said that they will release new versions of their games every 2-3 years even though they are live services too. (Live services just mean that the game will get new content via monthly updates.)
3. The gurus have said that simmers have to wait a longer time for things like Seasons. This is true because TS4 only gets one EP each year because EA now focuses on GPs and especially SPs instead of EPs. (Smaller packs released more often instead of big packs is also a part of the live service concept.)

This is the main things that I have seen gurus write. But even though they have said that simmers have to wait longer for popular EPs I haven’t seen them say anywhere that TS4 will get a longer life. Also simmers ignore the main reason why EA never let any of the previous Sims games live longer than 5 years even though EA lost at least half of the simmers every time EA released a new big basegame. But the reason why EA so many times accepted the loss of million of simmers for me to see clearly always has been:
1. After 5 years the game has become way to big for new young simmers to start playing it. Imagine a 12-14 years old ask her parents about permission to get the game and the parents then asking about all those already released packs and realize that the basegame plus all packs will cost about a thousand dollars. Then they will ask their daughter (or son) if the packs are necessary too? But the answer will likely be that her/his friend says that most of the packs are. Then the parents will likely ask her/him to find a cheaper game instead because they won’t use that much money on a game which she/he maybe only will play for about a month.
2. EA knows that most young simmers stop playing the game anyway after a few years. So EA needs new young simmers to start playing too - and for this to happen EA needs to offer a new basegame without packs at least every 5 years.

So it isn’t because I don’t realize that the world changes. But in a time where millions of young simmers now play the Sims Mobile and can’t persuade their parents to buy TS4 and its many packs then EA just needs to release a new basegame. Otherwise EA will lose too many millions of new customers and the majority of the customers who got TS4 as their first Sims game in 2014 have already stopped playing or are about to do it. So unless you think that EA isn’t interested in money anymore I just can’t follow your idea about EA just releasing worse and worse selling packs for TS4 for a few more years.

yes, i believe we will get another expansion.

Yes. I honestly do believe that Sims is consistently doing a better job with keeping up with what their consumers want and I applaud them for that. We wanted toddlers, we got toddlers. We wanted Pets, we got Pets. We wanted Seasons, we got Seasons. I can't wait for Seasons and all the many expansion packs that are soon to come!

From a Marketing standpoint:

The Sims have been gaining a LOT of buzz from the Seasons announcement. The reveal trailer is TRENDING on Youtube with already 1 million+ views. On twitter alone they generated 26k+ likes on their announcement tweet in 3 days. So personally, I don't see why Sims WOULDN'T profit off of this attention and bust out another expansion pack before all the hype dies down. Fingers crossed.

I say yes simply because they were able to release seasons very quickly after cats and dogs. An early to mid December expansion might be possible.

@Erpe If I could just jump into this conversation for a moment (I may regret this, haha)...

I think that you missed a lot of dev conversations that happened here on the forums when SimGuruDrake was community manager. She had made arrangements a couple of times for some of the Sims 4 developers to come in and address some Simmers' questions, and did many Q&As herself with the community. She had really opened up a lot of avenues of much-needed communication when she came in and there were many long discussions. Of course, they could only answer what they were allowed to, but they did try to clarify some things - without saying too much - that make a lot of sense now, and is probably why so many people are trying to correct you because you seem to have missed when this information was put out there.

1. The pack schedules. When they were talking about the change of pack schedules and they said not to expect any patterns, it was not about the pack formations like GP vs. EP, it was about actual release patterns because people were not content about the slow pace of familiar DLC releases. This is why we received two game packs within six months of each other one year. They also told us that for some packs, (I'm going to assume this mainly pertains to EPs because they are larger projects), they said they've had the dates reserved years - years - in advance. This actually makes sense because there have been (I believe two?) times that EPs had to be delayed because it seemed like they still weren't quite finished in time for the planned release date. So yes, sometimes EA has to change a release date, but that doesn't mean they don't have a planned schedule in advance. We're talking about a huge, successful, multi-million (billion?) dollar business. Of course they plan in advance, because that's how they can better measure the budget, the progress, and the time management, with estimated profits. You don't become a giant success by "winging it" and keeping your workers in chaos. There has to be structure.

