Forum Discussion
- MidnightAura86New Spectator
"Erpe;c-16242115" wrote:
"MidnightAura;c-16242028" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16242008" wrote:
"MidnightAura;c-16241939" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240176" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16240153" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240134" wrote:
"TheHavocado;c-16240016" wrote:
Well if anything, The Sims 5 should be the new era Sims 2 or a lot of people are going to be dissapointed, especially if they did the lackluster release day again. The Sims 4 Ratings shot down faster than an F-15 during it's first week release, especially when (according to wiki) you consider the fact that "...This was the most successful PC game launch the company had ever had to date".
The Sims games have always had low ratings in the reviews and among other gamers who never have understood why this game got high sales numbers at all when it in their eyes isn’t even a real game but more like a toy for mainly young girls (or a virtual dollhouse).
EA also clearly hadn’t expected TS1 to become successful at all. Therefore the budget for TS1 was very low which meant that its game world became very small and its graphics looked very simple and outdated too. The reasons was that EA only expected a part of the SimCity gamers to buy it. But what EA hadn’t foreseen was that TS1 suddenly attracted millions of young girls who never had played a game before.
TS3 may have had the most successful launch (most copies sold on its release day). But TS1 still sold almost twice as many copies. So TS1 must clearly be the most successful game that EA ever launched.
The high sales numbers for TS3 on day one was caused by the open seamless world. But EA can’t ever get a similar success just by advertising the next Sims game as ”The return of the open world” anyway because the simmers who loved it then most likely will just stay with TS3 instead. So EA needs something new to use in the advertising instead. Maybe it will be something about ”the option to play and cooperate with your friends in the game”.
Why on earth should I continue playing Sims 3 when there would be a new great Sims game with new content and improvements and open world? I’d jump over to that new game immediately. It’s not open world (or CASt) that keeps me playing Sims 3. It’s the lack of a better alternative. I’ve tried the alternative and then returned. There was only one reason for that: while Sims 4 made me constantly go ‘what shal I do now..., oh what shall I do next’, then closing the game after two hours tops, my Sims 3 game sort of plays itself and I only quit because I have to go to bed. If they’d deliver a new game that does that, open world or not, Sims 3 could retire.
I didn’t write that to you and you seem to have misunderstood me.
The reason that I don’t play TS4 isn’t about the missing open world either and we seem to agree about what is wrong with TS4. That wasn’t my point.
But if TS5 is marketed as “a new Sims game similar to Sims 3 and with the open world returning” then it will get low sales numbers and especially if the EPs are just repetions too. Not because you won’t buy it because I am sure that you actually would :) But because most young teens would reject the game. Partly because they won’t like an attempt from EA to revive an old game - and partly because they would have wanted something new instead and think that EA must have run out of ideas :)
For us here in the forum such things aren’t really so important because we are the hardcore fans who most likely will buy almost anything. But for new young simmers without much money and with a lot of other interests too in their lives things are different. They won’t just throw out their sparce money on a game that doesn’t seem to have anything new to offer to them.
I disagree with this. Open world is a standard In so many games now it’s normal. It’s an expectation if you will. My niece who is 9 plays the Sims now. She has just started getting into it. She has played my sims 3 game and she’s she’s played the sims 4. (I bought her her own sims 4 copy on Console for Christmas) but having said that she prefers the sims 3.
She prefers it because of horses and the fact that she can move around the world swithout loading screens. She gets frustrated at all the loading screens in the sims 4 but you have to remember she is growing up playing many an open world game. She also says all the sims 4 sims Do is talk lol
If EA brought out a sims game and said it was similar to the sims 3 with an open world I think it would do incredibly well and as a sims 3 fan it would pique my interest for sure it’s probably the only thing that would as right now I’m not hopeful for a sims 5.
Plus what is “new”for the series by this point anyway? Four series in and so much has already been covered. That’s one of the reasons every time a “new feature” comes to the sims 4 it has already been done at some point in the series and the sims 4 version tends to be more watered down in some capacity, take cats and dogs and not being able to view any information about them.
There will be teens out there who won’t have played the sims 3. The only reason my niece has is because I have it, had she become a Simmer under her own steam she would never have had the chance.
Your daughter isn’t typical for two reasons:
1. She already has TS3 and TS4 and therefore doesn’t need to convince her parents (who usually aren’t simmers) to let her get the games. She already has them and knows them.
2. The target group is mainly 10 to 14 years olds who already are quite good readers and therefore can read the texts in the game. But your daughter is likely a little too young for this.
EA has attempted to renew the game and its expansions. But mostly for the sales videos which now are happier than earlier and show a lot of funny behavior. This is intended to sell the game and it seems to work quite well such that TS4 and its expansions now seem to sell as well as TS3 and its expansions did. But we know that the forum users can’t be the reason because a lot of them have stopped playing or returned to TS3. Therefore the reason must be that the young (mainly girls) in the target group wants the game and all its expansions just to try them out and to see all this funny behavior in their own game. They likely just don’t play the game long enough to become bored with all the repetions like most of us here do. Instead they just stop playing for a while when they have seen the things that amuses them and wait for the next free update or expansion. If this wasn’t true then how would you otherwise explain the high sales numbers for TS4 which now even have motivated EA to release two GPs each year instead of only one yearly GP like EA did in the beginning?
If you read my post it’s my niece not my daughter. I don’t have children yet.
Quite good readers and can read text in game? And being too young for this? Erm she Is 9 and while she isn’t an avid reader like I was/am she at 9 years old can understand written text just fine. She has no problems in that area. I’m sorry but your post reads as a little patronising.
