No cause f2p games are made to annoy you till you buy
Just like everything else that you can buy for money. Just look at all the commercial adds on the TV channels
And you could also say that the Sims 4 basegame only is made to fool you into buying about 30 expansions whithout realizing that after that the "cheap" basegame has cost you at least about a thousand dollars
The Sims 4 has DLC costing for a total of $300+ on par with The Sims 3 costing $340 but that adds up if counting the Store. Even with TS4's price being reduced from $60 to $40, it's still expensive with all the DLC released.
No cause f2p games are made to annoy you till you buy
Just like everything else that you can buy for money. Just look at all the commercial adds on the TV channels
And you could also say that the Sims 4 basegame only is made to fool you into buying about 30 expansions whithout realizing that after that the "cheap" basegame has cost you at least about a thousand dollars
Hasn't it been this way since Sims 1? They figured out they had a cash cow in the making with that one and the rest is history.
Oh wait.. "The Sims" came out of Sim City... so there ya have it.
Personally , they get as much as I allow them which, thus far, is only the base. To date I have seen no expansion/stuff/game packs with content that is of interest to me, so I have bought nothing. .. and that already holds true for the Bowling Night pack.
If they wanna get another nickel out of me they'll have to come up with Weather/Seasons. --More likely new hairstyles or clothing by would get my attention.)
As for "FreePlay" and the constant hawking of junk like "living teddy bears"-- well the toughest part of it all is getting everyone to realize nothing is free. Take those silly Zynga games on FarceBook.. It's free.. to start.. but after a time, one finds that unless they start buying things, the game stagnates and becomes pretty much unplayable.
I know, easy for me to say as I am not really a gamer. Casual Sims player and that's about it.
@WinMacSims3 The prices vary a little between the different countries. But if I should buy Sims 4 Digital Deluxe, 3 EPs, 4 GPs and the 10 SPs (which already are released) then it would still cost me more than $500 and TS4 is likely to get about twice as many expansion before it is over.
TS1 wasn't really planned to have expansions at all and if it should then only one or two very small expansions. But the high sales numbers for this "little" spinoff game from the SimCity surprised everybody. So EA released Livin' Large which also sold well enough to break all records. So more EPs had to be released even though it was difficult because the game wasn't prepared for those EPs. Each EP was probably planned to be the last one. But with such high sales numbers EA just had to release more despite the technical difficulties which meant that the EPs became difficult to install. There were no chance that it would work unless they were installed in the correct order and even so people often had to start over because it didn't work in the first attempt.
So TS2 was the first game which EA had planned expansions for already from the beginning. But still only EPs. After a couple of years EA released a Christmas SP for TS2 though. But it was only planned to be a onetime event and the Christmas SP was only expected to sell a little just before Christmas. So EA didn't even care about copy protecting it. But even so it sold extremely well too to EA's big surprise.
So EA a few months later also released an Easter SP for TS2 and still without copy protection. But also this SP sold extremely well to EA's surprise. So EA realized that even small expansions without any gameplay could sell very well too and give EA even bigger income. So after that EA began to release SPs more regularly and from that time they also got copy protection
The new idea for TS4 was the GPs which I see as a result of this development. I think that EA's new policy is a consequence of EA realizing that gameplay isn't nearly as vital for expansions to get high sales numbers as EA originally thought and SPs are many times cheaper and faster to make than big EPs. So EA now mostly release SPs and EA also put less gameplay into the EPs compared to earlier. Also instead of releasing 2 EPs each year EA now replaces one of those EPs with a smaller GP such that the developers get even more time to make SPs
The Sims Freeplay is just a new way to use the Sims concept for other platforms too and it seems to be much more successful than the earlier attempts to make Sims games for mobile platforms - and also for consoles where EA doesn't even attempt to use the Sims concept anymore.
Hey thanks for all that! I was into TS 1 years back, (still have a game in progress, frozen in time in an old computer around here somewhere) But Real Life got in the way and I stopped.. Only to pick up again when i saw TS 4 on retail shelves (back when one could get it on disk, not strictly download-and-buy-key like now) So I missed all the fuss and fumble with 2 and 3.
But all this smacks of standard corporate practice, if you find something that flies off the shelves with minimal artistic or other expense.. Do It until you learn otherwise.
As an I T in the Helpless desk world I have been seeing that in digital products since I began in this line of work.