2. Live service. This was also addressed by the developers themselves. I recall them telling us that the benefit of having Sims 4 as a live service meant a lot of different things for them. Yes, it meant that they could patch in freebies now and then, and have all digital content, but it was also stated that the live service meant that they could apply monthly patches to the game (which they do) as well as any emergency fixes (which they have.) Live service, as it applies to Sims 4 specifically, means a hands-on approach to the game. It means the devs have access to give or take or change whatever they need to, when they need to, and for EA, it means a much more direct marketing approach to push sales, as we see on our main splash screens in game. Live service also allowed missing content that was intended to be part of the base game to be patched to us later, like pools, ghosts, and toddlers, without pushing back the initial release date for the Sims 4 back in 2014.

3. Sims 4 is meant to be different. I don't even know how many times I've seen developers try to reiterate to us that the Sims 4 was built to be different from its predecessors. These statements alone should have been fair warning for all veteran Simmers that this game model would look and function differently, right down to content, releases, functionality, and longevity. Yet time and again, we all get surprised when the "new take" on an old theme comes out and we don't recognize it. Game Packs are new, the Stuff Packs have been changed, and even the marketing is more aggressive. But I'm going to leave it at that because I'm about to infringe on my next wall of text...

So aside from the things that the developers have told us directly, there is a very important and very obvious point to consider that I think you've either overlooked, or maybe you're just not familiar with so you haven't taken it to mind yet, but this, to me, is one of the biggest factors in determining the future of The Sims, be it 4 or 5. And that is:

The gaming world and its link to social media and its fans has changed.

We are in a gaming era that is so unrecognizable from the days of early Sims games that the process of how EA decides to develop and market the Sims 4 has to change to keep up. This is something that many of us who came in during older iterations are going to struggle with because it's unfamiliar to us. This is why the Sims 4 has to have an ageless art style and a super trendy, modern shine. This is why the marketing is sensationalized and so "in-your-face". This is why the game is targeted at teens and each new generation of gamers. It sounds counter-intuitive, but I also think this is why the Sims 4 has been purposely made to last longer. With all of the above that I've listed, you can see where they've already built it in. The Sims 4 is a somewhat simplified model, so to speak, but also ageless in design. There is a reason for these things. The low game specs from the very beginning speak to a longevity of adding tons of DLC for years, so it reduces the weight on each player's system. I don't think that they were catering to clunky, integrated graphics systems at all...I think they were starting off as bare bones and lightweight as possible to be prepared for an extra long game life of add-ons because, as we've seen with Sims 2 and Sims 3, the game gets so bogged down when you make it too complicated from the start that you have to stop developing it. Look at what happened to Sims 3 where they had to build a tool for deactivating packs because so many people couldn't play their game. That, no doubt, was a lesson learned.

I also don't think that Sims 4 has any problem attracting new Simmers. I don't think the amount of available content would discourage new players at all. In fact, I think it's the opposite. The more options that are available, the more interesting the game is. Remember in those first two years when our choices were limited and everyone was complaining of boredom and new Simmers were dropping off? Well they were, because I've been paying attention to Youtube and there were young Simmers losing interest quickly and dropping their Simming channels because there wasn't enough content out for them to stay interested. So that is much less likely when you come into a new game and see a variety of themes and all of these possibilities.

Speaking of Youtube, let's get into the new brilliant marketing plan that EA has been utilizing. Youtube is a HUGE thing right now, and the popular Influencers who promote the Sims 4 are revered by the company because they can sway a crowd with one video. This is extremely important to pay attention to. EA has just announced their official Game Changers program. It's brand new and it incorporates new Simmers who have an established following on various social media mediums. Check it out here: https://www.ea.com/game-changers They specify that this program is for getting feedback from the community, through Game Changers, to keep on top of what players want in their EA games. It goes above and beyond the Sims 4 to other EA games as well, but in terms of Sims 4, if these Game Changers are enjoying it and want more content and have hundreds of thousands of followers who are eager to snatch up the game and play along, then you'd best believe that EA are following where the money is.

The times have changed, my friend. What worked in the past for Sims 2 and Sims 3 is old news. Sims 4 has a very different path ahead, and judging from the glee of the corporate investors of EA from last year's huge jump in sales, players and profit, that path is going right off into the sunrise of the next phase of Sims 4's continuation.

@LiELF I wish I could insightful *and* awesome that post. Best wall of text I've ever read here, and worth the time.