But you are right she isn’t typical in that she doesn’t enjoy the sims 4 as much as 3 and is bored by it very quickly by lack of things to do and not being enough deviant play. But that doesn’t mean that every single teenage girl or preteen is happy for shallow do it once and never do it again game play. It’s a huge sweeping generalisation to say that they will pick up a game and play it for a day and then drop it like a stone until the next big exciting comes around. Some may yes. The same way some adults do. But you cannot imply that all teens and in my case preteens are happy for shallow, simplistic game play as if anything else is too difficult for them.
Sorry for confusing your niece with your daughter!
My problem with such discussions is that people here don’t seem to understand the difference between the average simmer and all simmers because I am writing about the first concept (which of course also is what interests EA) and people just go on and on claiming that I am writing about the last concept instead and therefore think that only one special example is more than enough to prove me wrong.
But the thing is though what is the average simmer? My definition will most likely be different to yours and yours different from someone else's. I don't think you can apply the term average to Simmers as a group. If by average you mean fits into EA's target demographic and if that's the case then I don't know any average Simmers then as all the sims 4 fans I know are way above teenage years. And the only girl I know closest to their target demographic only likes the gamebut spends hours stealing my sims 3 game
Maybe it's not about proving you wrong? I can't speak for anyone else but in this exchange I'm not aiming to prove anyone wrong it's just a discussion.
My niece liked the Sims because of my influence absolutely (neither of her parents are gamers) but there are plenty of games she plays that aren't aimed at her age group. Think GTA, COD etc. My Husband is a game developer and the amount of kids that play the games he works on in spite of the fact it's an 18 with their parents blessing doesn't surprise me any more. A 9 year old wanting to play the sims is fairly tame by comparison and I don't see any parent having an issue with that.
@Writin_Reg I do agree, I'm like you I've been around since The Sims 1 and while there are lots of games I play The sims is still my favourite. (Although Fall out and Skyrim are doing their best to get pole position!) It's because of that I do want the best for the series and I will be sad if it ended. If EA announced a sims 5 that would have the charm of 1, the gameplay of 2 with the open world and Cast from 3 I would be in heaven!
A girl can dream. The reality will be the opposite. - MidnightAura86New Spectator
"Writin_Reg;c-16242321" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16242129" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16242034" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16242008" wrote:
"MidnightAura;c-16241939" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240176" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16240153" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240134" wrote:
"TheHavocado;c-16240016" wrote:
Well if anything, The Sims 5 should be the new era Sims 2 or a lot of people are going to be dissapointed, especially if they did the lackluster release day again. The Sims 4 Ratings shot down faster than an F-15 during it's first week release, especially when (according to wiki) you consider the fact that "...This was the most successful PC game launch the company had ever had to date".
The Sims games have always had low ratings in the reviews and among other gamers who never have understood why this game got high sales numbers at all when it in their eyes isn’t even a real game but more like a toy for mainly young girls (or a virtual dollhouse).
EA also clearly hadn’t expected TS1 to become successful at all. Therefore the budget for TS1 was very low which meant that its game world became very small and its graphics looked very simple and outdated too. The reasons was that EA only expected a part of the SimCity gamers to buy it. But what EA hadn’t foreseen was that TS1 suddenly attracted millions of young girls who never had played a game before.
TS3 may have had the most successful launch (most copies sold on its release day). But TS1 still sold almost twice as many copies. So TS1 must clearly be the most successful game that EA ever launched.
The high sales numbers for TS3 on day one was caused by the open seamless world. But EA can’t ever get a similar success just by advertising the next Sims game as ”The return of the open world” anyway because the simmers who loved it then most likely will just stay with TS3 instead. So EA needs something new to use in the advertising instead. Maybe it will be something about ”the option to play and cooperate with your friends in the game”.
Why on earth should I continue playing Sims 3 when there would be a new great Sims game with new content and improvements and open world? I’d jump over to that new game immediately. It’s not open world (or CASt) that keeps me playing Sims 3. It’s the lack of a better alternative. I’ve tried the alternative and then returned. There was only one reason for that: while Sims 4 made me constantly go ‘what shal I do now..., oh what shall I do next’, then closing the game after two hours tops, my Sims 3 game sort of plays itself and I only quit because I have to go to bed. If they’d deliver a new game that does that, open world or not, Sims 3 could retire.
I didn’t write that to you and you seem to have misunderstood me.
The reason that I don’t play TS4 isn’t about the missing open world either and we seem to agree about what is wrong with TS4. That wasn’t my point.
But if TS5 is marketed as “a new Sims game similar to Sims 3 and with the open world returning” then it will get low sales numbers and especially if the EPs are just repetions too. Not because you won’t buy it because I am sure that you actually would :) But because most young teens would reject the game. Partly because they won’t like an attempt from EA to revive an old game - and partly because they would have wanted something new instead and think that EA must have run out of ideas :)
For us here in the forum such things aren’t really so important because we are the hardcore fans who most likely will buy almost anything. But for new young simmers without much money and with a lot of other interests too in their lives things are different. They won’t just throw out their sparce money on a game that doesn’t seem to have anything new to offer to them.
I disagree with this. Open world is a standard In so many games now it’s normal. It’s an expectation if you will. My niece who is 9 plays the Sims now. She has just started getting into it. She has played my sims 3 game and she’s she’s played the sims 4. (I bought her her own sims 4 copy on Console for Christmas) but having said that she prefers the sims 3.
