I’m hoping that EA can learn what NOT to do with Sims 5 by looking at how they mangled 4. It could go either way in my opinion. Simmers aren’t the only ones complaining about drops in quality, bizarre design decisions and just a general lack of awareness with their core titles. Star Wars, Battlefront and FIFA are the first to come to mind and I’m sure there’s more where that came from. The Sims is far from being an isolated issue.
The difference between good developers and bad developers is that good developers actually listen to complaints and constructive criticism and make changes to the product accordingly. Bad developers shift the blame to something or someone other than themselves, accuse the customer for not using the product “correctly” and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Switch out developers for companies and you have the same story. Both stories are currently at play here.
Right now there are no immediate, long lasting consequences for all the bad PR and terrible decisions EA makes, so there’s no incentive for them to change. As long as the executives at the top are scraping in their share of the $$$ they don’t care if the rest of the company is going up in flames. Doesn’t mean that everything is beyond repair, but it seems a massive shift in company culture would have to occur before we see any real effects trickle down into the games themselves.
