Let's be Logical (my thoughts)

"@DominicLaurence;c-16446427" wrote:
Drake just shared that they are hiring a new Community Manager.

https://twitter.com/ManaDrake/status/988528991702306817

The "This position will primarily work on The Sims 4" is an indicator that it may not be ending abruptly, at least not right now.

"@aricarai;c-16446868" wrote:

Spoiler

"jackjack_k;d-939008" wrote:

There's been a lot of "the Sims franchise as we know it is ending" on the forums, and everything we know is based on rumors. I want to discuss a few things:

"Budget Cuts"

The only people mentioning budget cuts are some very vague sources. However, budget cuts happen all the time in a business, even during really successful periods. Companies will review their finances and see where cuts can be made. We don't know why Gurus have left. The Guru who left that sparked this whole frenzy was the lead designer for Expansions Packs. If you notice, Expansion Packs have no been received well this iteration and also have 12 months between releases. Maybe this doesn't fit with EA's product line up plan. Maybe they don't want 1 EP every 12 months and gave staff a "step down or leave" proposition. We don't know.

Mobile

There's a lot of talk about Guru's leaving for Mobile, notably SimGuruDuke. However, SimGuruDuke has confirmed that he still works on console, but he also worked on Sims Mobile years prior to console.
Just because Guru's are working on Mobile, doesn't mean they've left their position elsewhere. People assumed this with SimGuruDuke who confirmed that he's multitasking. The Sims Mobile uses a lot of Sims 4 content, it would make sense that certain staff would work across the same content for different platforms.

Origin

EA invested millions into their own PC Platform, Origin. It would make 0 sense for EA to move only to mobile, when they invested so much money into making Origin. It's clear EA's main priority is PC. Every EA game now is pushed to PC as the main platform for EA.
EA don't have to pay Apple/Google/Sony/Microsoft a portion of each sale like they do elsewhere. Origin was designed so that EA could increase their profits directly.

The overwhelming success

Take a look at Origin's best selling PC games. The Sims 4 literally covers the majority of the best selling games. The Sims 4 is still outselling new games from 2018. Even the DLC is beating games from 2018 and DLC from other games, like Battlefield 1. How on Earth does anyone see this as a failure?
For a comparison, SimCity 4, SimCity 2013 and SimCity Societies are outselling The Sims 3. And both of the latter 2 were considered huge flops. Not saying The Sims 3 is a flop by any means, but we aren't seeing a case where The Sims 3 is still directly taking people away from 4. The Sims 4 is still holding it's own and isn't a failure to EA. The Sims 3 did it's thing, and has now made room for 4.
(whereas by 2014, SimCity 4 was still doing better than SimCity 2013).

That's why SimCity went to mobile. EA was still seeing more longevity from a game from 2004.
The Sims 3 isn't interfering Sims 4's success. There's no reason to move it to mobile.


Console Release

EA just confirmed that The Sims 4 and all DLC is being released for two new platforms. They would not do this for a game that they plan to move to mobile. It's obvious that The Sims 4 is being seen as a huge success on PC, and a guaranteed hit for console.
It's the first time they brought DLC to console on this level, even though the capability was there with The Sims 3. That tells me they're confident the game will be successful.

Investor meetings

EA claim to their investors that The Sims 4 is still their #1 non licensed game (so excluding games like Fifa or Star Wars) and that it's quarter on quarter growth is sometimes as high as 30%. Why kill of their #1 game? The Sims Mobile isn't their #1 game. Freeplay is still currently performing better on the Top Grossing charts for iOS. (That's why Freeplay is still a thing).


So Relax. I still say The Sims 4 has a long road ahead of it. Just because we now know The Sims 5 hasn't been started yet doesn't mean we won't have one. They make take a long hiatus from base game development but support The Sims 4 in the meanwhile.

I agree with everything above as we don't know anything really and can only speculate as to what's happening. Although, I do find it interesting, that you're dispelling these rumours, yet, you say the development for TS5 hasn't started yet (which the first and only time I'd seen that was from the "guru" on reddit), unless that has actually been officially confirmed and I missed it. In which case, I do apologise. Everything else you said seems solid!

