Forum Discussion
"Cinebar;c-16215498" wrote:
@jackjack_k, I'll have to disagree with you about your statement TS4 has about 6-7 EPs worth of content...since you added up GPs/EPs and Stuff Packs.. Even if you do, EPs in TS2 or even TS1 had around 125 or so new objects, or decor each. Just in general didn't do an exact count lately of those. Then there is gameplay, it's year three, going fast toward year four.
We still don't have seasons, or all those interactions like festivals for seasons, animations, gameplay, seasonal interactions, holidays, seasonal parties, let alone what can be done in each season like raking leaves or snowmen. Then even after three years still no owneable cars. Still no 'dance together' still no slow dance, still no attraction system, still not any more occult Sims like werewolf, PlantSim, Mermaid, BigFoot, Witch, etc. etc. Still no ability to build duplexes, or condos, still no ability to swim in bodies of water other than pools. Still no ablity to roller skate or ice skate. Still no generational play like proms, teach to drive a car, or even elderly to pass on inheritance. Still no magic town or magic in game. Still no rides such as roller coasters and other carinval rides, still no vaction areas other than mountains. Still no time machine or time travel, still no university or higher education system.
So, even if you consider TS4 has about 6-7 EPs worth of content in three years, take a long hard look at what it doesn't have that by this time the stuff I mentioned was already in the other games at least 99% of what I mentioned was already in TS1 and TS2 the third year. (and even in TS3)
ETA: Even more I just thought about, still no honeymoon, still no nectar or nectar making, still no bands or drums, still no fashion career or new ambitions or life time wants, still the same amount of trait slots not even a new slot added, still no new skills like clean. Still no firemen, or burglars, still no hotels, ....you can add up clutter but it won't equal EP gameplay.
Going on four years, and still no hobbies....three years and how many new traits? Year three and how many new skills and or life time wants or new wishes? Crickets.
Cinebar - they could - if they wanted to - get around all that we got in previous games thanks to them outright calling it a "different kind of Sims game" back when they introduced it in 2013 at Gamescom. When they said in reply to all the queries about it being a different Universe, a parallel Universe I believe they called it - unrelated pretty much to the previous three games - if I recall properly. I remember worrying a bit about that statement - as technically they could have very well chosen not to duplicate a single pack from previous versions of the sims seeing they really seemed to push the issue it was not really part of the Sims series.
I remember asking - then why'd you put a 4 in the title after the words - THE SIMS - if it was not meant to be part of the series. They never answered me - and I have since asked them a number of times. But I have always thought they were hoping to steer us away from what was in the first 3 by clarifying from the start this game was meant to be different. What they had not predetermined when they went that route was that Simmers were not buying that spill - at all. In fact where is there posts anywhere on the forum where people do not bring up all the past games - even I do that? It has a 4 in it's title and to me that says it is the 4th rendition of our game. But beware - I do not put it past them to try and revert back to their first introduction to this game."LeGardePourpre;c-16215714" wrote:
"@Cinebar;c-16215406" wrote:
It concerns me he said the biggest pack is out of the way. Quote: ( Pets is the biggest one). ???
Exactly what does that mean?
In term of new species of sims with their own AI, CAS, ... Compared to Pets EP, Seasons, University, Magic, Vacation are smaller.
Or it could be the one that required the most work seeing pets always needs a lot of recode work and new code compared to all the other eps."LeGardePourpre;c-16215096" wrote:
"@Deshong04;c-16214819" wrote:
In a nutshell.
TS4 and The Sims future thereafter. Consumers today are supporting this business model thus giving EA the continuous green light to okay it. The Sims is no longer The Sims and it's future is non-existent as a true life simulator and successor of both TS2 and TS3.
https://s25.postimg.org/dppuov03j/PBl_AUZS.jpg
To be fair "now" should get a bigger paint with more details than Mona Lisa since it's more difficult to develop than The Sims 1.
