Forum Discussion
"Cinebar;c-16251166" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16251031" wrote:
"Cinebar;c-16251024" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16250877" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16250853" wrote:
"Scobre;c-16250781" wrote:
Yeah I don't understand how you can't play the Sims if you are an adult. I mean most Simmers on forums according to the poll started with the first Sims game, so I doubt they are teens. Anyways I actually had more time to play the Sims in my adult years than in the years I was attending college. I am able to work a full-time job and play more than one Sims game and post on forums, lurk Twitter, check the latest updates on discord, and watch Twitch streams. I guess I can multitask better than the Sims 4 Sims. ;)
There even was a poll asking for our age group and half of the simmers here was over 30. We established though that this could also be an indication of forum use, it’s not necessarily representive for all simmers. That being said, I’m convinced a whole new group of adults could join if the game became a bit more... less teen/YouYuber/weeweeee-OMGOMGawesome oriented.
I think that there are two main group who play the game:
1. 10 to (at most) 16 years olds who are the main customers but usually stop playing at latest when they start in highschool.
2. 30+ years old adults who either are without work, singles, retired from work or whos children now are so old that they aren’t home much anymore. But most adults still have too many other interests, work and different obligations which they prioritize more than playing such a game.
Even though group 2 clearly is the most active in the forum I think that the group actually is much smaller than group 1. EA of course knows much more about this from EA’s market investigations. We don’t know the results of those market investigations though. But we can see that they have had the effect that EA more and more has targeted the game only at group 1. Therefore group 1 must be much bigger and this also is something that is in line with my observations elsewhere.
The third group is older teens and young adults who still is under education or have just started a family. But this group I believe to be far the smallest group because they just don’t have much time at all for gaming.
They wouldn't know who is what age unless they ask and people do lie. It's just like their surveys, if you are past 40 it will say thanks, goodbye. So, people lie to be able to take it, so their numbers would be skewed. A person who lied to take the survey who is over 40 would be to EA a person who is at least under 40. (Targeted audences are below age 40 for surveys). But what they don't realize is people are tired of being locked out and say they are younger than what they are. They want the younger demographic, no doubt, but are they really acquiring them, and are they really maintaining them, and or is it adults who lie to take their survyes and participate in other things? Even at Sim Camp get togethers we don't see many 'teens' at all. Most are well past 25+.
They don’t need to ask everybody and they sure don’t find the people to ask in the forums. Instead they likely just find a few hundred customers in Origin from each of some chosen countries and tell them that this is a customer investigation and that they would like to know how much they play the game, how many expansions they have bought and how much they use them and how old they are.
People usually won’t lie in the answers to emails about such things because they don’t want EA to target the game or its expansions at a different age group who they don’t belong to. They will instead just tell the truth hoping that EA then will improve the game in the way they like.
You want a bet? I get surveys all the time and some aren't from TS4 but EA in general and sometimes you have to say you are younger if you want to take a survey. Voices matter, of all sorts. Mostly EA ask (even for TS4) if you think it's o.k. to cheat in games. I suppose that question is more about rpg games where leveling up matters, but such a question doesn't actually belong in a sandbox, single player, non rpg game now does it? But usually it's in there anyway.
I have never been asked about whether I think that it is o.k. to cheat in games! But if I was it probably wouldn’t be from a game company but instead from some magazine about gaming.
The most recently emails about such things was from a game company whos support department I had asked about help because I suddenly couldn’t enter a free game which I had played for some time. The game just crashed every time I tried. Their support answered quite fast and told me to update my game because they had just made a new update for the game and the support woman wanted to know if the update solved my problem. It did. They then sent me 15 free game cash because I had had technical problems. But then I also got an email asking if I still had problems. I told them I hadn't. Then a few days later I got an email from the company asking me about how satisfied I had been with their support. I told them that I was very satisfied :)
All bigger companies make such market investigations among their customers all the time and you can be very sure that they know who their customers are!
I studied such things just a little many years ago on the university when I prepared for the exam after year one because in the first year one third of our pensum was statistics and only two third was math. (The next year I got computer science instead of statistics besides math.)"Erpe;c-16251139" wrote:
"PHOEBESMOM601;c-16251086" wrote:
"Writin_Reg;c-16249902" wrote:
"PHOEBESMOM601;c-16249851" wrote:
@SimGuruGrant I haven't read through the whole thread so I apologize if you've answered this.....but..you said:
"Typically, on Sims 3 we used to do one expansion per year and then did a couple of stuff packs."
