How many more years of TS4?

"JoAnne65;c-16235296" wrote:

"Writin_Reg;c-16234997" wrote:
Everyone is forgetting the number one fact- the CEO of Electronic Arts said the live service was designed to make ALL of their games to have a longer shelf life and to deliver both free and paid DLC on a regular basis to keep the games fresh and ever changing for a lot longer shelf life before they can embark on any type of redo or overhaul. What's more he has the overwhelming support of both the board of EA and their stockholders.

So regardless of what their games used to do this was put in place during the first quarter of this year; and judging by what was being said by the heads at Maxis even shortly after Sims 4 came out 'remember Rachels and others comment "that the Sims 4 had no expiration date. They would be working and adding to the Sim 4 as long as it was feasible to do so"- says the game was designed from the get go to have a longer shelf life - well before the Ceo openly stated it this year.

So regardless of what anyone wants apparently as long as it is feasible to add to it, they will. Also remember all the previous Sims games had a limit to the number of Eps each game could hold. The data files clearly held placemarkers for just so many packs - and many of us noticed Sims 4 has no limits in the data -for any kind of packs. On top of it this smart technology game engine can constantly be upgraded - something they could not do easily in past engines. They proved it twice already. S0 yeah - this game could go on for a long time if they find it "feasible to do so."

Yes, exactly, that’s what I was referring to. I regret it highly but that doesn’t change reality. (@Erpe , I really think that ‘the way it’s always bene’ isn’t necessarily the way it’s going to be)

I know that EA mainly wants all its games to be online and to be live services because this is the current tendency. Also paid offline games sell worse and worse in the app stores for mobile devices because gamers aren’t very tempted to download paid games when there are such a huge number of games that can be downloaded for free. So EA’s attitude is very understandable.

But even in the app stores for mobile devices the game stores attempt to get around this such that they still can sell paid games too. The new way usually is to advertise a lot for the paid games and to make them in two versions such there is a version that can be downloaded for free such that people can try the game for free. But this version usually either only has the first few levels of the game or it has a lot of its game world locked such that people will have to switch to the paid version if they like the game and want to continue playing it.

But the PC versions of the Sims games differ a lot from all other games because EA’s income from them mainly is from selling a huge number of cheap-to-make expansions later and not so much from just selling the basegame. This model isn’t possible yet for the mobile Sims games (or EA just hasn’t wanted to use it until now). Therefore all the PC Sims games until now have been paid offline games (also the sidegames) and EA has released a new big Sims games with many expansions every 5 years.

There is no doubt that EA wants more online options included in the big Sims games too. But to make the game into a pure MMO game which can’t be played offline too would be a disaster for EA for the following reasons:
1. MMO games can’t be played anymore when the server is taken down and simmers would become so angry that they would refuse to buy any more Sims games if they lost the earlier game and all its expansions just because EA took the server down.
2. EA can’t continue to sell expansions for the same game infinitely. Therefore online MMO games mostly gets updates instead of exoansions. But updates can’t be sold to simmers in the same way as the expansions always have been. EA would therefore lose all the usual income from selling all those expansions which EA surely can’t just accept.

Therefore I don’t believe that EA really plans to let the next Sims game be a real live service which can’t be played offline and without many expansions because EA would just lose too much money by doing that. Instead EA’s considerations almost certainly is about making the next PC Sims game in a way where it can be played both offline and online and such that the game still can have a huge number of paid expansions. The problem just is that this is technically difficult to make because it won’t be any good if we only can visit other simmers who have bought exactly the same expansions as we have ourselves. But how should we be able to visit another simmer who has bought an EP with a whole world which we don’t have in our own game?

I know that EA is working on this problem. But I just don’t know how far EA has come or if EA is close to a solution at all. We won’t know before EA announces the next big Sims game.

But I am sure that is what EA meant with the plans to turn all its games into live services. For EA’s other games that sure is possible. But EA just have to find a modified way to do it for the Sims games. And TS4 surely won’t ever be turned into a live service as a MMO game that only can be played online! ;)