The Sims 1: 834007 lines of codes
The Sims 4: 11948353 lines of codes (14 x TS1)
Source : https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/news/16th-anniversary-items
TS4 and The Sims future is like TOMORROW which is basically the present compared to what past iterations offered from a factual standpoint. Additionally, TS1 is not the only predecessor and to boot the very first game to start off the series which to me doesn't count because of that. Regardless, that doesn't change that TS4 is bare bones and charging separately for features and gameplay that once was all apart of the base game and/or an expansion pack. And intentionally releasing content that could easily be combined for a fuller and in-depth gaming experience. Chop, chop, chop, dice, dice, dice maybe it's better to mince, mince, mince?"Erpe;c-16215208" wrote:
"LeGardePourpre;c-16215198" wrote:
@Erpe
No emotion, minimal Sim AI, no 3D, no toddler, no multitask, ... I'm sure there are thousands of details which isn't in The Sims 1 and made it easier to develop.
You can compare the roller coaster in TS1 and TS3 Store, the difficulty isn't at the same level.
I agree that TS1 was a very small dumped down game with outdated graphics from the 1980s and especially the basegame. This was also the reason why I didn’t understand why all those young girls suddenly came into the game stores and bought it. I became curious and studied the basegame box and later also the boxes for the EPs. But to me it still looked just like a cheap ugly game. So I never bought it and I still don’t understand why its sales numbers suddenly broke all records!
So it is still obvious for me that EA didn’t expect the high sales numbers either and therefore just gave the Sims 1 a very small budget. But to EA’s surprise the sales numbers became so incredible high that EA had to expand the game a lot in the expansions. Still it wasn’t an easy game especially to expand because it hadn’t been meant to expand very much. The EPs therefore gave the developers a lot of problems which we can’t compare with the later Sims games.
But TS2 was a big game already from the beginning and although it had much fewer code lines too it wasn’t easier to develop than TS4. TS2 and TS4 are very different to compare though because TS2 had much more gameplay (except for the multitasking) while TS4 is bigger mainly because it has higher resolution graphics and more autonomy.
Graphics alone doesn't determine whether a game is good or not. It's more about the content because let's be honest that a pretty game without much intriguing gameplay isn't going to win much appreciation. Apparently, TS1 has a lot going on gameplay wise and the graphics to me are fine. I like it over TS4 minimalist graphics and bright with bloom stylized art style.
Not sure what games you are referring to comparing TS1 to game graphics from the 1980s. It's more around the mid to late 90s which started to incorporate 3D though TS1 is both 2D and 3D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H6hnFV-nDU
When it comes to multi-tasking, all TS games have it. Of course, TS2 and TS3 are improved, advanced versions from TS1. Multi-tasking is doing two or more activities at the same time.
TS
https://s25.postimg.org/fyibirzrz/TS1_Multitasking_Cropped.png
TS2
https://s25.postimg.org/fa9gzet7z/snapshot_00000001_a73ef16c.jpg
TS3
https://s25.postimg.org/u46pe5xun/Screenshot-5072.jpg- @Deshong04 When I am talking about the graphics I am comparing CGA, EGA and early VGA graphics with more modern graphics. The differences are about more details and higher resolution.
Simplified cartoony styled graphics is very easy and fast to make for artists and therefore cheap to make. It is what still is used in many games for children and especially by new game companies who don’t have much money or skilled artists with advanced technics to make more advanced and detailed graphics that otherwise would be required to make fantasy worlds with landscapes, characters and monsters with more varying colors and many more details.
The early games only had 4 colors and quite low resolution. Therefore their graphics was primitive. But especially in the 1990s games got graphics with much higher resolution, many more details and many more colors. Then in 2000 TS1 was released with only a small neighborhood, graphics without many details and sims who looked so simplified and ugly that an artist only would need a couple of minutes to make them. This wasn’t at all what I would expect for a game at that time because it much more looked like a game made about 15 yrs earlier.
But compare TS1’s graphics with TS2 and it should be obvious what I mean because TS2 sims have all the graphics and details which I would have expected already for TS1. It also came with 3 much bigger worlds. You can also compare the primitive looking Sims 1 pets with the pets in later Sims games because they also were simplified to suit everything else in TS1. TS1 was a cheap game to make and the reason must obvious be that EA didn’t expect it to be very successful at all. (But EA probably had an agreement with Will Wright to make it anyway as one of the conditions about EA’s purchase of Maxis.)
But TS2 got all the money it needed because EA then knew that young girls loved Sims games and EA probably expected TS2 to sell even much better than TS1 had done. But probably to EA’s disappointment this wasn’t the case anyway for some reason. It surprised me too. But maybe the main reason was that many girls refused to switch from TS1 to TS2 anyway?
