Should The Sims start catering more for the AFOTS?

I don't think it's moving back in time at all. I mean woohooing several Sims isn't a moral thing of the past. Sims in the past wouldn't have that type of activity if they didn't love a Sim and have high relationship points. Heck TS1 the wife and husband wouldn't even actually sleep in same bed the first night because relationship points were not high enough. So, no it's not moving backwards, but a cut scene or a make out session on a couch is too much for TS4 when it's ok to woohoo anyone and every one without consequence. None of it makes sense to me. And adult doesn't mean about sex, but gameplay. Like someone just mentioned about groceries, they should at least run out of groceries and get off their duffs and get some groceries from a store or order them or something. It's way too easy peasy. And by that I don't mean gaining skills Maxis etc. I mean gameplay and life simulation. People have to buy groceries don't they? lol They don't magically pay the fridge to they? (Not yet, lol).

"Cinebar;c-17411147" wrote:
I don't think it's moving back in time at all. I mean woohooing several Sims isn't a moral thing of the past. Sims in the past wouldn't have that type of activity if they didn't love a Sim and have high relationship points. Heck TS1 the wife and husband wouldn't even actually sleep in same bed the first night because relationship points were not high enough. So, no it's not moving backwards, but a cut scene or a make out session on a couch is too much for TS4 when it's ok to woohoo anyone and every one without consequence. None of it makes sense to me. And adult doesn't mean about sex, but gameplay. Like someone just mentioned about groceries, they should at least run out of groceries and get off their duffs and get some groceries from a store or order them or something. It's way too easy peasy. And by that I don't mean gaining skills Maxis etc. I mean gameplay and life simulation. People have to buy groceries don't they? lol They don't magically pay the fridge to they? (Not yet, lol).

I hate this fist pump but I also hate cut scenes, haha! They annoy me as you can't do anything during them.I want to play a game, not watch TV.

Sims 4 is my favourite, but Sims 2 has better animations interact with each other better. I wish that'd be brought to Sims 4 in the form of animations but not Sims 2 personalities which I don't like. I think the animations could make it more mature and yes def things like grocery shopping, banking, maybe kids who need the parents help and influence abit more often and free babies,and to-do lists, maybe even caring for elderly parents, child support, joint custody of kids (have kids go back and forth if parents aren't married.. optional of course for players on short life span or100 baby challenge or just not wanting this), etc etc. THat's what I'd like to see added anyways haha

I believe an appropriate age range for the sims is age 13-60. It is not a game for young children. The related series "My Sims" with the cube-like people is for little children, just like My Sims the 2007 game. I loved that game as a child.

I think The Sims should continue what they have been doing since Sims 1. It always has been slightly edgy but it never crossed the line into what would be M rated. The series has always followed a quasi-reality, meaning it is realistic to real life, but introduces a touch of fantasy to make it a game and more appropriate. For example, look at the way the series have handled crime. Crime can include horrible things that I will not mention here, but the game made crime game appropriate by having a burglar rob the house and get into a cartoon-style fight with the police (even in a comedic way) or the unsavory charlatan pickpocket you. I have noticed that Sims 4 has moved towards political correctness and appropriate for young children, when that is not what the series originally intended. I believe that is a shame.

I think adults need a quasi-reality game that will appeal to them. I never enjoyed violent video games, but I enjoy The Sims as it is a nice constructive game with the right touch of adult content, but not in a way that is overt to children.

I miss the touches of reality where in Sims 2, if you didn't go grocery shopping, there would be no food. Sims 4 seems to be missing the chores that keep life going. The game could use a few situations that you should react to, such as when the unsavory charlatan shows up, you should leave or stay away from him. Let me also emphasize that whatever the unsavory charlatan and burglar does to you is an annoyance, but never anything devastating. In the sims 4, nothing can ever happen to you.

"Anthonydyer;c-17411250" wrote:
I believe an appropriate age range for the sims is age 13-60. It is not a game for young children. The related series "My Sims" with the cube-like people is for little children, just like My Sims the 2007 game. I loved that game as a child.

