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. Considering that the game is 20 years old this year there is now people still playing the game who have aged 20 years. These players are more likely to only the older games rather than the brash humour of TS4 but they are a valuable market. I would like the next Sims game to take AFOTS into account and not just focus on the preteens who might only get bored of the game after a year or two. Creative features are defiantly requested by mature players. Silly walk styles and potty humour are not. We are players with money and EA will do well if they started to cater more for the AFOTS. :smile: Discuss...

Well, the wide range of players is both a sales blessing and a challenge. I think that making the game more narrow oriented (Adult or child oriented) could be a mistake.But I belive that the Sims could take advantage of multi-pack nature to cater both. With something like flavor packs, like an adult flavor pack with adult patches. So there could be two flavor versions of the game.

Hello Simmers! May I ask AFOTS means? please explain, thanks?

"Patrice;c-17400783" wrote:Hello Simmers! May I ask AFOTS means? please explain, thanks?Adult fans of The Sims. I didn't know either, but it's mentioned in the original post. so I think it is what it means :)

That depends on what "catering to adult fans" means. If it means more focus on family play rather than just YA Sims, sure, but I don't want to see The Sims add raunchier content than what was present in TS2 or TS3.

"@Alexciel;c-17400767" wrote:Well, the wide range of players is both a sales blessing and a challenge. I think that making the game more narrow oriented (Adult or child oriented) could be a mistake.But I belive that the Sims could take advantage of multi-pack nature to cater both. With something like flavor packs, like an adult flavor pack with adult patches. So there could be two flavor versions of the game.Good suggestion :smile: "@Patrice;c-17400783" wrote:Hello Simmers! May I ask AFOTS means? please explain, thanks?Adult fans of The Sims :smile: "@TamakiSakura84;c-17400866" wrote:That depends on what "catering to adult fans" means. If it means more focus on family play rather than just YA Sims, sure, but I don't want to see The Sims add raunchier content than what was present in TS2 or TS3.The most ranchy game that we ever had was TS1 if you have ever seen this:https://static0.thegamerimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Sims-1-Cake-Dancers.jpeg?q=50&fit=crop&w=740&h=370

Should The Sims start catering more for the AFOTS?

92 Replies

OldeSimsFan
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
"lisamwitt;c-17433442" wrote:
"Oldeseadogge;c-17433186" wrote:
Must have been a mod. Never saw that in TS2. The closet dump is more than townies as I'm seeing it on regular premades and own simss. CAS is infected by it as well.

Strippers? They were in Sims 1 and 3. They didn't completely strip down and they were called entertainers, but they were clearly strippers.

That explains it, I don't do 3 & memories of 1 are old and dim. On the leggos, once saw a life-sized Darth Vader made of them, and it wasn't even in one of their stores. Have seen photos of a huge leggo mdel of the aircraft carrier Intrepid, complete with airplanes. Clearly there are advanced users of the product, and for them to be remembered and supported by the company speaks volumes. EA definitely has a lot to learn!
SEREFRAS
Legend
6 years ago
How is it that clothing with riska very revealing low cut is allowed but not a funny sim jumping out of a cake.
OldeSimsFan
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
The same inconsistent 'logic' that says dog houes are bad. They may try to defend themselves by saying that one is player choice and less blatent than the cake version. Problem with that is with the asset in game, it can easily appear (and in highly inappropriate situations) by the game, no player input involved.
king_of_simcity
6 years ago
"@SimsLovinLycan;c-17433369" wrote:
This is a good point. After all, even though LEGO is a company which primarily makes products for kids roughly 3 years old to 12 years old, they still do a lot for their adult fans too. They make advanced building kits with thousands of pieces that sell at a price point that only adults and working teens can afford, they sponsor building contests, they support artists who use LEGO bricks as their primary medium. In their LEGO films, they reference classic sets and older LEGO media (like the Gold Ninja joke in the Ninjago movie). They appreciate all of the fans, young and old, who've played with LEGO bricks over the generations, and they try to keep not just the kids and the teens and adults who are still into LEGO, but also older people who may not have touched anything LEGO in 15 or 20 years, but still have fond memories and warm feelings attached to the brand happy.

EA could and should be that way with The Sims: making sure that the game maintains that "T" rating so that kids can still buy it with their birthday money, but also keeping it challenging and exciting for adult fans of the series as well. There are lots of "T"-rated games that have a lot more edge and drama to them than TS4. Many of them are JRPG's, but still. Maintaining the "T" rating and making a game that kids can have fun with doesn't necessarily mean taking the fat out of the biscuit for older players. Most Final Fantasy games have the "T" rating, but also seriously tackle hard subjects like religion, politics, revenge, environmentalism, the value and meaning of life, what it is to be a person, racism, crime, and more. Even after shifting the battle system to "we don't feel like making a proper turn-based system, so let's just slap Kingdom Hearts' combat on it and call it a day," they still aren't afraid to "go there" with the stories. Imagine if Square/SquareEnix had decided, somewhere along the way, to make all FF stories "American Saturday Morning Time Slot Friendly as Recommended By 4Kids Entertainment." The series would have taken a terrible hit.

