Well the point really is that they put them in for free. They did the right thing. They didn't have to do that. I am sure they were not cheap to create. The toddlers are better then some of the other things they have put out there for money. The toddlers put life back into what had become for some a stagnant game. They put back a life stage.They didn't just add stuff. They added needed gameplay. Any supernatural, alien, or plant person would only benefit from them.
I am not sure I believed the tele explanation either. I don't think you would get realistic numbers. Some people played the game offline and/or bypassed the launcher and Origin all together.
Who knows what they were thinking? The game seemed rather rushed. You could easily come up with a ton of scenarios about what went down. Missing toddlers caused a lot of discontent from the begining.
Giving them for free was a good pl an of action. Firstly they should have been in the game from the begining. They are a life stage. Secondly, if they tried to make us pay for them, it would have set off a revolution. No one would ever trust them again. Some would have bought them, but I imagine the underlying resentment would still be there.
Apparently pl an = plum. Smh.
Also imagine the programming nightmare for having to account for one group having toddlers and another group not having them, when it comes to adding supernatural life states -- which is possibly why we got the toddlers now before the vampire pack dropped, to avoid having to patch in age-up code later (or to have it sitting dormant for players to discover). In Sims 2 it wasn't an issue because the young adult lifestage was limited to University -- if you didn't have University you aged right up to adult, or if you had it but chose not to send your Sim. Then on graduation your Sims aged right up to adult, no muss no fuss.
I wouldn't call it a programming nightmare though because it would be quite easy to just test if toddlers were installed before deciding if babies should age up to toddlers or children. This would just require a couple of lines of code and could be done by any programmer in a couple of minutes.
But their were other issues:
1. Should future SPs, GPs and EPs have toddler items if not everybody could use them because some of the simmers didn't have toddlers?
2. Would a lot of simmers still complain because toddlers weren't in the basegame and had to be bought?
3. Would simmers who had given up on TS4 because of the missing toddlers come back anyway at all if they had to pay for toddlers?
I think those were the questions that finally made EA's marketing department decide that it would be better to just release toddlers for free than to try to sell them as a toddler GP. And I think that they were right that it wouldn't have been more profitable for EA to put toddlers into a GP or to release them as a part of a bigger EP because the income from selling a toddler GP wouldn't likely have been higher than the extra income from higher sales numbers for all the future expansions which EA now can expect to get.
I understand what you're saying, but in fact - without claiming to be able to judge her overall capacities in her job and she seems like a friendly lady - I think she damaged EA PR wise. If the question took her by surprise, that would sound highly unprofessional to me. To me the interview felt like adding fuel to the fires, though unintended I'm sure. Why couldn't they simply tell the truth? I don't really understand that. If they knew they were coming, why not say so? Apart from the fact I think they should have been in there from the start in the first place. Sims 4 had a goofy start.
What you say about telemetry in fact is exactly how I feel about it. I'm sure there was some telemetry, but I can't imagine it was anywhere near reliable. First of all loads of players played TS3 offline and second, what would those figures say anyway. That people didn't like playing that life stage or that they weren't that interested in playing the features attached to the life stage? I do agree with you by the way it wasn't all RF's fault, that's not how things work in large companies.
The ridicule thing didn't happen to me, I was merely an observer. It happened to everyone who wanted to reach out to EA and tell them they still missed toddlers in the game. And what they'd like to see if they would be added. And in fact a lot of what I saw passing by in those threads is used, EA did listen.
Well they couldn't simply "tell the truth" because they can't talk about future content. But if you mean in the sense of, "Why should they have a policy like that?" I don't know. I can only speculate. I don't really like the radio silence thing, but it may run deeper than managing player expectations. This stuff about publicly traded companies and quarterly revenue and stock market speculation... it's a fragile and complicated beast.
I tend to prefer game companies that are not publicly traded because they more often just kind of do what they want; they aren't as dependent on reputation and they don't necessarily need a steady quarterly, they just need a good enough long-term profit to keep the lights on. The drawback is that the smaller a game company is, the more it's usually relying on only one or two flagship titles and if those titles tank, the company may tank too, or be eaten up by a mega corp like EA. So then the successful ones tend to get a little bigger and a little more spread out in their money maker titles to not fall into that trap, but this also spreads out their resources too and moves them more toward being like the mega corps.
