SimGuru Silence on Twitter: When Will They Respond?

I don't really even know exactly which controversy to which the poll refers, and honestly I don't care. It's hard to be deafened by silence when you're not in the hall (Twitter, in this case), for one thing. And for another, I find it difficult to care about or even take seriously anyone with so much free time that they can whinge about a game on social media when there's so much going on in the world of so much more importance, which merits far, far more attention right now.

"Pamtastic72;c-18070932" wrote:
Not only do I think they likely won’t address it, I think the era of high direct community engagement is over. @Babykittyjade has made some great points. They tried to engage, and they tried to deliver on this community’s ever changing and never ending wishlist only to be used a human punching bags. I think they will rarely now return to Twitter if they return at all, and honestly I don’t blame them. This community asked for more engagement and transparency and the gurus obliged and for their troubles they were verbally abused, harassed, and insulted. No explanation they gave would suffice, no improvement they made was adequate. They were summarily stripped of their humanity and their dignity and for what? A game, an idle distraction, a past time pursuit. It’s been disgusting and disheartening to watch. The good side of this community is very good, the dark side however is horrifying and heartbreaking.

Yeah I'm sad that simguruninja seemed to not be active anymore and I don't blame him since I think he was getting death threats. But he was the most active and helpful guru, even more active than the community manager. But it could be because a previous cm was stalked and threatened.

"kaiwrysims;c-18070958" wrote:

"Pamtastic72;c-18070932" wrote:
Not only do I think they likely won’t address it, I think the era of high direct community engagement is over. @Babykittyjade has made some great points. They tried to engage, and they tried to deliver on this community’s ever changing and never ending wishlist only to be used a human punching bags. I think they will rarely now return to Twitter if they return at all, and honestly I don’t blame them. This community asked for more engagement and transparency and the gurus obliged and for their troubles they were verbally abused, harassed, and insulted. No explanation they gave would suffice, no improvement they made was adequate. They were summarily stripped of their humanity and their dignity and for what? A game, an idle distraction, a past time pursuit. It’s been disgusting and disheartening to watch. The good side of this community is very good, the dark side however is horrifying and heartbreaking.

Yeah I'm sad that simguruninja seemed to not be active anymore and I don't blame him since I think he was getting death threats. But he was the most active and helpful guru, even more active than the community manager. But it could be because a previous cm was stalked and threatened.

I miss him a lot. He was always so affable and funny.

"kaiwrysims;c-18070958" wrote:

"Pamtastic72;c-18070932" wrote:
Not only do I think they likely won’t address it, I think the era of high direct community engagement is over. @Babykittyjade has made some great points. They tried to engage, and they tried to deliver on this community’s ever changing and never ending wishlist only to be used a human punching bags. I think they will rarely now return to Twitter if they return at all, and honestly I don’t blame them. This community asked for more engagement and transparency and the gurus obliged and for their troubles they were verbally abused, harassed, and insulted. No explanation they gave would suffice, no improvement they made was adequate. They were summarily stripped of their humanity and their dignity and for what? A game, an idle distraction, a past time pursuit. It’s been disgusting and disheartening to watch. The good side of this community is very good, the dark side however is horrifying and heartbreaking.

Yeah I'm sad that simguruninja seemed to not be active anymore and I don't blame him since I think he was getting death threats. But he was the most active and helpful guru, even more active than the community manager. But it could be because a previous cm was stalked and threatened.

Honestly it's sad ? he removed his photo and went dark. He was always so sweet and kind to everyone. He's the most fun when new packs come out he always has something in his house related to the pack ?. I know some time ago he used to be even more active then he was, retweeting a lot of simmer content and engaging but he got bullied into staying quiet and started only being active around the time of new content. I feel like this was the last straw and I feel really sad for them. Many of them have kids, imagine their kids when they are old enough to get online, some probably already are,and see all of these death threats and negativity surrounding their parents for a job they do. Then that effects the children and they could get hurt by it.
And to make it worse I've seen several simmers say "bullying works let's keep pushing them." And a bunch of people supporting this ideology.
I cannot condone bullying in any shape or form and as much as people try to make EA out to be some evil overlord corporation the gurus have become victims.
I just want the gurus to do whatever is mentally best for them even if that means we won't get to interact with them. Self care comes first ❤
And the last thing I would want them to sacrifice for is a video game. I can't enjoy something off of someone else's suffering. A lot of the joy I get from sims is the joy a lot them put into making it, and the excitement they feel finally revealing something fun they have been working hard on for a long time.
To share in that excitement and happiness together is what makes "the sims community."
And I understand that not everything is going to be happy happy joy joy ALL the time. But I feel like this is just getting ridiculous and beyond sad.

I suppose they will respond if there will be anything that they considered as bugged. They never fixed the NAPs simply because they work as intended and they have no intention if changing them. Same will happen with this pack. To me this pack seems geared towards story tellers, people who like to take pictures of their sims during wedding and family reunions and such, hence all the micromanagement with telling sims to go here, there and do this and that.

"temporalgod;c-18071032" wrote:

"Babykittyjade;c-18070917" wrote:
I think they are tired of the personal attacks/insults/cries for them to loose their job all the time. It's important for them to protect their mental health. I know last year a guru got called out for blocking simmers and everyone . Poor guy was literally protecting his mental health and trying to keep his sanity from player harassment. Then he got berated for blocking because apparently he's suppose to sit back quietly and take the attacks like a slave for simmers.