With a long-running series, you can't forget about your long-time fans. LEGO knows that, SquareEnix knows that...but EA has yet to learn this lesson.

It is said that Lego where losing a lot of sales in the 2000s. I think they changed how they looked at things. It is clear that TS4 had a slower start than hoped and so EA should take a leaf out of Lego's book in order to survive the long term.

Both TS2 and TS3 where successful as they still catered to traditional players while trying new features out as well. TS4 shut out a lot of players hence the slow sales.

20 years is a long time for a lot of players. We brought the first game, funded the second and by buying that we funded the third and the forth.

Why should I fund the fifth when the forth was thrown back in my face?
Cornwallfr
6 years ago
As an AFOTS, I know exactly what I'm missing here in TS4, but I would pay to have. Something as deep as TS3 'Roaring heights', which was IMO a success in terms of adult content, without being visually inappropriate for x age.
In that hood, you had several bad mariages in an era (1920's to 1940's) where divorce wasn't commonplace as today, which led to deceit, but also the family struggles of a widow, hidden homosexuality for status reasons, and so on...

In TS4, there's not a single adult-themed setup that comes at the top of my head; something I personally miss.

For the visuals, that's a different story. Yes, I'd personally like the cake-girl, or the 'goose' (that damn goose :D ) to make a comeback, but some of the things we'd like to see might very well force them to change their 'T rating' in 2020, as opposed to the 3 previous entries eras.
crocobaura
Legend
6 years ago
"Dijktafone;c-17443394" wrote:

For the visuals, that's a different story. Yes, I'd personally like the cake-girl, or the 'goose' (that ???? goose :D ) to make a comeback, but some of the things we'd like to see might very well force them to change their 'T rating' in 2020, as opposed to the 3 previous entries eras.

They only change the T rating to Mature if content becomes openly sexual, there is violence with blood, or some very strong language, which are very unlikely to be included in the Sims. The game is still T for teens but now they are catering more towards middle eastern payers who have a very different approach to sex and what is culturally and morally appropriate behavior. Hence, no more "goose" or cake dancers, or arm kissing.
kwanzaabot
6 years ago
I absolutely believe the Sims needs to cater more to their adult fans.

Whether that means more family play (YES), or raunchier content (YESSSSSS), either way I am down.
The cake dancers in TS1 are a great example. Compare them to the "Party Dancers" of TS3, where they literally just show up and dance, and spray champagne on people.

Steamier romance interactions would be a great start.
Cuddling in bed, "goosing" etc etc, as well as more woohoo locations, and more "adult" animations to go with them: the change booths in TS1 Hot Date are really steamy. Sims 4 could never!

I mean, look at this! You only see their faces and their feet, and the female Sim gets on her knees :o
Only for a second, but you'd never see something like that in a modern Sims game.
I am shocked!
Shocked and appalled!
And I love it!
https://youtu.be/qKYxwQ-UytY?t=141
IngeJones
6 years ago
The game could have a lot more serious themes without breaching the PEGI rating. I believe the rating they have can deal with most things including mental health problems, drug addiction etc. The things banned would be explicit and graphic woohoo, non-consensual woohoo, and extreme gory violence. It was an EA policy to keep this particular game reasonably light-hearted, not a ratings law. But I wonder if more gloomy or malevolent themes could come in an EP, which people who like a light hearted game can simply decide not to buy.
gamertherapy
6 years ago
"Cinebar;c-17407726" wrote:
As far as pc culture, I think I'm offended the Sims in this game thinks woohoo is not the deep, loving relationship you take with the person you love but just a chance to high five....as if it's just a day at the ballgame. Sometimes their priorities seem all messed up. It's ok to woohoo many different partners, multiple, (TS4) with no consequences (like in TS2 or even The Sims Medieval) but not ok to show a cut scene of the first woohoo. Some days they confuse me of what message they do try to send. Even TS2 Sims felt bad (memories) and some guilt for cheating. lol

I get your point, and happen to be a person to whom woohoo is sacrosanct in a committed, loving relationship. However, that is not the only norm out there and it's our tendency to universalize our own point of view. There are too many people who live in polyamory to ignore or push aside as "doing it wrong". There may not be only one best human social and/or reproductive strategy. My spouse and I are "eagles" in that we're high-fidelity and have no desire to be otherwise. But I know people who naively believe that's us just oppressing ourselves, because in innocently universalizing their own experience, they assume everyone is inclined to poly because they are. On the other hand, there are people who believe poly is an aberration. You see? If we could all recognize that there's more than one right way, we can stop judging others for living differently. Yes, the high-fiving and team spirit cheer attitude toward woohoo is kind of lame...it takes it away from being anything intense and special and makes it like considering going on a picnic.