I think The Sims should continue what they have been doing since Sims 1. It always has been slightly edgy but it never crossed the line into what would be M rated. The series has always followed a quasi-reality, meaning it is realistic to real life, but introduces a touch of fantasy to make it a game and more appropriate. I have noticed that Sims 4 has moved towards political correctness and appropriate for young children, when that is not what the series originally intended. I believe that is a shame.

I think adults need a quasi-reality game that will appeal to them. I never enjoyed violent video games, but I enjoy The Sims as it is a nice constructive game with the right touch of adult content, but not in a way that is overt to children.

I miss the touches of reality where in Sims 2, if you didn't go grocery shopping, there would be no food. Sims 4 seems to be missing the chores that keep life going.

So it's inappropriatefor 61+? haha

As a parent personally feel it's around 13+now though. Maybe I'd let a mature 12 year old play.

"Hestia;c-17402524" wrote:
I think they should. I don't think Will Wright's original intention was to target children. I am actually happy that they made Sim spin-offs for younger ones, such as My Sims. I think they should continue to keep games like that and develop them so that the original franchise doesn't lose the original touch.

Bachelor parties? The Sims 4 could never!

Look at those facial expressions. The emotions... the happiness of each Sim. None of this emotions system was ever needed. In my opinion... these Sims were a lot smarter back then.

I don't want an "adult-rated" game like The Witcher. If I want to play that fantastic game, I'll open it up. I just want the original feel of The Sims back in the franchise again.

@Hestia I agree. The Sims 4 has become watered down, perhaps as an effort to appeal to more people, but they are losing touch with what made the game great in the first place. I don't believe The Sims targets young children either. I started playing when I was 14. By that age, I had more of an appreciation for the tools and gameplay and an understanding on why things are the way they are. For example, imagine an 8 year old trying to build a house. Not going to end well. The building tools are also watered down. Now I acknowledge that they did introduce some good things, such as wall heights but there are missing features from the sims 2 and 3; TS4 focuses too much on prefabricated content and causes havoc on builders like myself. The spinoff, My Sims is an appropriate game for young children and I would encourage EA to continue with both series.

I let my 8 year old play TS4 without mods. She gets more enjoyment out of it than I do. IMO the "teen" rating doesn't stand with this iteration. Eveything is drastically dumbed down. Nothing happens without you making it so, sometimes sims don't even go through with actions you've told them to do. Go empty your bladder, no, I think I'm going to go take a nap instead. However if they went back to their roots I'd agree with the teen rating. My daughter has asked to play two that's a heavy nope wait till your 13 then ask.

"BoergeAarg61;c-17411201" wrote:

"king_of_simcity7;d-972487" wrote:
Adult fans of The Sims.

Should they be catered for? One of my concerns with TS4 is that it is aimed at the younger crowds which is all very well but that age group will grow up at times and adding to the ever growing adult fans. I am not saying that the game as to be all mature but it should be taken into account that there are a lot of adult players.

I am a 58 years old Dane. I prefer playing TS4 to relax and watch the sims as a kind of show with options to influence the game play. I prefer the clear destinction between game and real life.

From my point of view, a mature variant of TS4 is called Real Life.

That's the whole point, Sims 4 is less of a game and more of a show like you put it. A show in which nothing happens. I appreciate for many people it's enough that they turned it into some kind of show (they indeed said so, they called it a soap I believe, instead of life simulation), but where's the interaction, where's the depth, where's the gameplay. It's all paint, preset and devs telling us their story. It's not a game, it's pushing around sims. Again, it's great when you find that relaxing and sufficient, but it's also tame and for many people very boring.

The other day I played an early Sims version where the 1st indication of loading was the spinning EA disk and the vocal 'EA Games, challenge everything!'. The way the game is now the only challenge is staying awake while playing. Not a problem with the older versions.

I can't remember where I heard this, but I remember someone mentioning that an interview with someone on the sims staff said that EA isn't worried about long-time players, because "we just buy all the packs anyways" and they're focusing on bringing in new players.

But take that with a grain of salt because I can't remember my source of that information so it's pretty much just gossip.

Honestly, I see it though. Even someone in this thread already mentioned that they buy packs just to complete the collection. If the game is selling well, that's telling EA that it's a good game and they should keep doing what they're doing.