She prefers it because of horses and the fact that she can move around the world swithout loading screens. She gets frustrated at all the loading screens in the sims 4 but you have to remember she is growing up playing many an open world game. She also says all the sims 4 sims Do is talk lol
If EA brought out a sims game and said it was similar to the sims 3 with an open world I think it would do incredibly well and as a sims 3 fan it would pique my interest for sure it’s probably the only thing that would as right now I’m not hopeful for a sims 5.
Plus what is “new”for the series by this point anyway? Four series in and so much has already been covered. That’s one of the reasons every time a “new feature” comes to the sims 4 it has already been done at some point in the series and the sims 4 version tends to be more watered down in some capacity, take cats and dogs and not being able to view any information about them.
There will be teens out there who won’t have played the sims 3. The only reason my niece has is because I have it, had she become a Simmer under her own steam she would never have had the chance.
Your daughter isn’t typical for two reasons:
1. She already has TS3 and TS4 and therefore doesn’t need to convince her parents (who usually aren’t simmers) to let her get the games. She already has them and knows them.
2. The target group is mainly 10 to 14 years olds who already are quite good readers and therefore can read the texts in the game. But your daughter is likely a little too young for this.
EA has attempted to renew the game and its expansions. But mostly for the sales videos which now are happier than earlier and show a lot of funny behavior. This is intended to sell the game and it seems to work quite well such that TS4 and its expansions now seem to sell as well as TS3 and its expansions did. But we know that the forum users can’t be the reason because a lot of them have stopped playing or returned to TS3. Therefore the reason must be that the young (mainly girls) in the target group wants the game and all its expansions just to try them out and to see all this funny behavior in their own game. They likely just don’t play the game long enough to become bored with all the repetions like most of us here do. Instead they just stop playing for a while when they have seen the things that amuses them and wait for the next free update or expansion. If this wasn’t true then how would you otherwise explain the high sales numbers for TS4 which now even have motivated EA to release two GPs each year instead of only one yearly GP like EA did in the beginning?
Might be me but you are in no way reacting to what @MidnightAura is saying. You even turned her niece into a daughter (9 year olds are good readers in general by the way, though I miss how that's relevant here). I read her comment, then yours, and I don't see any connection between the two.
The Sims games aren’t targeted at 9 years olds. But yes some of them are sometimes good readers but most usually they still read a little slow and have problems with long or unknown words. So in a game like this they will usually attempt to avoid reading more than necessary. But still there are always exceptions - and in both directions. I still remember boys who had problems with reading even when they were a couple of years older.
8-9 years olds can of course play the game with a little help from their parents or from older siblings. But I doubt that many 9 years olds ever will get the game if they don’t have any simmers in their own family because the game is T rated (or 12+ in Europe) and most parents won’t allow their 9 years old to get such a game unless the parents know the game themselves.
Not necessarily true as I give gifts of Sims games to many of the kids in my family whose parents do not play the Sims. As Matriarch of a large family no one questions my judgement and knows I will never send their kids games I feel are bad for their kids. I stand up for the sims games as wonderful teaching tools for kids - and for the point there is no bigotry or bullying in a sims game. It is a good tool for kids to learn how to behave to others, how to run a household and how being a responsible adult outside of their own family and what happens when they fail. Sims 2 was actually the best game as far as a teaching tool for kids from 8-12 even though it is rated 12+ and often the games even some school use for 4th grade Life classes. Most 4th graders are in the 8 - 9 age bracket. My Sister-in-law is a 4th grade Life Studies teacher and she has been using the Sims 2 in her class since 2006. Denise uses the Base game, the Uni game, and the pets game in class.
ETA - Denise is NOT a simmer though - the game is strictly a teaching tool for her.
Really? That's amazing it's been used in schools!
I don't think there's anything wrong with the sims 4 for a 9 year old. And considering the amount of potty humour in many ways it's just at my nieces level. I would much rather is playing the sims 4 than adult games but I'm not her parent I can't stop her except when she's in my house and I don't allow her to play them.
The only time I regretted showing a child the sims was when my nephew was little. When he was 3 he loves the sims 2. He liked decorating, all the furniture had to go outside, the family had to have a mum, dad and little boy and they always had to have a dog. All fine. Until one of them died and Grim showed up. Trying to explain what the grim reaper is to a three year old wasn't the easiest thing. Whoops. Ten years later though and he's unscarred but he doesn't like the game anymore but that's probably because there's no driving or shooting things. - (I'm not going to judge any of you, derail the thread, or trying to fuel the flames here. Disclaimer).
Wait, the future of The Sims doesn't concerns how a 9 year old gamers thinks on games they've had access to. If they got it, whether within any of their caretakers notice or no, if they love it, they'll play it. Besides, I don't think, since the blow up of Steam, Origin, GOG, etc, that anyone still look at ESRB rating these days. Also, ask any gamers and big chance they know what The Sims is. This isn't just some background start-up game, it's a popular game. I'm not the average but I got GTA2 when I'm 6 no problem.
(As if "KILL off 10 of YOUR sims via unnatural way" is a Teen rating anyway. Even violence game like GTA didn't encouraged such a thing. What they did encourage is defending yourself when in danger, even if that involves shooting the authority.)
> @Erpe said:
> I don’t usually get my ratings from Metacritic but instead from places like Gamespot and IGN.
Gamespot and IGN lowest are 8.9 (The Sims 2) and 8.9 (The Sims 3) respectively. Both of them give 6 and 7.5 on The Sims 4 respectively. So it's doesn't sound like "always had low ratings" for me.
> There is a difference between toys and games. If kids are playing with a real doll or a real dollhouse the normal word for such things is that they is toys and not games. SimCity and the Sims are examples of non-games or software toys as Will Wright called them. You can read more about this on (...)