But framing it as only an intense thing with great gravity, as it is for me and my spouse, and others like us, would exclude the multitudes for whom it is preferred as a lighthearted, much more casual activity.

I use Passionate Romance mods and other mods to fill in my game.
Kathykins
Seasoned Ace
6 years ago
I don't know what their target audience was before, really can't remember. I don't think "catering" to any specific group would be right. Just seemed that the game was aimed at ANYONE previously, and in my opinion (and I may of course be wrong), that was the right way to do it. Kids could play innocent games, and adults could spice things up and play on the edge. We could play the kind of game we wanted.

Now, the game is overly considerate, and holding our hands. Its tame. Its sunshine and rainbows, and happy happy sims. I wouldn't be surprised they took out or left out stuff because someone could get "offended" by it. People are so easily offended these days.

I could let my 10 year old niece jump into any of my families (after taking out my mods), and she would be safe. Eaxis is like our government, they give us laws and regulations, and limitations, to protect us from ourselves. The sims has lost its quirky silliness that made it the unique, fun game it was. Sure I still play it after 20 years, sure I have fun. I need mods to actually enjoy the game, though, to stop annoyances and add gameplay, not to mention townie "story" progression.

Do I want them to cater to AFOTS? Yes I do, but I want them to cater to everyone. Wasn't that the rating before? At least for TS1? E for everyone...? Can't get to my discs right now, but I'm pretty sure.
gilgalahad1313
Rising Novice
3 months ago
I essentially gave up playing it. After playing almost 20 hrs without issue, suddenly I'm constantly crashing with no error message. Not only that, i haven't checked for posts on it yet but my audio is crackling and distorting all the time, especially in heavy crowds, but not always. Sometimes during a battle my sound goes wonky. I'm disappointed that ea hasn't responded to these issues as mentioned above. Think I'll play something else till this crap is resolved.
HyperOps
Seasoned Novice
5 months ago
Update post patch 4: I honestly don't know if it's just me at this point or not but the game is still crashing and crashing Steam for me 😭. My friend has no issue with the game crashing on his PC so I don't know why my PC is being affected. EA_Illium tagging just in case Bioware is not aware that the game is still crashing for some people on PC...
LunaBEclipse
Seasoned Newcomer
5 months ago
Same here. Not sure if I should just wait until the next patch because it's been frustrating trying to just get the game to load after doing everything suggested.
80zf2d9mhmqp
Seasoned Novice
5 months ago
it made my crashes happen during the loading screen instead of in game.
NotQuesadilla
Rising Rookie
5 months ago
Me too.
HyperOps
Seasoned Novice
5 months ago
Update post patch 3: Game is still crashing. Patch doesn't seem to have fixed anything for me.
NotQuesadilla
Rising Rookie
5 months ago
Yep.. I was crashing before the first patch but it was every few hours, so I didn't mind THAT much since I still got a good 50 hours of progress. For the past week though (after the first patch) I can't play for more than 2 minutes without crashing. I can sometimes get 10 minutes if I'm lucky but that's still ridiculous. I've given up for now, and as someone who was looking forward to this game for years & pre-ordered it and everything, I'm extremely heartbroken about it. I truly hope that Bioware/EA aren't ignoring us. I want to be patient, but there's a difference between simple bugs vs an actual inability to play the game.
80zf2d9mhmqp
Seasoned Novice
5 months ago
I too have the DirectX error, as well as the nvldmmk event viewer errors. As soon as I close the game after it crashes I get a full system lock up, the weird part is if you look at the crash dumps in windbg it shows as an NT error code which is GPU driver communication, and ive seen other people post their crash dumps with constant mention of Denuvo token timeout strings, despite the game not having Denuvo. Very odd.
The most damning evidence is this error goes back years with the EXACT same error code in multiple frostbite engine games. So I highly doubt its hardware and if it is its certain configurations causing driver communication errors.
Seruthei
Rising Scout
5 months ago
This is why I started getting so annoyed when people kept leaping on the "ItS yOuR hArDwArE" train or keep saying "They're probably working on it!"
No, it's not, a hardware issue, and we have 0 evidence that they are working on a fix. Hell, idk why they even have EA_Illium as a "community manager" if they aren't going to, you know, manage the community. I don't get why you wouldn't have something like a bug dashboard or even a pinned thread that lists out bugs and current statuses.
I've never seen a company of this size have this little communication so shortly after launch with such severe issues. All they're doing right now is making people more mad for no reason when they could just......comment on the issues?
It makes it seem real shady and makes me think more and more that they might not actually have any fix and that it's an issue inherent to Frostbite Engine that won't ever be resolved. I'd like to hope that's wrong, but.......radio silence
Hannibal_Luthor
Seasoned Traveler
5 months ago
Exactly. No one should be making these kinds of changes and temporary (if they even work) fixes to play a game. It played fine before either of the patches and is unplayable now. All my other games in Steam play without issues.

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Should The Sims start catering more for the AFOTS?

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