Personally, I don't mind it asking me to buy stuff, and if i accidentally tap purchase, i just cancel. what I am not so keen on though, is that it pops up with Last Chance to buy a certain item, then it is gone from the store.
There are so few items on sale in the store at any given time and it would be nice to see many, many more items in there to choose from, at more reasonable prices all the time that will still be there in a month or whenever I want to look for something new.
I am not an impulse buyer and so rushing things with time limits just means I won't buy even if I like the item. I do buy stuff and am currently VIP 4, but wish these time limits would stop.
Comments
The Sims 4 has DLC costing for a total of $300+ on par with The Sims 3 costing $340 but that adds up if counting the Store. Even with TS4's price being reduced from $60 to $40, it's still expensive with all the DLC released.
Hasn't it been this way since Sims 1? They figured out they had a cash cow in the making with that one and the rest is history.
Oh wait.. "The Sims" came out of Sim City... so there ya have it.
Personally , they get as much as I allow them which, thus far, is only the base. To date I have seen no expansion/stuff/game packs with content that is of interest to me, so I have bought nothing. .. and that already holds true for the Bowling Night pack.
If they wanna get another nickel out of me they'll have to come up with Weather/Seasons. --More likely new hairstyles or clothing by would get my attention.)
As for "FreePlay" and the constant hawking of junk like "living teddy bears"-- well the toughest part of it all is getting everyone to realize nothing is free. Take those silly Zynga games on FarceBook.. It's free.. to start.. but after a time, one finds that unless they start buying things, the game stagnates and becomes pretty much unplayable.
I know, easy for me to say as I am not really a gamer. Casual Sims player and that's about it.
@Miki No, it has become much "worse".
TS1 wasn't really planned to have expansions at all and if it should then only one or two very small expansions. But the high sales numbers for this "little" spinoff game from the SimCity surprised everybody. So EA released Livin' Large which also sold well enough to break all records. So more EPs had to be released even though it was difficult because the game wasn't prepared for those EPs. Each EP was probably planned to be the last one. But with such high sales numbers EA just had to release more despite the technical difficulties which meant that the EPs became difficult to install. There were no chance that it would work unless they were installed in the correct order and even so people often had to start over because it didn't work in the first attempt.
So TS2 was the first game which EA had planned expansions for already from the beginning. But still only EPs. After a couple of years EA released a Christmas SP for TS2 though. But it was only planned to be a onetime event and the Christmas SP was only expected to sell a little just before Christmas. So EA didn't even care about copy protecting it. But even so it sold extremely well too to EA's big surprise.
So EA a few months later also released an Easter SP for TS2 and still without copy protection. But also this SP sold extremely well to EA's surprise. So EA realized that even small expansions without any gameplay could sell very well too and give EA even bigger income. So after that EA began to release SPs more regularly and from that time they also got copy protection
The new idea for TS4 was the GPs which I see as a result of this development. I think that EA's new policy is a consequence of EA realizing that gameplay isn't nearly as vital for expansions to get high sales numbers as EA originally thought and SPs are many times cheaper and faster to make than big EPs. So EA now mostly release SPs and EA also put less gameplay into the EPs compared to earlier. Also instead of releasing 2 EPs each year EA now replaces one of those EPs with a smaller GP such that the developers get even more time to make SPs
The Sims Freeplay is just a new way to use the Sims concept for other platforms too and it seems to be much more successful than the earlier attempts to make Sims games for mobile platforms - and also for consoles where EA doesn't even attempt to use the Sims concept anymore.
Hey thanks for all that! I was into TS 1 years back, (still have a game in progress, frozen in time in an old computer around here somewhere) But Real Life got in the way and I stopped.. Only to pick up again when i saw TS 4 on retail shelves (back when one could get it on disk, not strictly download-and-buy-key like now) So I missed all the fuss and fumble with 2 and 3.
But all this smacks of standard corporate practice, if you find something that flies off the shelves with minimal artistic or other expense.. Do It until you learn otherwise.
As an I T in the Helpless desk world I have been seeing that in digital products since I began in this line of work.
But that's a different tale for a different day.
There are so few items on sale in the store at any given time and it would be nice to see many, many more items in there to choose from, at more reasonable prices all the time that will still be there in a month or whenever I want to look for something new.
I am not an impulse buyer and so rushing things with time limits just means I won't buy even if I like the item. I do buy stuff and am currently VIP 4, but wish these time limits would stop.