Ask any kids who play The Sims and they'll call it a game (that feels like a dollhouse). I'm not talking about wikipedia level of understanding here.
> -snip-
I don't know how you know about EA's intention, but as far as my eye can see, The Sims is a "life simulation" game. They may want some new things in the game, but we all know, just from basic common sense that the (very) final game will include everything from the previous games. Unless they're cheeky.
Why ? Because they're essentially, copying life (which is why, a sandbox simulation game). The only difference is either they hold something behind, or give something that doesn't exist previously, or (what I suppose they're doing right now) BOTH.
If you add 'Simulation', 'Sandbox' and 'Open World' into the same title, we know you are ambitious. We also know you're capable (we're talking EA here). But to (I'll use your terms) the average simmers, they don't deliver. I don't give a fuss to the cutting of Open World. In fact, I was hoping that it could actually sent the game into another different level (those heavy processing power can be diverted, hence the multitasking). But in this specific three genres, people are expecting an improvement from the previous games (look at other sandbox/simulation devs forum, if you don't believe what I said). Even with all the good of new "things" so far, the average simmers can't even play the game. Or frustated while doing so.
I mean, they could just go what Rockstar Games did, release a game every 5 years, once. With maybe a price tag of $500 (If you combine everything you've purchased, chances are it's around that margin anyway) or split it up to packages (this is what they do right now, but instead release all of them at once). I don't think the average simmers would mind, that after 5 years, the game is actually runs and wonderful (GTA 5, look at how it becomes the achievement of games industry in 21th Century so far). EA and Maxis both choose "periodically updating the game", like what start-ups do (steam early access feature), to expand The Sims world. I understand why because the production cost would've skyrocketed, if it somehow, ended like Sim City.
While I don't mind the idea, the average simmers thinking would be "we've got open world, weathers, social life, apartments, drive-ables, romance, and a bit of violence into a single packaged game, the next game surely by an improvement, right? RIGHT ?". And they blew everyone's expectation. Don't ever forget release date.
You may complain that I compare The Sims to GTA, because it's entirely different genre, targeted at different demographic. But if you've ever played GTA, chances are you've seen "Hey I want a GTA game where you could actually live like a human", "Check out The Sims 3". "Wow, The Sims 4 it's out, I'll buy that one then" "What the--" "Refund". This is the current condition I've foreseen (I do not claim I based it on facts nor I did any interview whatsoever, hence speculation and rumors).
I want some different things sure. But if it makes the game unplayable, then no. I mean it's for TEENs ! I don't foresee most teens will spent an hour checking the forums, let alone a day to make their game work. Not all of us are Crinrict. Or Playalot.
If they could just give us their master plan on release date, on what things they've planned to release, maybe it could've gone better. But I also know this is going to scratch their pockets a bit, but it's a risk, big names like EA, should be able (and expected) to take.
> They scrapped Will Wright already after Sims 1 and he soon left the Sims studio to work on Spore instead.
Ah, I've never heard of this, thanks for the info.
> The improvements in Sims 4 wasn’t about the graphics and they never intended Sims 4 to be an improvement of an earlier game at all.
I know. But like I said, it's expected. You can't change what people thinks more than you can change what you're actually able to. If you don't want to change, whatever happens, prepare for it. We're just giving our money and a bit of opinion here and there. We are not shareholders. We don't make demands. But there is also some of us who have hearts, who wants the title(s) to survive. Hence some people bought all the packs in exchange they'll improve it.
> (...) because there of course is a limit to how much money most simmers (mainly young teen girls) can afford to use every year.
I dare you combine all prices for every single packages The Sims have released (for every title except TS1 and spin-offs). That's not teen's pocket size, that's for sure. Sometimes even not their parents.
> (...) So I will be very surprised if EA doesn’t announce the next basegame somewhere between March and August 2018 and releases it in the second half of 2019.
I too, will be very surprised. But if they're keep going like this, like I said in the previous post, we MAY never see The Sims again in the future. Most, if not all, knows this.
Wow, this thread suddenly derailed fast, by the way. Please don't lock it yeah ? - Hey guys they released the sneak peak - just saw it on facebook. The Laundry pack and a gamepack are coming. Gamepack has a WA vibe to it - to me anyway. I am stoked.
"Erpe;c-16241937" wrote:
"aricarai;c-16241905" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16241883" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16241871" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240425" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16240287" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240176" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16240153" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240134" wrote:
"TheHavocado;c-16240016" wrote:
Well if anything, The Sims 5 should be the new era Sims 2 or a lot of people are going to be dissapointed, especially if they did the lackluster release day again. The Sims 4 Ratings shot down faster than an F-15 during it's first week release, especially when (according to wiki) you consider the fact that "...This was the most successful PC game launch the company had ever had to date".
The Sims games have always had low ratings in the reviews and among other gamers who never have understood why this game got high sales numbers at all when it in their eyes isn’t even a real game but more like a toy for mainly young girls (or a virtual dollhouse).
EA also clearly hadn’t expected TS1 to become successful at all. Therefore the budget for TS1 was very low which meant that its game world became very small and its graphics looked very simple and outdated too. The reasons was that EA only expected a part of the SimCity gamers to buy it. But what EA hadn’t foreseen was that TS1 suddenly attracted millions of young girls who never had played a game before.
TS3 may have had the most successful launch (most copies sold on its release day). But TS1 still sold almost twice as many copies. So TS1 must clearly be the most successful game that EA ever launched.