Also, I think a big consumer focus is on younger people that have a problem with micro-transactions. There are a lot of really crazy people out there. I play an MMORPG where people will pay $1k real life money just for a single material to craft a weapon. There are plenty of people that spend that type of money on mobile games as well. Those are the people Sims 4 is catering to, imo, and as long as people keep buying the packs that's how it's going to stay. Older fans are not a concern to them at all. Even if they do lose us eventually, as long as they get micro-transaction-addicted teens / YAs on board, they're probably going to be happy with that.

"Anthonydyer;c-17411250" wrote:
I believe an appropriate age range for the sims is age 13-60. It is not a game for young children. The related series "My Sims" with the cube-like people is for little children, just like My Sims the 2007 game. I loved that game as a child.

I think The Sims should continue what they have been doing since Sims 1. It always has been slightly edgy but it never crossed the line into what would be M rated. The series has always followed a quasi-reality, meaning it is realistic to real life, but introduces a touch of fantasy to make it a game and more appropriate. For example, look at the way the series have handled crime. Crime can include horrible things that I will not mention here, but the game made crime game appropriate by having a burglar rob the house and get into a cartoon-style fight with the police (even in a comedic way) or the unsavory charlatan pickpocket you. I have noticed that Sims 4 has moved towards political correctness and appropriate for young children, when that is not what the series originally intended. I believe that is a shame.

I think adults need a quasi-reality game that will appeal to them. I never enjoyed violent video games, but I enjoy The Sims as it is a nice constructive game with the right touch of adult content, but not in a way that is overt to children.

I miss the touches of reality where in Sims 2, if you didn't go grocery shopping, there would be no food. Sims 4 seems to be missing the chores that keep life going. The game could use a few situations that you should react to, such as when the unsavory charlatan shows up, you should leave or stay away from him. Let me also emphasize that whatever the unsavory charlatan and burglar does to you is an annoyance, but never anything devastating. In the sims 4, nothing can ever happen to you.

Wholeheartedly agree! The series used to be so good at balancing that "acceptable for pretty much everyone" basic gameplay with raunchier jokes that more "mature" players could enjoy, but which never crossed the line into being inappropriate. As a kid playing the Sims 1, I was aware of stuff like the heart-bed and hot tub and maybe got a few childish laughs from them but they never phased me, it wasn't like I was scarred for life at the implication of two simulated people having a fun time. I largely ignored stuff like that and focused on the aspects of the game that appealed to me, and in that way I see the older sims games as something that everyone can enjoy, as opposed to Sims 4 which I see as mostly just a game for kids and teens (and even those teens are likely to get bored with it after a while).

As you stated, things like the burglar did great at taking a negative, sometimes tragic event that happens in real life and representing it in a cartoony, even fun way which was inoffensive and added depth and challenge to the game. Even then it wasn't that challenging, me and my cousins got in the habit of just slapping burglar alarms outside our homes so the police would come pretty much the moment the burglar spawned on the lot, but it was still an extra layer of gameplay that kept things interesting. I see nothing like this in 4, there is no challenge, nothing even remotely risqué, it's become sanitized to the point of no longer representing real life, and to me personally, that's freaking BORING.

I echo other posters' sentiment in not wanting the game to become "mature" to the point of having to up the rating, but as I see it, there's literally no chance of that ever happening so why worry about it? As I see it, there's no chance of them even returning to the risqué but harmless fun of the previous games. I miss the days of Will Wright and adding subtly humorous little details into the game. I have no problem with the silly walkstyles and whatnot, I can take some immature humor, but did we really have to can the mature humor to make room for it? I miss when this game was fun for everyone.

Heck, just look at the Urbz. idk where y'all stand on the urbz but as limited as it was, I LOVED that game, and it makes me sad knowing EA would likely never put out a sims game like that ever again. Sims with their thongs showing, throwing up gang signs, taming ferrets (...on second thought, the ferret taming can stay in the past), romancing sims to get info out of them, the "suck face" interaction... all things that we will likely never see again in a sims game under this new direction. It's insulting not just to longtime players who enjoyed the old content, but to new players as well, as if they couldn't "handle" the old sims games and need to have their hand held through a life simulator which feels more like a Stepford Wives simulator than anything else.