"jackjack_k;c-16446888" wrote:

"@aricarai;c-16446868" wrote:

Spoiler

"jackjack_k;d-939008" wrote:

There's been a lot of "the Sims franchise as we know it is ending" on the forums, and everything we know is based on rumors. I want to discuss a few things:

"Budget Cuts"

The only people mentioning budget cuts are some very vague sources. However, budget cuts happen all the time in a business, even during really successful periods. Companies will review their finances and see where cuts can be made. We don't know why Gurus have left. The Guru who left that sparked this whole frenzy was the lead designer for Expansions Packs. If you notice, Expansion Packs have no been received well this iteration and also have 12 months between releases. Maybe this doesn't fit with EA's product line up plan. Maybe they don't want 1 EP every 12 months and gave staff a "step down or leave" proposition. We don't know.

Mobile

There's a lot of talk about Guru's leaving for Mobile, notably SimGuruDuke. However, SimGuruDuke has confirmed that he still works on console, but he also worked on Sims Mobile years prior to console.
Just because Guru's are working on Mobile, doesn't mean they've left their position elsewhere. People assumed this with SimGuruDuke who confirmed that he's multitasking. The Sims Mobile uses a lot of Sims 4 content, it would make sense that certain staff would work across the same content for different platforms.

Origin

EA invested millions into their own PC Platform, Origin. It would make 0 sense for EA to move only to mobile, when they invested so much money into making Origin. It's clear EA's main priority is PC. Every EA game now is pushed to PC as the main platform for EA.
EA don't have to pay Apple/Google/Sony/Microsoft a portion of each sale like they do elsewhere. Origin was designed so that EA could increase their profits directly.

The overwhelming success

Take a look at Origin's best selling PC games. The Sims 4 literally covers the majority of the best selling games. The Sims 4 is still outselling new games from 2018. Even the DLC is beating games from 2018 and DLC from other games, like Battlefield 1. How on Earth does anyone see this as a failure?
For a comparison, SimCity 4, SimCity 2013 and SimCity Societies are outselling The Sims 3. And both of the latter 2 were considered huge flops. Not saying The Sims 3 is a flop by any means, but we aren't seeing a case where The Sims 3 is still directly taking people away from 4. The Sims 4 is still holding it's own and isn't a failure to EA. The Sims 3 did it's thing, and has now made room for 4.
(whereas by 2014, SimCity 4 was still doing better than SimCity 2013).

That's why SimCity went to mobile. EA was still seeing more longevity from a game from 2004.
The Sims 3 isn't interfering Sims 4's success. There's no reason to move it to mobile.


Console Release

EA just confirmed that The Sims 4 and all DLC is being released for two new platforms. They would not do this for a game that they plan to move to mobile. It's obvious that The Sims 4 is being seen as a huge success on PC, and a guaranteed hit for console.
It's the first time they brought DLC to console on this level, even though the capability was there with The Sims 3. That tells me they're confident the game will be successful.

Investor meetings

EA claim to their investors that The Sims 4 is still their #1 non licensed game (so excluding games like Fifa or Star Wars) and that it's quarter on quarter growth is sometimes as high as 30%. Why kill of their #1 game? The Sims Mobile isn't their #1 game. Freeplay is still currently performing better on the Top Grossing charts for iOS. (That's why Freeplay is still a thing).


So Relax. I still say The Sims 4 has a long road ahead of it. Just because we now know The Sims 5 hasn't been started yet doesn't mean we won't have one. They make take a long hiatus from base game development but support The Sims 4 in the meanwhile.

I agree with everything above as we don't know anything really and can only speculate as to what's happening. Although, I do find it interesting, that you're dispelling these rumours, yet, you say the development for TS5 hasn't started yet (which the first and only time I'd seen that was from the "guru" on reddit), unless that has actually been officially confirmed and I missed it. In which case, I do apologise. Everything else you said seems solid!

The comment about not even working on TS5 was confirmed by an actual Guru’s private Facebook, according to Sims Community :) That reddit user also said the same.

But they also said a lot that doesn’t add up, like the whole franchise is coming to an end. Yet EA are currently hiring for The Sims 4 as we speak.

So that’s clearly obvious that user doesn’t really know what’s going on and is just echoing comments from the actual Guru.

• http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/938817/is-the-sims-4-endgame/
  
• http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/938853/if-the-sims-is-only-going-to-be-a-mobile-game-in-the-future-then-i-am-gone