TS3 got two, and once three, EPs per year. There were two stuff packs, once three, per year. There was also monthly store content. Usually there was a large pack, most often with premium content or game play and a smaller pack with hair styles and clothing. I see TS4 as getting much less content.
All the store content and 4 of the eps were made at the Salt Lake City Studio team where they had two big teams. When I tested Showtime - I tested and responded with the Sims team at Salt Lake City that made that ep. They also made the Supernatural pack, the University Pack, and Into the Future there. I hear there was a few Stuff packs made there as well - but did not hear that personally. So things made at the Salt Lake City Studio I believe the main Maxis team do not count those packs as they were no way connected to them. Also any free content Sims 3 got also came from those teams. They also did the console and mobile versions of Sims 3 at Salt Lake City.
I understand that but I'm talking about total content we got each year Reg. He's making it sound as if there was less content made,period, for TS3. One studio made one thing and another made something in the else. In the end the players didn't look at where the content was made, they looked at what was made available to them.
We agree about that. But Grant isn’t a simmer but a Sims producer. Therefore he only cares about the work that is done by him and his colleagues in the Redwood Studios where he works. So that was what he was talking about.
Well that's got to change then doesn't it? I work for a library, our job is to develop programs in kindergartens, primary schools and high schools to encourage kids to read. We are a team and our tasks are divided, my colleagues and me, we all have our own specialities (it's not even limited to reading by the way, that is my speciality; there's also someone who gives drama lessons and someone who gives technique classes). You can be sure of it all of us is very much interested in what the others do, because it's our job to present ourselves as a whole to the outside world. Nobody cares who does what exactly, we are 'the library', that place that promotes reading and media literacy. I simply can't imagine it's any different for a game company."Cinebar;c-16251169" wrote:
I don't understand why anyone is separating Salt Lake's studio from the one in Redwood. For years they told us all Maxis was over all of it whether they were in Salt Lake or Redwood, it didn't matter. Anytime someone brought it up they were quick to say Maxis hadn't gone anywhere and all the studios were still 'Maxis' lol..now they change their tune? Alrighty, I'm not buying that explanation but others can if they want to.
I have no idea what else could have made him say that (Sims 3 having one EP a year and 'a couple of' SP's). But I think it's pretty bad when a spokesman of a company only highlights his own small perspective. Unless it's the subject of the article (work stress and all that), but this article is too much about Sims 4 to really justify that assumption."Erpe;c-16251288" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16251260" wrote:
"Cinebar;c-16251024" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16250877" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16250853" wrote:
"Scobre;c-16250781" wrote:
Yeah I don't understand how you can't play the Sims if you are an adult. I mean most Simmers on forums according to the poll started with the first Sims game, so I doubt they are teens. Anyways I actually had more time to play the Sims in my adult years than in the years I was attending college. I am able to work a full-time job and play more than one Sims game and post on forums, lurk Twitter, check the latest updates on discord, and watch Twitch streams. I guess I can multitask better than the Sims 4 Sims. ;)
There even was a poll asking for our age group and half of the simmers here was over 30. We established though that this could also be an indication of forum use, it’s not necessarily representive for all simmers. That being said, I’m convinced a whole new group of adults could join if the game became a bit more... less teen/YouYuber/weeweeee-OMGOMGawesome oriented.
I think that there are two main group who play the game:
1. 10 to (at most) 16 years olds who are the main customers but usually stop playing at latest when they start in highschool.
2. 30+ years old adults who either are without work, singles, retired from work or whos children now are so old that they aren’t home much anymore. But most adults still have too many other interests, work and different obligations which they prioritize more than playing such a game.
Even though group 2 clearly is the most active in the forum I think that the group actually is much smaller than group 1. EA of course knows much more about this from EA’s market investigations. We don’t know the results of those market investigations though. But we can see that they have had the effect that EA more and more has targeted the game only at group 1. Therefore group 1 must be much bigger and this also is something that is in line with my observations elsewhere.
The third group is older teens and young adults who still is under education or have just started a family. But this group I believe to be far the smallest group because they just don’t have much time at all for gaming.
They wouldn't know who is what age unless they ask and people do lie. It's just like their surveys, if you are past 40 it will say thanks, goodbye. So, people lie to be able to take it, so their numbers would be skewed. A person who lied to take the survey who is over 40 would be to EA a person who is at least under 40. (Targeted audences are below age 40 for surveys). But what they don't realize is people are tired of being locked out and say they are younger than what they are. They want the younger demographic, no doubt, but are they really acquiring them, and are they really maintaining them, and or is it adults who lie to take their survyes and participate in other things? Even at Sim Camp get togethers we don't see many 'teens' at all. Most are well past 25+.
