Re: Missing Content - Horrendous Customer Service
sorry if this shows up twice, it disappeared like two seconds after i posted it? fortunately i had it saved separately so it was pretty easy to copy+paste it back.
original reply:
oh yeah i've had similar issues with major game glitches that EA never resolved. I haven't given them any actual money and definitely won't ever do so, b/c honestly - i don't think EA wants? to succeed?
like, idk about their other games, if this is just them deliberately neglecting Sims Mobile or if their company praxis is to ignore client satisfaction metrics, but it's pretty obvious at this point that for Sims Mobile, at least, everything from bug fixes (and lack thereof) to basic aspects of gameplay like "an option to sell (or even discard!) excess furniture" - which people have been requesting for years, it's one of the most popular and recurrent threads on this forum - but none of these are a priority for EA management to address.
i mean - it's not really unexpected when you look at the rest of the game. Nothing about it is designed with user enjoyment in mind: all of the events are structured to ensure you need to spend simcash if you want to complete them; there's no way of repeating timed quests for specific stories and not even an accessible way of purchasing them after the fact; and even when it comes to character design - i mean, i'm biased, as a wheelchair-user who apparently straight up doesn't exist in the world of the sims, but that's eugenics for u i guess - but! even outside basic mobility aids & disability inclusion, the limits of *who* you can make as a character and the accessories & clothes you can wear are pretty tellingly geared to prioritize white/light skinned sims for aesthetic effects (e.g., the tattoo option that they finally added only comes in black, and is pretty much invisible on the darker skin tones), and in terms of LGBTQ+ inclusion, you have zero options beyond cartoonishly binary, overwhelmingly gender-conforming characters (have you ever tried making a female sim with, like, an actual jawline? it's hilariously difficult to even accomplish the effect with clothing, makeup, and hair, let alone to have a character who naturally has - gasp! - a square chin). The characters you can make are limited to what EA developers thought to include, and they're not actually interested in modifying those options for a diverse userbase, because the profit they lose from excluding (x) minorities isn't enough to tip their scales, and therefore isn't important.
(...It does seem a bit like EA has one person in charge of designing 1/12th of their events who's interested in cultivating a userbase of actual human people - and don't get me wrong, i love that they're having a Hispanic Heritage celebration - but everyone else in upper management clearly sees "users" as calculations that generate revenue, and nothing more.)
To be clear, i am not pinning the problem with their customer service on the employees in customer service: i had that exact job and it was hellish: the employees in contact with customers can't provide better aid than what they themselves are given, which, in EA's case, is very clearly "a set of email templates and not much else." I doubt the people who manage EA's "customer service" inbox even have an easy way of getting in touch with their own managers. if they do, it's certainly not encouraged; more interdepartmental coordination means more time spent on individual requests, which means less total productivity.
That's EA's model: they don't care about one individual not getting their money back, because they still have your money. You've served your purpose as a user by generating profit, and if they don't get more from you they'll get it from someone else. A few dollars is nothing to a corporation. A single user is nothing to EA.
(But honestly, in a world being literally set on fire by profit-oriented corporations, is it really surprising that they lack the foresight to use a less self-destructive strategy? they're profiting *now,* and when they can't squeeze any more dollars from this project, they'll shake it up, squeeze a little bit more, and then abandon it and try again elsewhere. You, the user, are disposable: so is this game: the only thing that matters is that they're still generating revenue from the faceless calculations that hide the people they're profiting off.)
So - yeah, if the financiers are listening, I'm not investing in EA. Overpriced, underperforming products that are designed to be as disposable as their users aren't really my jam, yknow? I'd rather go somewhere else and get treated like a person (and interact with employees that aren't obviously being exploited far more than me as a customer). My sympathies to the unpaid "volunteers" who manage this forum, and the hopefully-not-less-than-minimum wage employees who manage customer service (such as it is). But the CEOs and governing bodies behind EA as a corp? Man, I hope y'all go bankrupt. It's what you deserve.
But, hey, OP? if you want to sue them for breach of contract, or w/e? i say go for it.
