Sims 4's development is ending?

"elelunicy;c-16350801" wrote:

When I say 200 I only count people listed in the credits who are full-time employees at The Sims Studio (i.e. the Redwood Shores location). The entire credits have like 400+ people if you count everyone.

SimGuruDrake for example is listed in the credits but I'm not counting her as she works for EA communication and not The Sims Studio.

The following positions are what I counted (including those listed under additional contributors as they work on TS4 but did not work on that particular pack; SimGuruGraham for example are always listed as additional contributors for EPs and GPs because he only works on stuff packs).

Producers
Development directors
Artists
Designers
Engineers
Audio director/editors (voice actors are not included)
Development QA testers working at The Sims studio (those who work at a different location don't count)

That's it. I don't include people like artists working at external studios, marketing people working at EA, or anyone on the localization team. It's absolutely accurate when I say roughly 200 full-time employees are working on TS4.

"Phuxion;c-1635073 wrote:

I'm talking about the difference in staff of when The Sims 4 was in full on production compared to the size of the Sims 4 team now. It's not anywhere close

Yes it's very close. Your idea that many people left since TS4's launch and thus only of fraction of people are left is very wrong. I remember SimGuruRachel reported that there were over 100 people working on TS4 back when TS4 was first announced (the game obviously was in full-production at the time). There are still easily 100+ people working on TS4 now.

First of all, I want to tell you about the team behind the scenes. We have over 100 people working on The Sims 4 and many of them are the names that you recognize behind The Sims 3.

Source: http://forums.thesims.com/en_us/discussion/comment/10739760/#Comment_10739760

Look maybe you're right and I'm completely wrong about the staff size, but you need to keep in mind you are counting the number of employees as a total vs positions. For example if the marketing staff of a team has doubled in sized since X game came out that doesn't mean said team has the right people required/needed for making the game. In other words a team might have the numbers but not the actual people required or needed to start a new game.

The other part that you're overlooking is the staff sized required to make The Sims 4 in it's development era versus what would be required today. You're also not taking into account that the staff/team that produced The Sims 4 put out what many people consider a unfinished and lackluster base game and so if the development team is currently around the same size with all the right people in all the right places they would at best have a hard time making something equivalent to The Sims 4 now let a lone what people expect from a The Sims 5.

What are the most demanded features from The Sims 4 or a Sims 5? Open world is probably the most requested thing right? If not it's definitely top 5. That one feature alone is a significant under taking for a game, especially a life simulator.

If what The Sims 4 delivered wasn't enough then the expectation of what people are demanding a Sims 5 to be would require a significant investment on EA's part & staffing up the studio(s) beyond the current pool of employees. There's no way around those things, and this all goes back to why would EA do that when/if The Sims 4 was considered underwhelming, not only in sales but by the public?

It's like them starting a production of a Star Wars: The Old Republic 2. Why would EA do that at this point given the decline of the MMO genre, the fact that the game didn't perform the way they expected to, etc? There's no angle where it would make financial sense for them to do such a thing.