How The Sims Has Changed

"invisiblgirl;c-16960103" wrote:

"Goldmoldar;c-16958975" wrote:

"Tremayne4260;c-16958921" wrote:

"PrincessrozeeS;d-955559" wrote:
And another thing I would like to say about downloading. I saw the writing on the wall may years ago when this was mooted in the Sims 2 forum, with downloads v content on a disk. When I have to download something from origin on a Sim game it often takes over an hour. Content on a CD disk used to take 10 minutes at most. Now I have to wait for my download before can play. That has put me off a lot.

As technology advances, so do new ways of storing data. I'm afraid that many computers these days do not come with CD/DVD drives. Mine didn't, but I was able to buy an external CD drive. I still have my Sims 1 and Sims 2 CDs, but sadly neither one will ever install on my computer due to changes in the Operating System that no longer recognize the codes. Am I sad? Sort of. But I still play Sims.

I have to admit that I mainly play Sims 3 these days simply because there is still so much for me to explore in the game.

I agree with you on the aspect of a lot more to discover and I still have an lot to discover in Sims 2 and Sims 3, However in SIms 3 for me I only touched the tip of the Iceberg. Yeah more and more companies even empty cases are designed to go digital upfront. You still can find cases with an 3.25 external bay that you can put in an DVD/Blu-ray drive and when I build those are the only ones I look for. Luckily for me I have all my codes for Sims 1 to Sims 3 and I can still use the codes but these days I do not need to use them as they are registered with Origin and I access my games through Origin now but I am stilll going to hold on those codes. In time as the OS evolves, the game may become inaccessible if the OS does not recognize legacy programs, I call this the degrading effect as technology evolves meaning programs written years ago may not work as it did once before and it does not apply to all programs, however if you have an system from yesteryear and it still runs that program will run as intended.

I haven't tried to reinstall any of the old Sims games (Origin does recognise my S3 game, if I wanted to reload that), but I can't play Creatures 2 anymore. Someone released an online version that is compatible with Windows 7 +, but it doesn't work with my custom content, so it's not really playable.

From an environmental and cost perspective, discs don't make sense. It costs more for a company to produce a physical disk and packaging, and they lose money if they produce more than they can sell. From an environmental standpoint, I'm totally in favour of reducing both energy and resources used in production, as well as waste on the other side. There is another hidden plus for gamemakers - they might be able to sell a recoded game thirty years down the road to nostalgia fans who want to play games from their childhood. (A number of 80s console games have been brought back that way.)

There are some advantages to letting Origin manage everything. I no longer have to make sure I've got the CD code when I buy a new computer, and I really like not having to keep the Sims disc in my drive all the time. (I do have a CD drive, and for some things, like the extended cut from favourite films - LOTR! - I like to have the discs. That will probably change as download times get faster and we have more storage available.) Another argument against CDs is that they do degrade over time, especially the older ones. I transferred my entire music collection to my external drive (and to the cloud) after discovering that some CDs I'd purchased in the early 90s were already unplayable.

As with anything there are pluses and there are minuses, I can live with digital as well as physical. For me it is essential to have an physical drive not just for going forward, I have over 4000 to 5000 programs on CD, DVD, Blu-ray and they span from the beginning days of the CD-Rom up to now and that does not include the programs or person files which increases what I have. I am what you call an computer pack rat that saves everything and hate to dispose of it. The plus of going digital saves on the need of physical space in which physical media does eat up space. But the minus is when companies goes digital, if you do not have that installer file in which it frees up the program need to phone home or talk to an third party company such as Steam you may lose access to that program and there is no guarantee that an patch or whatever will allow to access it. GOG(Good Old Games) is one of the companies I like to use as it allows me to DL the Installer file and I can install on multiple systems and I do not need GOG afterwards like one needs Steam(Which I use as well because of the sales) The cloud is nice and I do use it but I also keep an physical copy because the cloud is not 100% error free as some can lose info if it burps.

Going digital many thought in the past that companies prices would go down, it did but not for all as one can see buying Anthem digital still cost the same as an physical copy if available. As said I can use digital and physical media when available I also have my entire music libary on my hard drive as I know all about damaged physical media Going digital puts an requirement on how fast your DL speed is as well. Digital does not work well for those who does not have an ISP or thier speed runs at an snail pace and some companies like Comcast now have an cap on how much you can DL per month unless you pay $50 dollars more on your bill and I have to do that because I DL a whole lot. There are more minuses and more pluses but it depends on how you operate.