The higher sales numbers for TS1 compared to the sales numbers for TS2, TS3 and TS4 also makes me wonder if EA really was right about making the games easier and with a less challenging than TS1 was just because EA now knew that most customers for Sims games were young girls? I am not at all sure that most girls really prefer easy and trivial games over more challenging games anyway?
For TS4 EA has gone even farther by making the game even more about the looks and less about the gameplay. But even though some simmers seem to love this it seems to me like the majority don’t? So I think that EA likely should revise this strategy about making the Sims games easy and mostly just about the graphics and the looks because I don’t think that the young girls (who loved TS1) really agree. My experience as a teacher for both boys and girls indicates otherwise too. - > @LeGardePourpre said:
> @Erpe wrote: »
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> LeGardePourpre wrote: »
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> @Erpe wrote: »
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> @Writin_Reg wrote: »
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> The Truth:
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> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_(video_game)
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> Yes. 11.3 million sold copies sold of TS1 while TS2 only sold a little more than half of that.
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> The truth about The Sims 2 is a lot of copies were illegal copies, it was the era of the digital piracy for the video games, music and movies.
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> I think that there were more illegal copies of TS1 though.
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> Still the main customers for both TS1 and TS2 were very young girls who usually didn’t play other games and who usually knew very little about computers. Beside that they wanted everything as soon as it was released. So I think that the Sims games were pirated much less than other games.
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> In my case, the only people who played to The Sims 2 I knew in 2006 were all... adult women.
> My older sister made me discover this game.
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> The children played more to Nintendo 64/PlayStation 2/Xbox games than PC games.
Exactly same experience for me. We had gameboys, Ninetendo's, a Commodore 64, a Sega system, another one called a Vox, even a Sears entertainment system, and a Playstation my kids used and it was like that at everyone of their friends houses. Kids played together on those things while their parents had the big bulky pcs.
My kids did not have their own pcs until they went to college. And in my household my husband was even in the PC business - we had been building computers since the early 80's - and my kids weren't allowed one. They were not toys for kids - plain and simple. - you know what would be cool? if they created a brand new expansion pack that hasn't been introduced before. I know Seasons is a great expansion pack but what's the point of having the same EP carried out over and over in every version of the game. I mean they can make an EP out of a T.V Show say, Supernatural or TVD (nope no the walking dead for me)
I know most of you will say that there was already a Supernatural EP for the Sims 3 and there's the vampires Game pack now, but what i mean is they can make realistic werewolves, leprechauns,witches,demons and Angels all while introducing new careers like:hunting or idk Men Of letter thingy.(like the actual show)
P.S WITHOUT THE ZOMBIES
In case some of you don't support the whole supernatural thingy there are plenty of others ideas like making kingdoms a thing, you know adding a new world where there's a king, enemies, allies, guards, Dragons(as pets of course), unicorns, prince,princesses
(sorry if that sounds Childish)
Was anything of what i just said even possible? :D oh well "Erpe;c-16216607" wrote:
"LeGardePourpre;c-16216601" wrote:
"@Erpe;c-16216509" wrote:
"@Writin_Reg;c-16216498" wrote:
The Truth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_(video_game)
Yes. 11.3 million sold copies sold of TS1 while TS2 only sold a little more than half of that.
The truth about The Sims 2 is a lot of copies were illegal copies, it was the era of the digital piracy for the video games, music and movies.
I think that there were more illegal copies of TS1 though.
Still the main customers for both TS1 and TS2 were very young girls who usually didn’t play other games and who usually knew very little about computers. Beside that they wanted everything as soon as it was released. So I think that the Sims games were pirated much less than other games.
I have to disagree with you that The Sims was purchased by very young girls. Will Wright and others have spoken about this, and they did want to market to young teen boys hoping to draw them into simulation games rather than the console games most young teen males at the time were playing.
But they found out it was grown women who were playing The Sims and not young teen girls and or teen boys, the majority of their customers (due to their own internal studies) showed it was women over 20+ and mainly middle aged. So, in the 2001 a middle aged woman would be around 40 considering the life span at that time. Young teen males were never the majority playing their games and neither were younger females.- From the U.S.Census in 2000:
"U.S. Census Bureau
Access to a Home Computer and Use of the Internet at Home by Children 3 to 17 Years:
August 2000
More school-age children use
computers at school than have
access to them at home.
