"Sindocat;c-17441213" wrote:
They have been communicating daily on Twitter - doing promos and giveaways.
They've been running the March Madness bracket.
They've been soliciting feedback on the second Community Vote Stuff Pack and reporting results.
As far as no announcements, they can literally be fired for leaking anything without the go-ahead from Marketing. Non-Disclosure Agreements are legal contracts, and a real thing in game studio work.
I'd love to have a roadmap for the spring & summer, sure. But let's not make false statements, or accusations, or conspiracy theories about Maxis not caring. They are actually one of the most player-engaged studios in the business.
While the simgurus are nice and they do post some things, Maxis have not posted any development updates except about the community stuff pack, which is a pack that they announced last year. People want to know if they are going to fix bugs or what pack that they are working on. Things that they could announce by updating their NDAs, which other game developers do, often to give their CMs and marketing departments something new to post to keep people interested and invested.
An april fools joke would be in poor taste now when people don't know what is happening, are worried and all they hear from Maxis are them asking for input but not showing what they are doing combined with their marketing team trying to keep people interested with old content.