The high sales numbers for TS3 on day one was caused by the open seamless world. But EA can’t ever get a similar success just by advertising the next Sims game as ”The return of the open world” anyway because the simmers who loved it then most likely will just stay with TS3 instead. So EA needs something new to use in the advertising instead. Maybe it will be something about ”the option to play and cooperate with your friends in the game”.
Why on earth should I continue playing Sims 3 when there would be a new great Sims game with new content and improvements and open world? I’d jump over to that new game immediately. It’s not open world (or CASt) that keeps me playing Sims 3. It’s the lack of a better alternative. I’ve tried the alternative and then returned. There was only one reason for that: while Sims 4 made me constantly go ‘what shal I do now..., oh what shall I do next’, then closing the game after two hours tops, my Sims 3 game sort of plays itself and I only quit because I have to go to bed. If they’d deliver a new game that does that, open world or not, Sims 3 could retire.
I didn’t write that to you and you seem to have misunderstood me.
The reason that I don’t play TS4 isn’t about the missing open world either and we seem to agree about what is wrong with TS4. That wasn’t my point.
But if TS5 is marketed as “a new Sims game similar to Sims 3 and with the open world returning” then it will get low sales numbers and especially if the EPs are just repetions too. Not because you won’t buy it because I am sure that you actually would :) But because most young teens would reject the game. Partly because they won’t like an attempt from EA to revive an old game - and partly because they would have wanted something new instead and think that EA must have run out of ideas :)
For us here in the forum such things aren’t really so important because we are the hardcore fans who most likely will buy almost anything. But for new young simmers without much money and with a lot of other interests too in their lives things are different. They won’t just throw out their sparce money on a game that doesn’t seem to have anything new to offer to them.
I know you didn't directly adress me but regardless, the statement
"But EA can’t ever get a similar success just by advertising the next Sims game as ”The return of the open world” anyway because the simmers who loved it then most likely will just stay with TS3 instead. So EA needs something new to use in the advertising instead."
begged for a reaction, because any simmer who's playing Sims 3 right now will probably confirm what I said. It's your theory EA has to have a brand new selling point to be able to sell the game and heck, for all we know EA agrees with you and thinks so too. I don't agree with that theory though, I don't think that's how it works for simmers. As long as they give us an immersive game that allows us to play with little people in a creative way, we're happy. In fact one of Sims 4's most popular selling claims among fans was 'back to its roots'.
Your theory (and who knows EA's theory) denies the fact that a community and sharing is highly important for simmers. The TS3 section is great, with lovely/sweet people sharing both information and experiences, but we're also sharing history. There is the occasional "Did you know that..." - "No, I didn't! Wow, got to try that!" but for the rest we're all stuck in the past. It's a beautiful past, I love that past, but that doesn't mean I - or anyone else - wouldn't rather move on. Playing Sims 3 has become a shelter, a place to turn to in absence of something better. Suggesting people who play the old games (regardless the version) do so out of lack of a will to move on/adjust/change, means you're shortchanging them and don't understand what they're coming from and it even denies their actual issues in a way.
And that's us oldies. When they'll announce Sims 5 it will be like 2020 earliest. Those young teens you're referring to will be kids who never played Sims 3, nor know the game. Open world will be a brand new concept for them.
The reason why we see things differently is mainly that you concentrate on what the forum here thinks. But by doing this you completely ignore the fact that if only the forum (or even 10 times as many simmers) bought the game then EA wouldn’t be able to support the game anymore without losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
So what EA concentrates about is of course instead the about 6 million other simmers all over the world. Most of those simmers aren’t hardcore simmers at all but instead mostly young experimenting new simmers who just bought the game because they found something in the advertising interesting. They usually play much less then people here do and they only buy something if it looks interesting.
Those simmers are also the reason why EA now regularly releases new content in the free updates because the reason for this clearly is to get lost simmers back to playing the game (and hopefully also buy a little more expansions). EA surely doesn’t use money on such things just to be kind to the few hardcore simmers in this forum ;)
We can guess about the the release day of TS5 all we want. Simmers have always thought that the next Sims game was many years out in the future and become very surprised when EA announced it years before they expected. The reason of course is that simmers always want the current Sims game to be “complete” before EA moves on. But EA has never agreed with this idea and instead just announced the next big Sims game to avoid that sales numbers for new expansion become too low and then released the new game 15 months after the announcement. So I expect EA to announce TS5 in the middle of this year and then release it next year anyway. But you are welcome to believe that EA just will go on releasing 4 SPs, 2 GPs and an EP each year forever until new simmers will have to buy hundreds of such expansions just to get a “complete” Sims 4 game :)
No, I'm concentrating on what I, a Sims 3 player, thinks ;) You were speaking for a group of simmers you don't belong to (people who love and play Sims 3), filling in for them what they would do. I'm one of those players and I can assure you, you are mistaken with your analysis of us. And we may differ in our expectation of the release of the next title, I sure hope you are right and I am not.
I made no analysis of your way of thinking. But you pretend to be able to speak for all the millions of TS3 players who never visited this forum at all. You can’t!
What you still won’t accept is that the few hundred simmers in this forum aren’t just like the millions of simmers who got the game too but rarely (or for most of them likely never) visited a game forum. The simmers in the forum like to speak about their game all the time. But the huge majority of the customers for Sims games don’t and they usually have several other interests too. Therefore they don’t just buy any new Sims game just like you do - and they sure won’t buy a new Sims game if it seems to be just the same as the old Sims game they maybe played less and less a couple of years ago! They need something new in the new game to bring them back - or they won’t buy the new game at all!