Which is horrible horrible horrible. Can't express in words how that ****** me off.
EA sure doesn’t care about the age of their customers in the sense that EA should want any age group more than another. But EA of course cares a lot about two things:
1. Who are the main customers for the Sims games?
2. How much money can be saved on the development of the Sims games without the sales numbers going significantly down?
The Sims 4 clearly is the result of EA’s market investigations about those things and the way TS4 was made only give meaning if the results were:
1. Very young new simmers get way the most of the sold copies.
2. Those young simmers don’t care much about the depth in the game and in each of the expansions because they usually only play them shortly for fun and out of curiosity. So they need immediate fun in the game and each expansion but not very much depth.
3. Low price is more important for the sales numbers than how much content there is in each expansion.
I would have preferred that things were different too. But they don’t seem to be and alas EA seems to now know that they aren’t.
You make them sound like marketing savvies. But look how they completely misinterpreted and messed up the results of their 'telemetry', thinking it was a great idea to skip toddlers. Were they wrong or were they wrong about that ;) And they apparently do care about age when they send out a survey but only want to know what people under 40 want.- Actually ALL companies market to younger people in order to draw in new customers.
It is the way of big business - sort of the circle of life at play. Not because they think we are not worthy of filling out surveys or any other reason but the focus that more customers not already using the product means a new demographic of people to add to their customer base. Sometimes in order to attract new players they need info on the kind of things these new players would like to see in the game that the game did not have - that would make them want to play.
Keep in mind it makes me just as annoyed as any of you when I feel my standing beside this company for 26 years and supporting them through their different games makes my opinion not very valuable to them - BUT looking through THEIR eyes I can see they see me as someone they have already sold their property to and know I am happy enough to keep buying and by word of mouth getting others to buy - and will most likely keep buying - but at the same time they are millions of customers they have not gotten under their wing - especially the younger people who can each possibly give them as many future years as I have given them. It is a fact in all places in life - CHILDREN are all our futures including EA.s - so they need to market to the hopefully next set of gamers/ customers.
I am sure this is why they want the youth of today knowing who they are and how the company is asking them what they want to see in order to get them interested mainly because EA DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THEY Want, so they MARKET TO THEM hoping to get them as customers..
EA knows the 25- 35 year olds and up are their main customers. I know they know this as they publish these kind of demographics in a yearly booklet every year - so naturally they want to attract the younger people who will be in that age group eventually, as soon as they can - because lets face facts - there is no stopping aging - so you need to build your base constantly on the younger people to have your steady future customers.
There are few entertainment products on this planet when producers of these product do not constantly court the younger people on our planet - especially at an age when they start making their own money. Movies do it, television has been doing it for years, as has almost any kind of legal entertainment.
So I know they do this and why - at the same time I do at times resent the fact a good customers opinion apparently doesn't matter. Then I screw my head on straight and realize - my opinions do matter - but truthfully they just want new customers - and they sort of already know what kind of stuff I like - I'm a customer.
This is why marketing is geared to teens - marketing - not necessarily the game itself - keep that in mind. - @Writin_Reg Maybe I'm confused (being not familiar with those surveys): are they meant to attract new players or are they meant to get feedback (genuinely not sure)? I was 44 by the way when I first was drawn into this franchise ;) We're old, not dead or completely blunted. And *cough* we often have money to spend :p
"JoAnne65;c-16251822" wrote:
@Writin_Reg Maybe I'm confused (being not familiar with those surveys): are they meant to attract new players or are they meant to get feedback (genuinely not sure)? I was 44 by the way when I first was drawn into this franchise ;) We're old, not dead or completely blunted. And *cough* we often have money to spend :p
It's called marketing - and most of those surveys were sent out by EA marketing - some even offering ideas in former sims games that are not even really possible in Sims 4. Had Maxis put them out - number one my emails would not have come from EA Marketing dept - but would have been from The Sims Marketing. In fact when some of us mentioned different surveys we have even been asked by some Guru to see a copy as they had not even known of these survey. Some were even made before we got the Sims 4 while the game was still being worked on. So EA is the one marketing the under 20 gamers. Oh and even more telling was they went out to some gamers EA has that are not even Simmers. I know 2 gamers who have never played the Sims that are both under 21 - but they do play several of EA's games. So it is just marketing.
