Kit Packs Are Stuff Packs

All of these comments about it being a "cash grab" confuse me. Nobody is forcing you to buy the packs. They are a business that needs to make money so the content creators can make money too. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

"summertaffy68;c-17824618" wrote:
All of these comments about it being a "cash grab" confuse me. Nobody is forcing you to buy the packs. They are a business that needs to make money so the content creators can make money too. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

Yes, but the problem with your argument is that if you do like it, you have to get it regardless of the price. And how are you supposed to know if you'll like it if you don't get it? You don't see all of the swatches in the previews. And what if you get it, and find you don't like it? Are you still obliged to like it and never complain, even after you've paid money for it?

And it's been noted that a lot of the content is not 'niche'. It's not 'specialised', like emo clothes or swimwear or even Manly Men clothes. It's extremely generalised stuff that could be put out in full Stuff Packs with gameplay and furniture. The furniture could go in a full farming pack - people are even SAYING we might not get a farming pack, which is silly. It's not meant to appeal to small, previously unnoticed groups, because the more people it appeals to, the more money EA gets.

"summertaffy68;c-17824618" wrote:
All of these comments about it being a "cash grab" confuse me. Nobody is forcing you to buy the packs. They are a business that needs to make money so the content creators can make money too. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

1. Kits are priced at $4.99, which is half the cost of a traditional stuff pack (and in some regions more), but they contain a third of the content of a stuff pack. It should not be too hard to see why some people might find that objectionable and a "cash grab."

2. Yes, EA is a business that needs to earn a profit, but EA will not go out of business and the developers will not suffer, if
the price of kits was lowered to something more in line with the content.

3. Yes, no one is forced to buy a kit, and I am choosing not to buy them at the current price. But, that choice does not mean
that I cannot express my opinion on the matter, just as you are free to express yours.

@EternalSunshine Saying they contain a third of the Stuff Pack content is generous. The Fitness pack contains entirely clothes - and it doesn't exactly fill in any gaps - the furniture pack contains clutter and counters - clutter is never interacted with and many counters are reused meshes. Compare either of these packs to something like Paranormal, with clothes and gameplay and functional items and new animations, which all require new meshes and programming.

Plus, on average you'll get 60 new items, often more in a stuff pack. Between THREE Kit packs, you get 43 pieces.

"Loanet;c-17824845" wrote:
@EternalSunshine Saying they contain a third of the Stuff Pack content is generous. The Fitness pack contains entirely clothes - and it doesn't exactly fill in any gaps - the furniture pack contains clutter and counters - clutter is never interacted with and many counters are reused meshes. Compare either of these packs to something like Paranormal, with clothes and gameplay and functional items and new animations, which all require new meshes and programming.

Plus, on average you'll get 60 new items, often more in a stuff pack. Between THREE Kit packs, you get 43 pieces.

@Loanet You're right. When I stated that kits contain a third of the content of a stuff pack, I was speaking in general terms, in that each kit now contains one stuff pack component. Item count wise, a full stuff pack will generally offer more content than the three current kits combined. This is especially true when the kits are compared to the most recent stuff packs. In terms of item count, the closest comparable stuff pack to the combined kits, would probably be Perfect Patio Stuff which contained 12 CAS items and and 32 BB items for a total of 44 pieces.

"Loanet;c-17824794" wrote:

"summertaffy68;c-17824618" wrote:
All of these comments about it being a "cash grab" confuse me. Nobody is forcing you to buy the packs. They are a business that needs to make money so the content creators can make money too. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

Yes, but the problem with your argument is that if you do like it, you have to get it regardless of the price. And how are you supposed to know if you'll like it if you don't get it? You don't see all of the swatches in the previews. And what if you get it, and find you don't like it? Are you still obliged to like it and never complain, even after you've paid money for it?