EA knows this and therefore always concentrated on bringing something new into the advertising for each new Sims game and EA has during the years cared less and less about the opinions in the forum because the hardcore fans here always seem to just want the same game again and again (in slightly improved versions) because EA disagrees with the forum.
But you're doing the exact that you're accusing @JoAnne65 of doing. You're making assumptions for a large group of people. You can't possibly say a huge majority of whatever group does this or that or will buy this or that, unless you've conducted some sort of poll...of which results I would be interested to see.
I have known a lot of young gamers through the years and they usually aren’t at all like most of the simmers in this forum because they don’t just go on and playing the same game as they did 5 or 10 years ago. They also wouldn’t just go on and on buying expansions for the same game. So the game companies never released a lot of expansions for their games.
Besides that I am different myself too because I have tried hundreds of games and a few of them were my favorites which I played all the time for a year or two. But even so I don’t miss them and I won’t go back to playing them. I need new games instead.
But of course this wouldn’t prove anything if EA followed the forum and just released slightly modified versions of the previous Sims games and with just slightly improved versions of the same EPs. At a time EA actually had the policy to switch between new EPs and remakes of previous EPs all the time. But EA clearly has dropped that idea completely for TS4 and now attempts to only release new expansions and no repetitions. So EA seems to know that repetions generally sell worse than new types of expansions do because otherwise EA sure wouldn’t do it this way! ;)
@Erpe - you're talking in circles here. You cannot make assumptions for a large group of people unless of course these are backed up by facts. So this group of young gamers, are they Simmers too?
You do realise that all of these young teenage girls that you constantly talk about won't be in that age range by the time the next game is dropped.
I completely agree with @JoAnne65 that if Sims 5 came out and it was an improved version of Sims 3, I'll be moving on. Why would I stick with something that I love when I can have an improved version of what I love? Why would anyone? If that was the case, iPhones and Androids wouldn't sell like they do."aricarai;c-16242979" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16241937" wrote:
"aricarai;c-16241905" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16241883" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16241871" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240425" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16240287" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240176" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16240153" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16240134" wrote:
"TheHavocado;c-16240016" wrote:
Well if anything, The Sims 5 should be the new era Sims 2 or a lot of people are going to be dissapointed, especially if they did the lackluster release day again. The Sims 4 Ratings shot down faster than an F-15 during it's first week release, especially when (according to wiki) you consider the fact that "...This was the most successful PC game launch the company had ever had to date".
The Sims games have always had low ratings in the reviews and among other gamers who never have understood why this game got high sales numbers at all when it in their eyes isn’t even a real game but more like a toy for mainly young girls (or a virtual dollhouse).
EA also clearly hadn’t expected TS1 to become successful at all. Therefore the budget for TS1 was very low which meant that its game world became very small and its graphics looked very simple and outdated too. The reasons was that EA only expected a part of the SimCity gamers to buy it. But what EA hadn’t foreseen was that TS1 suddenly attracted millions of young girls who never had played a game before.
TS3 may have had the most successful launch (most copies sold on its release day). But TS1 still sold almost twice as many copies. So TS1 must clearly be the most successful game that EA ever launched.
The high sales numbers for TS3 on day one was caused by the open seamless world. But EA can’t ever get a similar success just by advertising the next Sims game as ”The return of the open world” anyway because the simmers who loved it then most likely will just stay with TS3 instead. So EA needs something new to use in the advertising instead. Maybe it will be something about ”the option to play and cooperate with your friends in the game”.
Why on earth should I continue playing Sims 3 when there would be a new great Sims game with new content and improvements and open world? I’d jump over to that new game immediately. It’s not open world (or CASt) that keeps me playing Sims 3. It’s the lack of a better alternative. I’ve tried the alternative and then returned. There was only one reason for that: while Sims 4 made me constantly go ‘what shal I do now..., oh what shall I do next’, then closing the game after two hours tops, my Sims 3 game sort of plays itself and I only quit because I have to go to bed. If they’d deliver a new game that does that, open world or not, Sims 3 could retire.
I didn’t write that to you and you seem to have misunderstood me.
The reason that I don’t play TS4 isn’t about the missing open world either and we seem to agree about what is wrong with TS4. That wasn’t my point.
But if TS5 is marketed as “a new Sims game similar to Sims 3 and with the open world returning” then it will get low sales numbers and especially if the EPs are just repetions too. Not because you won’t buy it because I am sure that you actually would :) But because most young teens would reject the game. Partly because they won’t like an attempt from EA to revive an old game - and partly because they would have wanted something new instead and think that EA must have run out of ideas :)
For us here in the forum such things aren’t really so important because we are the hardcore fans who most likely will buy almost anything. But for new young simmers without much money and with a lot of other interests too in their lives things are different. They won’t just throw out their sparce money on a game that doesn’t seem to have anything new to offer to them.
I know you didn't directly adress me but regardless, the statement
"But EA can’t ever get a similar success just by advertising the next Sims game as ”The return of the open world” anyway because the simmers who loved it then most likely will just stay with TS3 instead. So EA needs something new to use in the advertising instead."
begged for a reaction, because any simmer who's playing Sims 3 right now will probably confirm what I said. It's your theory EA has to have a brand new selling point to be able to sell the game and heck, for all we know EA agrees with you and thinks so too. I don't agree with that theory though, I don't think that's how it works for simmers. As long as they give us an immersive game that allows us to play with little people in a creative way, we're happy. In fact one of Sims 4's most popular selling claims among fans was 'back to its roots'.