Every single one that EA marketing sent to my email - when I had to give me birthdate - thanked me, but said they had already filled their quota in my age catagory. Co incidently everyone I talked to here over 30 also got rejected, but a few under 24 got to fill out the surveys.
I know the majority of EA's players are 25 - 35 so I assume they were promoting to gamers under 24 including non-simmers - which is what marketing does.
Actually I have not seen any Sims surveys in my email since the middle of 2015."Erpe;c-16251714" wrote:
@Writin_Reg I agree that most game companies are marketing to mainly young people because they are assumed to be more interested in getting games than older and more mature people. But most big games are actually M rated and therefore marketed mainly to 17+ gamers and they have much higher minimum requirements than the Sims games because gamers that old are assumed to be able to afford good gaming computers for their games.
Games marketed mainly for children are usually smaller and cheaper.
But the Sims games are special because their main target group are those very young girls and they are also special because they get this huge number of expansions which other games never get. In the Sims 2 days we could read everywhere that the Sims games were targeted at casual gamers (gamers who usually only played the free games that came with Windows and similar games). I haven seen that statement recently though - but even so I still think that this is true too.
I mainly now play free games (the Sims Freeplay and other F2P games). But if they are targeted mainly at very young gamers too then the adds in the games are quite mysterious because they now are very often either about 60+ dating which they want me to try or advertisings about hearing aids which they need somebody to test ;) I am quite sure that they don't know my age though. And I am not interested in any of those things anyway. But their ingame advertising sure can’t be aimed at 13 years olds ;) :D
Product that haven’t anything with gaming to do can of course be targeted at any age group depending on the type of product.
Erpe you're wrong - they were looking for anyone under 24. My two relatives was a 17 boy year old and a 19 year old girl that got to fill out the survey. Like I said the largest majority of EA 's players of all their games are between 25 - 35 and older - and they are trying to appeal to both male and female of the under 25 age group which is what all marketing does. It is rather unlawful for companies to pursuit children under 16 directly in this country - so I assure you that is not the case. In this country even to have an account on these games you have to have a parental account if you are under 16."Erpe;c-16250820" wrote:
"Scobre;c-16250781" wrote:
Yeah I don't understand how you can't play the Sims if you are an adult. I mean most Simmers on forums according to the poll started with the first Sims game, so I doubt they are teens. Anyways I actually had more time to play the Sims in my adult years than in the years I was attending college. I am able to work a full-time job and play more than one Sims game and post on forums, lurk Twitter, check the latest updates on discord, and watch Twitch streams. I guess I can multitask better than the Sims 4 Sims. ;)
Then you aren’t married and have just got one or two very small kids to to take care about too! ;)
Not sure if you are intentionally trying to insult adults and teens all in one go who play Sims games at this point. I may not be married yet, but I've raised both my nephews for 11 years with a niece on the way so not sure what your definition of small kids is when my nephew is taller than me now. I went to college for five years while raising my nephews. I think you are making a lot of assumptions about people you have no idea about both Guru and Simmer alike. But yeah I can play the Sims, take care of my mom's health problems, take care of my own health problems, and take care of my pets and my family. I know how to cook, how to play music, I can read real books, and do crafts. You may or may not have a life outside the Sims, but don't assume that people who play Sims don't have a life or friends or family to take care of because for some of us we do and able to manage it all and then some.
Sims has always been targeted towards teens ever since day one so it is utter nonsense to assume it is a new thing because it isn't. I didn't even have to be on forums to know what the target market of Sims has been all these years. There is a huge difference between target market and the full customer base. What is new is the teen "girls". Will Wright always wanted the game to appeal to both girls and boys alike and why they think they need to appeal to girls only does come off as ironic considering the Sims 4 is trying to go the inclusive direction with the gender update and everything. I would think that would mean they would make activities and CAS items for all genders to enjoy not just focus on a single one."Erpe;c-16252401" wrote:
"Writin_Reg;c-16251971" wrote:
"JoAnne65;c-16251822" wrote:
@Writin_Reg Maybe I'm confused (being not familiar with those surveys): are they meant to attract new players or are they meant to get feedback (genuinely not sure)? I was 44 by the way when I first was drawn into this franchise ;) We're old, not dead or completely blunted. And *cough* we often have money to spend :p
It's called marketing - and most of those surveys were sent out by EA marketing - some even offering ideas in former sims games that are not even really possible in Sims 4. Had Maxis put them out - number one my emails would not have come from EA Marketing dept - but would have been from The Sims Marketing. In fact when some of us mentioned different surveys we have even been asked by some Guru to see a copy as they had not even known of these survey. Some were even made before we got the Sims 4 while the game was still being worked on. So EA is the one marketing the under 20 gamers. Oh and even more telling was they went out to some gamers EA has that are not even Simmers. I know 2 gamers who have never played the Sims that are both under 21 - but they do play several of EA's games. So it is just marketing.