In my own personal opinion I kind of hope they don't respond. I wouldn't as a dev.
My mom always told me it's not "what" you say it's "how" you say it. If people have a problem there's no reason we can't all sit down and discuss like civilized adults. But that's not what I saw/see happening on social media.
I also question the tons of players I saw on Twitter very aware of potential bugs reviewed by game changers and tons of warnings. Yet they still brought the pack and then proceeded to curse out gurus.
I don't think people understand they are not obligated to do or say anything. They could be like
A lot of other gaming companies not engage at all no matter what your problem is.

I also take into consideration they are working from home. There is nobody in my life that I know who has not been affected by the ongoing pandemic, jobs especially, as if work is not stressful enough on it's own.
And even if things did not come out exactly as they had hoped with the pack I acknowledge the fact that they tried. And I can appreciate the intention and what they put into it.
Sorry if this is not the answer people want to hear but I don't agree with how the whole thing has been handled by players and I feel the way I feel. Plus with all that said they probably need permission from managers or whoever to say exactly what higher ups want. Things they say can affect the whole company they can't just say anything. It's up to whoever is in charge to decide how they want to proceed, if and what they want to respond.

And the funny/sad part is, regardless of what they say or how they respond they will be met with animosity either way. Gurus have issued apologies in the past only to be called fake and condescending. They can't win no matter what they do. So if they never respond I'd be okay with it.

Blocking isn't going to help their mental health, all it does is add more fuel to the fire, blocking just makes you look cowardly and weak, all it tells me is that the other person won the argument, If the Gurus need to protect their mental health all they have to do is take breaks from social media, when I post something controversial on Twitter, I'm not going to delete it or block the people I may have angered, I'm either going to take those insults like a man or Ignore them entirely since their opinions don't matter to me, just go on Twitter once or twice a day, don't spend an entire day on that cesspool of a social media platform, once you're done looking at your notifications just turn it off for rest of the day.

Blocking someone prevents them from interacting with you so it definitely does help for some people. I've blocked many ppl on Twitter for that reason and I mean ppl are allowed to block whoever they want. It can be helpful for some people and not helpful for others.

I mean I kinda hate the whole narrative around blocking because it's made my social media experience a lot more enjoyable. I don't have to justify any reason to block someone I can just block them for the stupidest reasons and it doesn't matter because ppl should be allowed to shape their experience how they want. But that's just my opinion on blocking.

Tbh I think the problem is that what community needs right now isn't addressing the controversy
twitter mess and confusion

what we need is just simple announcement "we know game is buggy laggy glitchy mess and we will sort it out asap thanks for your patience hoping to have fix to by get back to you then"

none of the emotional roller coaster lets just have solid announcement and people working on the real problem that is broken game not players broken hearts

once the game is fixed the controversy is also naturally fixed

This is all on EA. They place the gurus to be friendly with the "community" by communicating the good, the bad and the hype in that wasteland called Twitter et al. At the same time, they expose them to receive the brunt of EA's mistakes. I would have reduced the sim gurus social media presence from the start. Even completely eliminate it. Leave all news and "hype" to The Sims official accounts.

"Simmingal;c-18071042" wrote:
Tbh I think the problem is that what community needs right now isn't addressing the controversy
twitter mess and confusion

what we need is just simple announcement "we know game is buggy laggy glitchy mess and we will sort it out asap thanks for your patience hoping to have fix to by get back to you then"

none of the emotional roller coaster lets just have solid announcement and people working on the real problem that is broken game not players broken hearts

once the game is fixed the controversy is also naturally fixed

It's not as simple as saying it's a buggy glitchy laggy mess. I don't have a lot of the issues that other simmers report, there are differences between playing on console, laptop and pc. They can only fix bugs that they can recreate on their system in an entirely unmodded game, and actually right now they aren't even on their official system, they're on their home computers which may play the game differently than the computers in the studio. I know for a fact that a some of people complaining about lag, glitches and bugs are not being honest about their mod status or their system specs. I don't believe for one second that the gurus don't care about the player base or the game. Their livelihoods and ability to provide for their families depends on the game running smoothly and customers being satisfied. I also think that considering they have been pretty open with us regarding timelines for pack development people should consider the fact that MWS is bugged yes, but it's also likely the first pack they have tried to start to finish isolated from one another working from home.

Edit to add: controversy is one thing, but some gurus have had to endure insults, bullying, and actual threats and I am so so so tired of that being justified by players on behalf of som bugs, glitches, and lag.

The problem is they aren’t going to fix the issues, I think the mess that is TS4 is way above what the team can handle.. there’s already bugs and janky packs that have never been fixed up until this point regardless of weddings. EA think they can just keep steamrolling busted content and they can - people still buy these broken and underwhelming packs.. I bet everyone still bought weddings despite its obviously broken, which just tells EA they can carry on. People are passionate about the sims and have a right to be mad about the current state of their favourite game. It’s a joke the way this game is managed.

But like others have mentioned it’s not right to attack individual gurus, EA put them in firing line by making them the public face of a bug riddled game. They have broken their duty of care for their staff. Ea knows what it’s doing tho, it takes heat off them at the expense of their staff.