Your theory (and who knows EA's theory) denies the fact that a community and sharing is highly important for simmers. The TS3 section is great, with lovely/sweet people sharing both information and experiences, but we're also sharing history. There is the occasional "Did you know that..." - "No, I didn't! Wow, got to try that!" but for the rest we're all stuck in the past. It's a beautiful past, I love that past, but that doesn't mean I - or anyone else - wouldn't rather move on. Playing Sims 3 has become a shelter, a place to turn to in absence of something better. Suggesting people who play the old games (regardless the version) do so out of lack of a will to move on/adjust/change, means you're shortchanging them and don't understand what they're coming from and it even denies their actual issues in a way.
And that's us oldies. When they'll announce Sims 5 it will be like 2020 earliest. Those young teens you're referring to will be kids who never played Sims 3, nor know the game. Open world will be a brand new concept for them.
The reason why we see things differently is mainly that you concentrate on what the forum here thinks. But by doing this you completely ignore the fact that if only the forum (or even 10 times as many simmers) bought the game then EA wouldn’t be able to support the game anymore without losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
So what EA concentrates about is of course instead the about 6 million other simmers all over the world. Most of those simmers aren’t hardcore simmers at all but instead mostly young experimenting new simmers who just bought the game because they found something in the advertising interesting. They usually play much less then people here do and they only buy something if it looks interesting.
Those simmers are also the reason why EA now regularly releases new content in the free updates because the reason for this clearly is to get lost simmers back to playing the game (and hopefully also buy a little more expansions). EA surely doesn’t use money on such things just to be kind to the few hardcore simmers in this forum ;)
We can guess about the the release day of TS5 all we want. Simmers have always thought that the next Sims game was many years out in the future and become very surprised when EA announced it years before they expected. The reason of course is that simmers always want the current Sims game to be “complete” before EA moves on. But EA has never agreed with this idea and instead just announced the next big Sims game to avoid that sales numbers for new expansion become too low and then released the new game 15 months after the announcement. So I expect EA to announce TS5 in the middle of this year and then release it next year anyway. But you are welcome to believe that EA just will go on releasing 4 SPs, 2 GPs and an EP each year forever until new simmers will have to buy hundreds of such expansions just to get a “complete” Sims 4 game :)
No, I'm concentrating on what I, a Sims 3 player, thinks ;) You were speaking for a group of simmers you don't belong to (people who love and play Sims 3), filling in for them what they would do. I'm one of those players and I can assure you, you are mistaken with your analysis of us. And we may differ in our expectation of the release of the next title, I sure hope you are right and I am not.
I made no analysis of your way of thinking. But you pretend to be able to speak for all the millions of TS3 players who never visited this forum at all. You can’t!
What you still won’t accept is that the few hundred simmers in this forum aren’t just like the millions of simmers who got the game too but rarely (or for most of them likely never) visited a game forum. The simmers in the forum like to speak about their game all the time. But the huge majority of the customers for Sims games don’t and they usually have several other interests too. Therefore they don’t just buy any new Sims game just like you do - and they sure won’t buy a new Sims game if it seems to be just the same as the old Sims game they maybe played less and less a couple of years ago! They need something new in the new game to bring them back - or they won’t buy the new game at all!
EA knows this and therefore always concentrated on bringing something new into the advertising for each new Sims game and EA has during the years cared less and less about the opinions in the forum because the hardcore fans here always seem to just want the same game again and again (in slightly improved versions) because EA disagrees with the forum.
But you're doing the exact that you're accusing @JoAnne65 of doing. You're making assumptions for a large group of people. You can't possibly say a huge majority of whatever group does this or that or will buy this or that, unless you've conducted some sort of poll...of which results I would be interested to see.
I have known a lot of young gamers through the years and they usually aren’t at all like most of the simmers in this forum because they don’t just go on and playing the same game as they did 5 or 10 years ago. They also wouldn’t just go on and on buying expansions for the same game. So the game companies never released a lot of expansions for their games.
Besides that I am different myself too because I have tried hundreds of games and a few of them were my favorites which I played all the time for a year or two. But even so I don’t miss them and I won’t go back to playing them. I need new games instead.
But of course this wouldn’t prove anything if EA followed the forum and just released slightly modified versions of the previous Sims games and with just slightly improved versions of the same EPs. At a time EA actually had the policy to switch between new EPs and remakes of previous EPs all the time. But EA clearly has dropped that idea completely for TS4 and now attempts to only release new expansions and no repetitions. So EA seems to know that repetions generally sell worse than new types of expansions do because otherwise EA sure wouldn’t do it this way! ;)
@Erpe - you're talking in circles here. You cannot make assumptions for a large group of people unless of course these are backed up by facts. So this group of young gamers, are they Simmers too?
You do realise that all of these young teenage girls that you constantly talk about won't be in that age range by the time the next game is dropped.
I completely agree with @JoAnne65 that if Sims 5 came out and it was an improved version of Sims 3, I'll be moving on. Why would I stick with something that I love when I can have an improved version of what I love? Why would anyone? If that was the case, iPhones and Androids wouldn't sell like they do.
We need to stop this discussion because you accuse me of talking in circles and not giving you 100% proof while I am talking to people who don’t prove anything but just stubbornly repeat their own wishful thinking about EA releasing expansions for TS4 forever - just like the Sims 1 simmers, the Sims 2 simmers and the Sims 3 simmers did until EA after at most 5 years released the next basegame anyway! Dream on! But I am out of this discussion."Erpe;c-16243543" wrote:
"ElCaptain;c-16242695" wrote:
That last paragraph made me pretty happy. Compared to the Sims 2 and 3 they are still far behind the amount of content in the game. Yes, there are about 13 stuff packs and although cool, they aren't like the expansions and stuff packs.
