"Writin_Reg;c-16430926" wrote:
"Erpe;c-16430902" wrote:
To me Cats&Dogs looked like a pack that should have been sold as a GP because it seemed too small as an EP. But EA had decided to still release one EP each year and therefore chose to sell it as a GP even though it had less animals and stuff compared to the earlier Pets EPs.
We can’t force EA to make more EPs again instead of all the SPs and GPs when the smaller and cheaper packs sell better. So we need to accept that traditional EPs will be split up in GPs plus SPs in the future. The problem for me is that EA has hesitated to make this change total and therefore has released EPs that are so small that they should have been made as GPs instead. Maybe this will be corrected when TS5 is released?
I doubt it, from some articles I have been reading about all companies doing this and going with live service like this - even steam is doing - Paradox is even doing it, - you name the big games and this is the trend. EA actually sounds new to the game in these reflection and articles I have been reading - and there has been some furor here and there - but it sounds like especially for even online games that offer single player campaignes this is the way they deliver content is have smaller expansions - some even taking 2 years to come out to refresh the game - then selling addition small packs (one called it flavour packs to add more flavor and choice to an expansion) that expanded the expansions at 5 -25 dollar a small pack - some added more maps, others just stuff. I knew Fall Out 4 has been doing it - but was surprised to hear some of the others like the Witcher etc doing it too - it says several of EA games are finally doing this - Dragon Age - Mass Effects - Battlefield, Anthem-.
But it also works well with Seasons passes where players can pay in advance for all the content coming for the year (sight unseen no less) or they can buy the ep and each flavour pack for it separately. I guess the live service on all will also include regular patches, some free content, and monthly fixes. EA is just new to the game apparently.
EA has talked a lot about live services too. But mainly for its action games and sports games where EA has said that they don’t want to release a new version each year anymore but instead will turn them into live services.
Ubisoft is doing the same and describes live service as something that turns console focus into multi-platform focus.
EA never mentions the Sims games when they talk about live services. But the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile are already live services anyway.
The problem for TS4 just is that it isn’t an online game where you have a lot of ingame friends which you can play with inside the game. Beside that the game companies omit to tell people that their are two other things that motivate them to create live services instead of traditional games:
1. Online games require a game server and can’t be played anymore if they close it down because they are switching to a new version of the game. So doing this could make many gamers very angry and provoke some of them into refusing to buy the new games.
2. The game companies want to make online games instead of offline games because they then also can earn a huge amount of money from ingame advertising - just like many TV channels do.
But TS4 will never become an online game and therefore can’t work as a real live service anyway. Also the big Sims games earn a lot of money to EA because they have this huge number of packs (SPs, GPs and EPs) which no other games have. Yes other games have had one or two packs too. But no other games have had 15-30 packs like the Sims games have. Therefore the Sims games for PCs are very special and EA could lose a lot of money from turning them into live services too.
The problem is that a game like TS2, TS3 or TS4 can’t have new packs forever if the packs still must have the same huge sales numbers. It isn’t a problem if most of the new content is free content in updates. But new simmers won’t just buy 10 years of old packs when they start playing the game. Therefore old packs give EA more and more problems the older the game becomes because what should EA then do? Options are:
1. Do nothing. But then more and more new simmers will just give up on the game or decide not to buy packs or only very few packs.
2. Let packs become free if they are more than 5 years old? But then a huge number of simmers will just wait for the packs to become free instead of buying them.
3. Discount old packs? But then new simmers will just buy old packs instead of the new ones.
None of those things are solutions for EA. Therefore EA has always instead solved the problem with too many old packs just by releasing a new basegame after 5 years and I don’t think that EA will stop doing this before the PC versions of Sims games become online multiplayer games too where we are playing with our ingame friends. But is EA ready to make that change even for TS5? Won’t it be better for EA just to let the Sims games for mobile devices be live services and keep selling packs for only 5 years for the PC versions of Sims games even if EA change all its action games and sports games into live services too?
