Sims 4's development is ending?

"mirta000;c-16349796" wrote:
And yet those would not be required if we had a satisfying tunable game :P
Instead we have something that can't even do ground elevation, while this is a quick footage thrown together of an indie building title:

https://ksr-video.imgix.net/projects/3178856/video-857566-h264_high.mp4

can at least do HILLS

Again, you seem to under the impression that I'm in favor of The Sims 4's engine just because I've mentioned the short comings of Frostbite. That is not the case. NEITHER of those engines would/should be used. They're both far too limiting.

I don't think EA is spending millions on physical distribution considering that unlike indies they're selling through their own store and stuff packs got cut out of physical distribution entirely.

One, I'm not just talking about The Sims, and two I'm lumping everything together that isn't part of the core development (programming, animation, etc) but beyond people don't seem to understand production costs for games, how things are broken down, etc.

For example back in 2013 the 2D indie fighting game Skullgirls put up a $150,000 Kickstarter to add a single new character to their game. People said that they were being greedy, asking for too much, and so on. The devs then released the breakdown of the costs and why they were asking for that amount of money...

"Trying to raise at least $150,000 was picked for a very specific reason: it was the money Lab Zero Games needed. Often, crowdfunding projects will ask for roughly half of what it actually needs to complete what it’s really promising. There is a psychological effect to crowdfunding, and people want to back a winner. A winner is likely to exceed its funding goal, and get closer to its real goal. The Skullgirls developers actually broke down development costs, hoping to persuade people this was reality:

$48,000: Staff Salaries - 8 people for 10 weeks
$30,000: Animation and Clean-up Contracting
$4,000: Voice recording
$2,000: Hit-box Contracting
$5,000: Audio Implementation Contracting
$20,000: QA Testing
$10,000: 1st Party Certification
$10,500: IndieGoGo and Payment Processing Fees
$20,500: Manufacturing and Shipping Physical Rewards"

https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/the-little-fighting-game-that-could/1100-4587/

In my experience employee salaries are the costs the most often gets over looked by the public.

Now what do you think those numbers are for something is for a team of 50 to 100 people working on a game for a couple of years at a major studio in 2018?

Most games, if they even come with a box, will not have as much as a disc, when if you look back at early 2000s, all physically distributed games came with massive books inside the least, with maps and little extras the most.

For some PC games, but not console games.

Yet after cutting out the physical aspect, the game price went up, not down, for your average consumer.

Yeah because game development costs continued to rise.

If the only reason you think game development prices increased to a point where The Sims 2 is no longer possible is marketing costs, I think that the gaming industry should re-think where it's spending its money.

No, that isn't what I was saying.

No, the assumption that I ever implied that The Sims 5 will be undeniably good.

I was pointing out how ridiculous it is that people want EA to move onto The Sims 5 because The Sims 4 is/was bad when everything out there pretty much points to the notion that based on EA's current track record a Sims 5 would most likely not be great either.

because a game that costs something like 500$ + as entry fee is just not very inviting to new consumers

I don't know, it doesn't seem that expensive...

https://imgur.com/a/a10cL

meaning you either sequel, or you bury the franchise.

And in the case of The Sims the ladder is more likely just as it was with Sim City. There's a better chance at this point that they take a break from The Sims franchise than there is a chance of them doing a full on sequel.

I do realize that a lot of people here are waiting for the burial of franchise, but a little optimism in life is good, no?

Sure, but look at the information that's out there and on top of that also consider these things that also haven't been brought up yet...

- There's an EA Play event that people are expecting The Sims 5 to be announced at in June. EA Play is EA's public part of E3. Why would EA announce The Sims 5 there and not on their press conference stage at E3 where they make all their big announcements?

- Since when has the Sims Team or EA ever been good about keeping things under wraps regarding The Sims in recent years? When was the last time a pack didn't leak out before it was announced? Is it Assassin's Creed or The Sims that has the record for being the leakiest franchise in history at this point?

These are just more things that spring to mind when thinking about the Sims 5 and why it seems so unlikely right now or even in a year or two.