Sims 4 has half the amount of expansion packs compared to 2 and it's the same for the stuff packs. The game might have been released 3.5 years ago, but I really hope they keep on adding on it. And based on these answers it looks like they will.
This is subjective and only your personal meaning because you (like me) don’t care much about SPs. But I am sure that EA counts in another way:
1. Imagine that you bought all SPs, GPs and EPs each year for TS4.
2. Imagine that you bought all SPs and EPs each year for TS3.
Then compare what you paid for this each year - and I am sure that your yearly expenses are about the same!
I am quite sure that this is the way EA counts because what interests EA is how much money most simmers (and not just the simmers in the forum) are ready to buy expansions for each year. Or said in another way: “How much can we (EA) release each year before sales numbers will drop because too many simmers will stop buying everything?”
@Erpe
Counting up the amount of money the player spent might be similar for each game, but I can guarantee to you that if you looked at it from EA’s perspective they have put much less money behind The Sims 4 than they previously have with other titles. Thus, it doesn’t matter that the player isn’t spending *more* money, because EA gets more by default by spending less originally.
The Sims 4 gets a smaller budget, and less content per pack, but what content they do release is still sold at the same price intervals as previous games with a new $10 ‘budget’ option that gives EA their largest profit because they outsource everything but the animations. It’s not a matter of releasing only enough so everyone can get everything, it’s about releasing enough to pacify the masses while spending the least amount of money possible at the highest possible price (which is usually then on sale within 2 weeks of release)"drake_mccarty;c-16243585" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16243543" wrote:
"ElCaptain;c-16242695" wrote:
That last paragraph made me pretty happy. Compared to the Sims 2 and 3 they are still far behind the amount of content in the game. Yes, there are about 13 stuff packs and although cool, they aren't like the expansions and stuff packs.
Sims 4 has half the amount of expansion packs compared to 2 and it's the same for the stuff packs. The game might have been released 3.5 years ago, but I really hope they keep on adding on it. And based on these answers it looks like they will.
This is subjective and only your personal meaning because you (like me) don’t care much about SPs. But I am sure that EA counts in another way:
1. Imagine that you bought all SPs, GPs and EPs each year for TS4.
2. Imagine that you bought all SPs and EPs each year for TS3.
Then compare what you paid for this each year - and I am sure that your yearly expenses are about the same!
I am quite sure that this is the way EA counts because what interests EA is how much money most simmers (and not just the simmers in the forum) are ready to buy expansions for each year. Or said in another way: “How much can we (EA) release each year before sales numbers will drop because too many simmers will stop buying everything?”
@Erpe
Counting up the amount of money the player spent might be similar for each game, but I can guarantee to you that if you looked at it from EA’s perspective they have put much less money behind The Sims 4 than they previously have with other titles. Thus, it doesn’t matter that the player isn’t spending *more* money, because EA gets more by default by spending less originally.
The Sims 4 gets a smaller budget, and less content per pack, but what content they do release is still sold at the same price intervals as previous games with a new $10 ‘budget’ option that gives EA their largest profit because they outsource everything but the animations. It’s not a matter of releasing only enough so everyone can get everything, it’s about releasing enough to pacify the masses while spending the least amount of money possible at the highest possible price (which is usually then on sale within 2 weeks of release)
I agree with you and especially seen through the eyes of most simmers. But this still isn’t EA’s way of thinking.
EA could actually just make a huge “perfect” basegame that contained everything and thus not “need” any expansions. But EA never would be able to sell such a basegame for a price similar to the total amount which the current basegame + all expansions is sold for. Therefore EA wouldn’t dream of doing it this way.
Simmers here dream about EA continuing with the release of expansions for TS4 until the game is “perfect”. But again this isn’t EA’s idea because it would just make it much harder for EA to make the next big Sims game. Why purchase the next game if the current version already is perfect?
So no. I am sure that EA as usual will just release expansions for TS4 in 5 years and then release a new basegame without caring if TS4 still is “missing” anything.
The expansions for TS4 have clearly been cheaper for EA to make because they are smaller than the earlier EPs. Therefore EA closed the Salt Lake Studio down instead of letting it again make expansions for a big Sims game. Why? Of course because EA’s evaluation was that sales numbers would go down if EA released even more expansions each year! The GPs and the extra SPs have replaced at least half of the yearly EPs and EA still sell expansions for the same amount as earlier. The expansions are just cheaper for EA to make. So EA’s profit has increased. But EA’s policy about the yearly released expansions sure hasn’t and doesn’t seem to change in the future either (except that EA has increased the number of yearly GPs from one to two).- The Sims has survived on the same format since it’s creation, with successful new content lines added with each game. (Sims 2/Stuff Packs, Sims 3/DLC Store, Sims 4/Game Packs)
If EA’s analysis were that more stuff meant less money, then why exactly did they steadily release expensive Store exclusive content in addition to 2 full expansions and 2 full stuff packs every year for The Sims 3’s entire shelf life? I mean if they were losing money, then the obvious course would be to cut back on what you are spending - which did not happen. If anything the store saw expanded investment with the addition of premium objects and store exclusive worlds.
The push for a cheap investment with Sims 4 all stems from the game’s massive unpopularity when it launched, and EA’s desire to make the game a financial success by any means necessary. "Writin_Reg;c-16242967" wrote:
Hey guys they released the sneak peak - just saw it on facebook. The Laundry pack and a gamepack are coming. Gamepack has a WA vibe to it - to me anyway. I am stoked.
I don’t have Facebook, can you quote for me please :o ?
ETA: never mind, found it :blush: Oooooh!!!
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