And it's been noted that a lot of the content is not 'niche'. It's not 'specialised', like emo clothes or swimwear or even Manly Men clothes. It's extremely generalised stuff that could be put out in full Stuff Packs with gameplay and furniture. The furniture could go in a full farming pack - people are even SAYING we might not get a farming pack, which is silly. It's not meant to appeal to small, previously unnoticed groups, because the more people it appeals to, the more money EA gets.

I think both of your arguments are valid, but to me. I think a lot of the problem isn't necessarily people buying packs and not liking them as it's just they just lack patience and jump on the bandwagon and have to get it right away instead of taking a few days to research the pack and watch reviews or item overviews on Youtube.

Yes, everyone has different opinions, and the only way to know for sure is to buy the pack, but there are so many Simtubers (some gamechangers, some who aren't) who review a new pack and give their feedback, or even just go through the swatches of clothing items or build buy items.

I always watch a few reviews and at least one overview before I decide whether I want to buy a pack or not. That's the reason I didn't get Parenthood until it was on sale for $10. I was interested in the CAS and some of the Build-Buy items, but the actual Gameplay in the pack didn't interest me that much. And because of that, it wasn't worth $20 to me. But during one of Origin's sales, I saw it was Stuffpack Price and decided to go for it since at this time, Nifty Knitting wasn't even out yet so most stuffpacks weren't that great yet.

I don't know, maybe I'm just more patient than most people and wait for sales a good 90% of the time, or even check third party websites. And maybe that's why I don't feel as ripped off as so many others do?

That's not to say that Kits will go on sale, since we have no idea, but if people would just wait a few days and take some time to research, maybe less people would feel ripped off?

And while I do agree that this grouping of kits was more generalized than niched, I kind of have a feeling the reason for that was because they were trying to get more people interested. I mean I'd argue Bust the Dust is pretty niche since there are many Simmers (like myself) who don't want even more chores in their game, but the others are defintely not niched themes.

But since Kits are brand new, they probably didn't want to risk sales by making ones that would appeal to so few people. That doesn't mean every Kit going forward is going to be the same and I certainly hope future Kits focus on more niche themes since this is an excellent opportunity to do that. But it's hard to tell this early on.

But also at the same time, I don't think the intention behind Kits is to get everyone to buy all three and make up a lackluster stuff pack, especially since the themes don't go together at all. But rather to allow people to pick and choose what they want.

I mean, not everybody actually plays the game. Some people just design Sims and others do nothing but build, and Kits are great for those kinds of players, which I think is possibly part of the reason behind splitting things up.

Yes, it's still to make money too, but that's kind of why companies exist. And yes I agree, Kits could be cheaper and that this grouping could have been included in other packs, but if the reason was truly to split up stuff packs, don't you think all three of these themes would have been connected in a very obvious way?

Given the considerable number of Sims players that buy every single bit of content that is released for the Sims, I can relate to the cash grab argument.

Also, the only kit that contains new gameplay has - in my humble opinion - some severe bugs and is not properly thought through. I feel they really should have taken more reference to how doing laundry works in TS4.

I do find the kitchen set really beautiful and my daughter begs me to get it, but I'm of the opinion that it has not enough content to make it worth the current price tag. There's not even a matching dining table, chair, dishwasher and barstool.

The third kit is even more lackluster, but luckily not my cup of tea at all so I don't care about that one for now.

"LeGardePourpre;c-17827061" wrote:
I think SimGuruConor is the spiritual son of SimGuruCopeland, the content will be amazing like Copeland did for the Store from 2011 to 2013.

I want more kits !

But SimGuruConor doesn't even work on kits. He works on stuff packs.

"LeGardePourpre;c-17829579" wrote:

"@elelunicy;c-17827083" wrote:

"LeGardePourpre;c-17827061" wrote:
I think SimGuruConor is the spiritual son of SimGuruCopeland, the content will be amazing like Copeland did for the Store from 2011 to 2013.

I want more kits !

But SimGuruConor doesn't even work on kits. He works on stuff packs.

Why he did the livestream with SimGuruNinja ?

SimGuruConor wasn't on the kits livestream. I think the other voice was SimGuruFrost