Question about Game-Changers

I mean, normally with any other game, there is always supposed to be a testing team. During the development of a game the team creating it, is supposed to do alpha and beta testing on the game. It is their job and they get paid for it.
The open/closed beta thing started with the rise of MMOs. Since it was crucial to test the game with a lot of players in one server at the same time, developers decided to invite players from the fanbase to an open or closed beta.

With single player games the developers traditionally tested their own games, so they should actually be able to do that successfully. I don't know if game changers get paid by EA so forcing work on them isn't such a good idea I think.

I don't think they get paid either so I doubt that EA would get them to test the game for them :/ A lot of them have been giving criticism of the pack so it's not like they're being forced to say only positives.

It does come across that the update and the pack were not tested properly, especially as so many people have had problems with the game crashing. And over on an fb group a few people were reporting they were still having issues with the Get Famous acting career!

I don't want to judge too harshly though - personally I still enjoy the pack and I don't know the inner workings of The Sims team. Remember they have higher ups they have to answer to. I trust they're working hard and at least they are fixing what's broken...kind of...

"aaronrulz;d-977255" wrote:
What exactly is their job besides posting content? It seems to me they get the game early for 2-3 days only so they can record content for their YouTube channels. Wouldn't it behoove the Sims team to let the game-changers have the pack for a week, maybe several weeks before its release and let them play through it and report all the bugs they are getting so the Sims team can fix the bugs before release? I'm not saying it will be completely bug-free on a wide release but maybe if they did that, they would not have had to do two emergency patches after the first main one...and still have a tons of bugs. I have every single pack. All expansions, All game packs, and all stuff packs. Not one pack of those packs had nearly the amount of bugs than we have received with Eco Lifestyle.

Just a thought. To use the game-changers as their test audience for bugs and not just to promote their packs and get buyers.

I appreciate all the sims team and the gurus and all they do. I believe they work hard in putting out quality packs but this roll-out has been subpar.

That’s a great idea. ?? I think they should implement your idea.

It would spot more glitches before the game goes live and more of us would have a more positive experience. I love Eco Lifestyle but the bugs take all the fun out playing.

I think they are selected as “game changers” because they already have a strong Sims following. So, they don’t have a “job,” they’re just an influencer selected by (EA or Maxis or EAxis or whatever anyone spends their time arguing over). Just like ladies from The Bachelor franchise hawk Sugar Bear Vitamins. Like, Game Changers aren’t there to be your voice—they already had the fanbase to begin with.

"aaronrulz;d-977255" wrote:
What exactly is their job besides posting content? It seems to me they get the game early for 2-3 days only so they can record content for their YouTube channels. Wouldn't it behoove the Sims team to let the game-changers have the pack for a week, maybe several weeks before its release and let them play through it and report all the bugs they are getting so the Sims team can fix the bugs before release? I'm not saying it will be completely bug-free on a wide release but maybe if they did that, they would not have had to do two emergency patches after the first main one...and still have a tons of bugs. I have every single pack. All expansions, All game packs, and all stuff packs. Not one pack of those packs had nearly the amount of bugs than we have received with Eco Lifestyle.

Just a thought. To use the game-changers as their test audience for bugs and not just to promote their packs and get buyers.

I appreciate all the sims team and the gurus and all they do. I believe they work hard in putting out quality packs but this roll-out has been subpar.

I've actually thought this same thing for awhile. They have a whole large group getting the pack early anyways, let them have it just a little earlier and let them play test since they're playing it anyways.

The Game Changers are definitely not paid... They make that abundantly clear in their videos.

I think in some ways they do use the Game Changers as a test audience... Lil Simsie discovered the issue with the balcony in one of the new apartments in one her videos, and by release they had made changes to how the balcony works (whether that change was a good or bad thing is a separate issue and there is a thread discussing it, but clearly there must be some kind of awareness of bugs identified during Game Changer play by the Sims team)

Advertisement. Building up some more hype with packs.

Not a paying job, since youtube is the only one that pays when you get those views climbing and getting into that Youtube algorium as well and hopefully getting ads, so it helps both parties.

The GC role is unpaid, at least directly by EA/Maxis. Whether you consider getting the pack free as payment is up for debate.
The earnings from being a GC come from the audience clicking on streams/videos/posts etc that are done with the pack in question.

Usually, they also get access to the pack early by way of Sims Camp (for expansion packs) where they can point out things that can still be fixed pre-release. Since they probably do that in-person to devs then, we don't get to see it as we did now when Sims Camp was remote - the GCs made a point of saying it was a pre-release build so not everything worked the same way.

As for "more bugs than before", that's debatable, since not every bug affects every player. And the more packs there are, the more likely they are to weird out depending on the combo.

Honestly, I don't think GCs and game testing - the technical side - should be merged. If anything, it would be great to have a larger QA/testing team and maybe a more extensive and more accessible playtesting program (right now, if you're not in the right country, you're out of luck). QA is a big job and while there are people who'd be willing to do it for free or just for free content for their games, it's probably not a good idea to set that precedent.
(Signed, former software tester whose job was worth a regular wage)

Don't some games have testing though that aren't paid testing? Pretty sure I can sign up to beta test for WoW (when they have something ready) and I wouldn't be paid. *shrugs*

I totally get that the game changers aren't getting paid, but they are getting the game earlier than everyone else so why not let them have it just a little bit earlier and they can test it. They don't have to force them to do it but I bet a lot just would anyways, for free. So long as they still got to record and use the content to make videos after all the embargoes are lifted.

This year instead of Sims camp they had pre-release versions of Eco Lifestyle that they were able to access for a short time back in mid May. At that point a couple of them (note - I only watch a couple) were pointing out some bugs and errors. In a few cases those were fixed by the release date, in others I've seen James specifically take note of some things that hadn't changed. So they did (and typically do) have time to provide feedback to the devs but whether that's acted on or not is out of their control. (And they also did get the full release a couple of days early to be able to do what amounts to free advertising.)