School is a major influence on chil-
dren’s access to computers. Among
children of school age (6 to 17
years) in 2000.
More than half of school-age chil-
dren had access to computers both
in school and at home (57 percent).
However, many children had access
in only one location or the other. Of
them, far more had access in school
than had access at home. Forty-
three percent of school-age children
had access to a computer only at
school, compared with just 10 per-
cent who had access only in their home."
So no matter what they did in Europe - this was the stats of kids (age 6-17) using pcs in the USA when the Sims came out. It is also a fact the USA had much higher numbers that bought the Sims 1 than most other countries - so obviously the players of the Sims was older than 17 seeing those under 17 - only 10 percent of US kids those ages even had home access to a computer. It was not until Sims 2 had been out for a few years ( it was around 2006) some schools adopted use of the Sims 2 (mostly just base game) in school- under Life Studies type classes where a lot more of the 4-6 graders even learned of the game period. I can see maybe Sims 2 and even Sims 3 having a lot more teens buying the game then, but not Sims 1.
(4-6 graders are usually 9-13 in the USA with the majority ages 10-12 depend on if they started school at 5 or 6.)
Interesting that by 2011- 2017 statistics listed a big shift of 91 percent of US kids of those ages having home access and playing pc/video games. It is no wonder EA shifted marketing for their games now to younger kids - but it does not specify the number of males/females in the 17 and under stats. "Erpe;c-16216836" wrote:
"Cinebar;c-16216819" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16216607" wrote:
"LeGardePourpre;c-16216601" wrote:
"@Erpe;c-16216509" wrote:
"@Writin_Reg;c-16216498" wrote:
The Truth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_(video_game)
Yes. 11.3 million sold copies sold of TS1 while TS2 only sold a little more than half of that.
The truth about The Sims 2 is a lot of copies were illegal copies, it was the era of the digital piracy for the video games, music and movies.
I think that there were more illegal copies of TS1 though.
Still the main customers for both TS1 and TS2 were very young girls who usually didn’t play other games and who usually knew very little about computers. Beside that they wanted everything as soon as it was released. So I think that the Sims games were pirated much less than other games.
I have to disagree with you that The Sims was purchased by very young girls. Will Wright and others have spoken about this, and they did want to market to young teen boys hoping to draw them into simulation games rather than the console games most young teen males at the time were playing.
But they found out it was grown women who were playing The Sims and not young teen girls and or teen boys, the majority of their customers (due to their own internal studies) showed it was women over 20+ and mainly middle aged. So, in the 2001 a middle aged woman would be around 40 considering the life span at that time. Young teen males were never the majority playing their games and neither were younger females.
I don’t know if it was the same in the US because TS1 and TS2 were T rated by the ESRB while they were rated as 7+ in Europe by PEGI. So clearly parents in Europe didn’t mind their children playing the games like the parents in North America likely did.
Yes. Will Wright had wanted to make boys interested in simulation games from the beginning of Maxis in 1987 because that were the only games that Maxis made and girls didn’t play or buy big games in the 1980s and 1990s. Therefore it came as a huge surprise for everybody when TS1 got so unexpectedly high sales numbers and everything showed that it was because girls suddenly had discovered a game that they loved. Will Wright likely had expected the game to be for boys too even though he also considered the name “Dollhouse” for he game. But especially EA hadn’t expected the game to interest girls.
You are still under the belief it was 'girls' who caused The Sims to sell over 3.2 million copies in the USA alone let alone over the 11 million world wide, it was women not girls who played The Sims. And middle age women were their biggest demographic at the time continuing into The Sims 2.
ETA: That is why those who mod and or are still 'here' are a lot older than those who are now playing. People like me and Reg (no offense Reg, I'm happy I/we lived this long, lol) are those middle aged women who know what demographic and those interviews with Will Wright and producers who told us it was middle aged women were their biggest demographic all through the life of The Sims and we continued on with TS2. TS3 picked up younger players because of it's rpg incorporation of titles like WA etc. and the moodlet system, which is more linear and more roll type play like WA but it has always been middle aged women who helped launch The Sims into the multi billion dollar enterprise it is today. It was never teen girls and or teen boys who were footing those bills. Women over 30 were the ones playing these games."Erpe;c-16216861" wrote:
"Cinebar;c-16216839" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16216836" wrote:
"Cinebar;c-16216819" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16216607" wrote:
"LeGardePourpre;c-16216601" wrote:
"@Erpe;c-16216509" wrote:
"@Writin_Reg;c-16216498" wrote:
The Truth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_(video_game)
Yes. 11.3 million sold copies sold of TS1 while TS2 only sold a little more than half of that.
