Parental Expectations
From the recent patch:
"Sims that were seated at a 6 seat round table can now Clean up the dishes.
Sadly, all the children who had thought they had found the magic loophole, stay seated at the table, are no longer…
…right… like any kid ever stays seated at the table."
To be absolutely clear, I'm not trying to get the author yelled at by Management, I'm just trying to bring up something that might possibly be considered when new content design is being meeting'd.
I'll try to put this in a way an intern today might grasp.
Back when the first Simpsons episode aired, my dad was LIVID, and literally dragged me around a mall furious for an hour so I couldn't watch such blatantly disrespectful obscenity. If a kid came up to me today and said "Eat my shorts", it would be endearing and adorably retro. Being needlessly reminded of the good old days of social propriety enforcement just doesn't have the same heartwarming charm it used to.
What I'm trying to say is that there's a mountain of subconscious political assumptions in the patch quote, and that mindset is painfully obvious throughout Parenthood, it's paraphernalia, and the larger TS4 game design. It's certainly nothing new to the series, and not at all restricted to parental interactions, it's just impossible to ignore there. For me at least, at the end of 2019 though, it's immediately nauseating every time it gets shoved in front of me again.
Maxis can make whatever kind of game it wants, all I'm saying is that this is the number one thing that alienates me as a potential TS4 customer, and it crops up again and again in TS4. Maybe this only bothers me, maybe not; but nobody enjoys being told how to interact with other people, especially with their own children. Nobody. Ever.
Just maybe be mindful that every social expectation that gets coded into the game has a real potential end cost in sales; and if there isn't an actual compelling reason to straitjacket behavior, perhaps letting the customers determine their own standards of behavior in their own game would be a better business decision. Like I said before, it's 2019, you have a very global market, it's just good business sense from where I sit.
Also just wanted to mention that in the second half of this year, since the redistribution of senior personnel, the massive increase in development effort and throughput has been absolutely amazing. It hasn't always meant effective results, but the effort involved has clearly jumped an order of magnitude. It's just great to see the development team visibly care enough to actually try again.
"Sims that were seated at a 6 seat round table can now Clean up the dishes.
Sadly, all the children who had thought they had found the magic loophole, stay seated at the table, are no longer…
…right… like any kid ever stays seated at the table."
To be absolutely clear, I'm not trying to get the author yelled at by Management, I'm just trying to bring up something that might possibly be considered when new content design is being meeting'd.
I'll try to put this in a way an intern today might grasp.
Back when the first Simpsons episode aired, my dad was LIVID, and literally dragged me around a mall furious for an hour so I couldn't watch such blatantly disrespectful obscenity. If a kid came up to me today and said "Eat my shorts", it would be endearing and adorably retro. Being needlessly reminded of the good old days of social propriety enforcement just doesn't have the same heartwarming charm it used to.
What I'm trying to say is that there's a mountain of subconscious political assumptions in the patch quote, and that mindset is painfully obvious throughout Parenthood, it's paraphernalia, and the larger TS4 game design. It's certainly nothing new to the series, and not at all restricted to parental interactions, it's just impossible to ignore there. For me at least, at the end of 2019 though, it's immediately nauseating every time it gets shoved in front of me again.
Maxis can make whatever kind of game it wants, all I'm saying is that this is the number one thing that alienates me as a potential TS4 customer, and it crops up again and again in TS4. Maybe this only bothers me, maybe not; but nobody enjoys being told how to interact with other people, especially with their own children. Nobody. Ever.
Just maybe be mindful that every social expectation that gets coded into the game has a real potential end cost in sales; and if there isn't an actual compelling reason to straitjacket behavior, perhaps letting the customers determine their own standards of behavior in their own game would be a better business decision. Like I said before, it's 2019, you have a very global market, it's just good business sense from where I sit.
Also just wanted to mention that in the second half of this year, since the redistribution of senior personnel, the massive increase in development effort and throughput has been absolutely amazing. It hasn't always meant effective results, but the effort involved has clearly jumped an order of magnitude. It's just great to see the development team visibly care enough to actually try again.