Every single one that EA marketing sent to my email - when I had to give me birthdate - thanked me, but said they had already filled their quota in my age catagory. Co incidently everyone I talked to here over 30 also got rejected, but a few under 24 got to fill out the surveys.
I know the majority of EA's players are 25 - 35 so I assume they were promoting to gamers under 24 including non-simmers - which is what marketing does.
Actually I have not seen any Sims surveys in my email since the middle of 2015.
You are talking about a general market investigation where EA is interested in getting ideas for new games. Here EA apparently thinks that more games for young gamers could be good idea. But EA seems to think that they have enough games for other age groups. This isn’t at all about new editions of the game series that EA already have and EA hasn’t even told the developers of those games about the new ideas that EA is trying to reach.
No they specified they were ep ideas for the Sims 4 right on the survey - and they wanted people to pick from the ideas they offered the top ones we'd be the most interested in. I believe they allowed you to just pick 3."Scobre;c-16252262" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16250820" wrote:
"Scobre;c-16250781" wrote:
Yeah I don't understand how you can't play the Sims if you are an adult. I mean most Simmers on forums according to the poll started with the first Sims game, so I doubt they are teens. Anyways I actually had more time to play the Sims in my adult years than in the years I was attending college. I am able to work a full-time job and play more than one Sims game and post on forums, lurk Twitter, check the latest updates on discord, and watch Twitch streams. I guess I can multitask better than the Sims 4 Sims. ;)
Then you aren’t married and have just got one or two very small kids to to take care about too! ;)
Not sure if you are intentionally trying to insult adults and teens all in one go who play Sims games at this point. I may not be married yet, but I've raised both my nephews for 11 years with a niece on the way so not sure what your definition of small kids is when my nephew is taller than me now. I went to college for five years while raising my nephews. I think you are making a lot of assumptions about people you have no idea about both Guru and Simmer alike. But yeah I can play the Sims, take care of my mom's health problems, take care of my own health problems, and take care of my pets and my family. I know how to cook, how to play music, I can read real books, and do crafts. You may or may not have a life outside the Sims, but don't assume that people who play Sims don't have a life or friends or family to take care of because for some of us we do and able to manage it all and then some.
I am not trying to insult anybody. But you will know what I mean when you get your own babies and they wake you up even in the middle of the night where you are trying to get some sleep. Being a new parent is extremely hard and alas it was even harder for my daughter’s mum than it is for most parents. She therefore got a depression and we haven’t lived together since those days even though we still are close friends.Sims has always been targeted towards teens ever since day one so it is utter nonsense to assume it is a new thing because it isn't. I didn't even have to be on forums to know what the target market of Sims has been all these years. There is a huge difference between target market and the full customer base. What is new is the teen "girls". Will Wright always wanted the game to appeal to both girls and boys alike and why they think they need to appeal to girls only does come off as ironic considering the Sims 4 is trying to go the inclusive direction with the gender update and everything. I would think that would mean they would make activities and CAS items for all genders to enjoy not just focus on a single one.
TS1 originally was targeted at a different group who already played SimCity. This group was mainly males of different ages and in those days all games were targeted at males because there were very few females who were interested in PC games at all. But especially TS1 changed this and EA sure hadn’t expected this change.
Will Wright was mainly just a game designer with various ideas. He wasn’t interested in marketing at all which I also see as the main reason why Maxis got into so much trouble that it couldn’t survive on its own. The co-owner of Maxis was Jeff Baun and I think that he was more the one who was interested in marketing and economics. But he couldn’t get around the fact that only very few of Will Wright’s many games sold very well. Therefore Maxis was sold to EA in 1997 and EA most likely only accepted to develop TS1 for a low budget because it made it easier for EA to buy Maxis. It was the right to the SimCity series that EA wanted and EA had no plans about letting Will Wright make even more games like SimFarm, SimAnt etc.
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