I almost gave up on The Sims, the Vintage Glamour SP was the first stuff pack I didn't buy because I promised myself not to spend money on this game anymore. But after realeasing of toddlers for free I was so impressed and now when I saw all the wonderful things they'd created for vampires GP I'm impressed even more! The vampires GP seem to have so much content and everything has been designed just beautifully, it is absolutely worth its money. (And I used to hate all supernatural in The Sims btw) I really have my hopes up about the future of Sims 4 now! I believe that if their future content continues to be amazing like this, TS4 is likely to have a really bright future.
you will have probably a hard time then, cause constant patches changing the game quite a lot seems to be the new thing now, coming from mobile, DLC & Early Access, games are being developed now while they are being played already, many of them don't even get finished, bugfree, or keep the promisses made to sell it
if you want to avoid that, then
either you should start playing a game first after the development is closed
or start it with the premiss of fleeting quality, lasting only for a month, if you can't accept that, then there is just the first option
Sorry to take so long to respond. I don't come here as much as I used to.
Yes. New patches are a thing now, but not all companies have adopted it. There are many games I play today that are 'sold as is,' to put it somewhat harshly, I guess—not to mention well-developed. It will be a sad day when this is no longer the norm (becuase it actually is).
There are many games that are developed while being sold and played. Very true. Oddly, most of these developers are up front about this from day one. 'Live Service' didn't exactly tell me this.
Bug free? Goodness. No. I've played enough games from EA (and own enough software from all over the world) and other companies to know that some will take the time to make the bug-fest more tolerable than others. I won't go into more detail about this, other than to say I know who to avoid by now.
if you want to avoid that, then
either you should start playing a game first after the development is closed
or start it with the premiss of fleeting quality, lasting only for a month, if you can't accept that, then there is just the first option
Repeated this quote for a reason: Good advice. Taken. Noted. Not accepted.
It is not up to me to take the first step.
Jumpling off a bridge simply because others do is nothing more than a fool following a blind man to a cliff. It solves nothing.
Post edited by kremesch73 on
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
Just because they released two of my favorite things from the series one close to the other doesn't mean there was any change at Maxis. These releases were bound to happen, we've had them in every iteration of the Sims. I'm just glad we have them now. But I guess there were more things I liked in past iterations too, like Showtime, Island Paradise and store worlds. Maybe they'll bring those back also, or maybe not. I hope so, because so far I wasn't blown away by their new ideas, like Get Together and all the crappy stuff packs they released.
Comments
But their were other issues:
1. Should future SPs, GPs and EPs have toddler items if not everybody could use them because some of the simmers didn't have toddlers?
2. Would a lot of simmers still complain because toddlers weren't in the basegame and had to be bought?
3. Would simmers who had given up on TS4 because of the missing toddlers come back anyway at all if they had to pay for toddlers?
I think those were the questions that finally made EA's marketing department decide that it would be better to just release toddlers for free than to try to sell them as a toddler GP. And I think that they were right that it wouldn't have been more profitable for EA to put toddlers into a GP or to release them as a part of a bigger EP because the income from selling a toddler GP wouldn't likely have been higher than the extra income from higher sales numbers for all the future expansions which EA now can expect to get.
I tend to prefer game companies that are not publicly traded because they more often just kind of do what they want; they aren't as dependent on reputation and they don't necessarily need a steady quarterly, they just need a good enough long-term profit to keep the lights on. The drawback is that the smaller a game company is, the more it's usually relying on only one or two flagship titles and if those titles tank, the company may tank too, or be eaten up by a mega corp like EA. So then the successful ones tend to get a little bigger and a little more spread out in their money maker titles to not fall into that trap, but this also spreads out their resources too and moves them more toward being like the mega corps.
Sorry to take so long to respond. I don't come here as much as I used to.
Yes. New patches are a thing now, but not all companies have adopted it. There are many games I play today that are 'sold as is,' to put it somewhat harshly, I guess—not to mention well-developed. It will be a sad day when this is no longer the norm (becuase it actually is).
There are many games that are developed while being sold and played. Very true. Oddly, most of these developers are up front about this from day one. 'Live Service' didn't exactly tell me this.
Bug free? Goodness. No. I've played enough games from EA (and own enough software from all over the world) and other companies to know that some will take the time to make the bug-fest more tolerable than others. I won't go into more detail about this, other than to say I know who to avoid by now.
Repeated this quote for a reason: Good advice. Taken. Noted. Not accepted.
It is not up to me to take the first step.
Jumpling off a bridge simply because others do is nothing more than a fool following a blind man to a cliff. It solves nothing.