The truth about The Sims 2 is a lot of copies were illegal copies, it was the era of the digital piracy for the video games, music and movies.
I think that there were more illegal copies of TS1 though.
Still the main customers for both TS1 and TS2 were very young girls who usually didn’t play other games and who usually knew very little about computers. Beside that they wanted everything as soon as it was released. So I think that the Sims games were pirated much less than other games.
I have to disagree with you that The Sims was purchased by very young girls. Will Wright and others have spoken about this, and they did want to market to young teen boys hoping to draw them into simulation games rather than the console games most young teen males at the time were playing.
But they found out it was grown women who were playing The Sims and not young teen girls and or teen boys, the majority of their customers (due to their own internal studies) showed it was women over 20+ and mainly middle aged. So, in the 2001 a middle aged woman would be around 40 considering the life span at that time. Young teen males were never the majority playing their games and neither were younger females.
I don’t know if it was the same in the US because TS1 and TS2 were T rated by the ESRB while they were rated as 7+ in Europe by PEGI. So clearly parents in Europe didn’t mind their children playing the games like the parents in North America likely did.
Yes. Will Wright had wanted to make boys interested in simulation games from the beginning of Maxis in 1987 because that were the only games that Maxis made and girls didn’t play or buy big games in the 1980s and 1990s. Therefore it came as a huge surprise for everybody when TS1 got so unexpectedly high sales numbers and everything showed that it was because girls suddenly had discovered a game that they loved. Will Wright likely had expected the game to be for boys too even though he also considered the name “Dollhouse” for he game. But especially EA hadn’t expected the game to interest girls.
You are still under the belief it was 'girls' who caused The Sims to sell over 3.2 million copies in the USA alone let alone over the 11 million world wide, it was women not girls who played The Sims. And middle age women were their biggest demographic at the time continuing into The Sims 2.
ETA: That is why those who mod and or are still 'here' are a lot older than those who are now playing. People like me and Reg (no offense Reg, I'm happy I/we lived this long, lol) are those middle aged women who know what demographic and those interviews with Will Wright and producers who told us it was middle aged women were their biggest demographic all through the life of The Sims and we continued on with TS2. TS3 picked up younger players because of it's rpg incorporation of titles like WA etc. and the moodlet system, which is more linear and more roll type play like WA but it has always been middle aged women who helped launch The Sims into the multi billion dollar enterprise it is today. It was never teen girls and or teen boys who were footing those bills. Women over 30 were the ones playing these games.
SimGuruDrake still told us that TS4 is targeted mostly at teen girls only 3 months ago and it isn’t rpg at all.
After TS2 the 10 to 14 yrs olds also disappeared from the Danish forums. 2 or 3 of them managed to enter the Sims 3 forum too though. But they told us that they only had succeeded by lying about their age. EA wouldn’t give them access unless they were at least 16 yrs old (and old enough to have their own credit card).
In 2007 there was a Danish article that told us that EA now had sold a million copies of Sims games in Denmark. The article estimated that about 300,000 Danes owned one or more Sims games at the time where TS2 still only had a few EPs. Denmarks
population was about 5.5 million people.
I don’t know which country buys most Sims games because I haven’t been able to get reliable data. But I know that the games are sold in both China and India too and those countries are the most populous in the world. But EA has to my knowledge never said anything about the sales numbers in Asian countries. Read the article on https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ea-china-top-three-markets-105131 though.
I don't know the age group now that spends more money on TS4. I just know for facts it was middle age women who were buying up The Sims and it's packs. And why those of us who seem or are eldery here compared to the rest of you is because we were part of that middle age demographic at the time of release of The Sims. I don't see a lot of teen Youtubers promoting TS4, but I don't look too hard for them, lol, I neve watch Let's Play videos, they hurt my head and make me want to control their games. LOL Seriously, what I see are people over 20+ promoting TS4 on Youtube, so I have no idea why they are still trying to cater to a ten year old in TS4.
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