Sims 4: Pay for DLCs, or postpone new DLCs for bug fixes? No happy middle.

"Oldeseadogge;c-18161787" wrote:

"SimsLovinLycan;c-18159823" wrote:
The bugs have gotten completely out of hand. Between that, the player railroading, and the half-baked female werewolf customization, it's almost like either a) the devs don't want to work on this game anymore or b) EA is trying to kill the franchise. Really, the amount of problems with TS4 are really starting to look like the gaming equivalent of shoving a show into The Friday Night Death Slot.

If some of the youtuber reports are remotely accurate it may be both. The gist of the several seen is that working conditions are miserable, pay is low, QA is all but ignored (only 6 QA types for the latest pack), and the focus being on quick revenue for minimal investment. I know EA is a business, but if a business produces an inferior product with lousy support buyers will eventually take their $ elsewhere. When was the last time you visited a Yugo showroom? The various claims about TS$ being around for years more notwithstanding, it is increasingly obvious EA doesn't care.

That's a good point. EA is notorious for killing both studios and franchises, usually milking the cow for all it's worth as they run it through the slaughterhouse. Combine that with the way the company treats its employees and the fact that the company has basically designated The Sims as a "girl game" (the gaming industry is notoriously half-hearted about the development and final quality of games aimed at female audiences, with many ending up as mindless shovelware titles)...and you can see how the box of figs to be given became empty around here.

My suspicion is that there will be no TS5. They'll milk TS4 for all it's worth in its current "Friday Night Death Slot of Gaming" state until they either can't add anything else to it without making it too bloated to function or a pack comes out that fails to make back more than a certain amount above its development budget. At that point, they'll cancel the whole franchise, what's left of Maxis will be dissolved just like the other studios EA has killed, and simmers will have to cross their fingers that Paralives or a similar spiritual successor will fill the void.