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Why the Sudden Resurgence in Sims 3 Simming On Steam Lately?

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yoshi_dragur2012yoshi_dragur2012 Posts: 1,670 Member
I thought this was due to another TS4 release? But this trend has been consistent for over a week now? Thanks to simmers, Sims 3 -- an 8 year old gen 2 game--is still trending in Steam top 100 games at rank 79. Wow!

store.steampowered.com/stats/

edit: and it's retained nearly half the daily average as TESO which has continuously been adding new DLC lol

Comments

  • Namaya92Namaya92 Posts: 934 Member
    There was a huge sale during the steam summer sale which ended 5 days ago, so that might be the reason.
  • ENolanENolan Posts: 2,735 Member
    Steam hosted their annual summer sale recently and most likely put the game and the expansions on sale. I already had all of TS3 purchased on Steam, so I can't say for certain; however, if the product wasn't brand new or in preorders, then it most likely went on sale. There's never a better time to get into an expensive product than when it's on sale. Anecdotally, the game hasn't fallen out of favor with me or my sister, given we are the active simmers left in our family. It just doesn't take precedent to life or competitive games right now.
  • TreyNutzTreyNutz Posts: 5,780 Member
    edited July 2017
    TS3 and most of the EPs and SPs were on the summer sale for $5 each.

    A number of people really hate the 1.69 patch which tied the game to Origin and forces people to use the Launcher, and they have been repurchasing the game on Steam which is still at patch 1.67. I don't know if that's a big motivation behind the number of Steam users though.
    Post edited by TreyNutz on
  • dreamerz13dreamerz13 Posts: 9,927 Member
    edited July 2017
    They did just have the entire sims 3 collection for 75% off during their summer sale. So I'm sure that helped a lot. Nice cheap game to get into if you haven't already. Or if you're looking to get back into it. Or move platforms. Whatever the reason it was cheap if you wanted it.

    I was in the moving platforms group. Orgin's 1.69 patch (which is exclusive to origin) has been a constant source of trouble for me. And I've hardly been able to play sims 3 for like 7 months because of it, since buying a nice new gaming laptop just for Sims 3. So I made the move to steam with the summer sale so I can actually play my game and get some use out of this expensive computer.
  • SimplyJenSimplyJen Posts: 14,823 Member
    edited July 2017
    A lot of people recently had their registered game copies pulled from Origin due to third party unauthorized sellers. After being faced with repurchasing the games, the Steam summer sale was a great opportunity. Some of them chose to switch over completely. On to of that, Origin forces patch 1.69 tieing the game to Origin no matter what. There are downsides to this. Both Steam and Mac will stay on patch 1.67 which has no ties to Origin.

    I could have gone with Steam but I decided to purchase any missing physical disc to replace my digital collection. Spent almost the same amount through Amazon and eBay vs the whole collection on Steam(- KP stuff pack). I don't regret it!

    Also, just from browsing the Steam forums during the sale... I think a lot of people new to sims wanted to try Sims 3 but refused to pay the full price for a 8 yr old game despite reviews. The whole collection can be pricey without sales if somebody wanted all of the DLC.
    Post edited by SimplyJen on
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  • CharlottesmomCharlottesmom Posts: 7,015 Member
    Avoiding the 1.69 patch was my motivation for rebuying all of Sims 3 on Steam a few years back, now I'm not as paranoid about 1.69 but Steam works just fine for me so I'm sticking with it for the time being. :smiley:
  • xitneverendssxitneverendss Posts: 1,772 Member
    Avoiding the 1.69 patch was my motivation for rebuying all of Sims 3 on Steam a few years back, now I'm not as paranoid about 1.69 but Steam works just fine for me so I'm sticking with it for the time being. :smiley:

    Not to hijack this thread or anything but could someone please explain why so many people hate the 1.69 patch and do everything they can to avoid it? I'm at 1.69 and I just don't understand the fuss lol
  • TreyNutzTreyNutz Posts: 5,780 Member
    Avoiding the 1.69 patch was my motivation for rebuying all of Sims 3 on Steam a few years back, now I'm not as paranoid about 1.69 but Steam works just fine for me so I'm sticking with it for the time being. :smiley:

    Not to hijack this thread or anything but could someone please explain why so many people hate the 1.69 patch and do everything they can to avoid it? I'm at 1.69 and I just don't understand the fuss lol

    1. Certain 3rd party programs don't work with 1.69 (not sure they work with the Steam version either, TBH). Easy CASP editor lets you categorize and/or hide EP and CC clothing; it was super useful, I really miss having that flexibility. Save Cleaner removes bloat from SNAP resources and pictures; I now do the same thing manually with S3PE which is a little bit more tedious. (I'm on 1.69.)

    2. Some people have issues with Origin not recognizing purchased EPs and SPs, or their computers don't handle the game and Origin running at the same time very well.

    3. The 1.69 Launcher regularly forgets which EPs and SPs you have selected to load up. This means you either check the Expansions and Stuff Pack tab every time you launch the game or risk loading up a save to have missing objects replaced, immediately quitting, and loading the game up all over again with your packs checked. Given the long loading times of a long played TS3 save this isn't trivial.

    4. With 1.67 many people could skip the Launcher altogether and load up the game directly by creating a shortcut to TS3W.exe. That's no longer possible with 1.69. I think that works with the Steam version. Face it, the Launcher is fairly useless as a CC manager. It's main function appears to me to deliver advertising to player. No one wants advertising. IMO, in principle, requiring players to launch a separate program to play a game every time is just bad game design. I don't need or want to launch a program to display a play button. Just launch the game.

    5. Unless you have Origin set up to automatically log you on, you have to sign in every time to play.

    6. I think some CAW users still have problems with EIG on patch 1.69. Steam isn't a solution for that though. From what I understand you need to edit the registry to get CAW to work with the Steam version.

    7. I suspect part of it has to do with Origin's reputation. When Origin was first put out by EA it's performance was (from what I hear) quite bad in comparison to Steam. I don't think that's the case anymore. At least on my computer Steam tends to use slightly more RAM and I did not notice a performance difference before and after moving to 1.69.

    8. A few years ago right around the time 1.69 was released (maybe a bit before) EA messed up a TS4 patch and some people who played TS3 through Origin had their TS3 games automatically uninstalled when they accepted the update. From what I hear it was a nightmare for a lot of folks to get their TS3 games reinstalled and given the fact the patch for TS4, well that kind of mistake will really ruin people's trust in a service.

    9. Some people object to their game being tied to Origin in principle. Most of these people seem to have bought the game mainly on disk, and some looked to purchase the original base game released disk to avoid Origin.

    I'm sure there are other reasons people want to avoid Origin. Those are the ones I've come across on the forums (that I remember, lol).
  • xitneverendssxitneverendss Posts: 1,772 Member
    @TreyNutz Ohhhhh, I see, thank you for explaining! I definitely have experienced #3 numerous times, that one is really annoying.

    One more question though. You mentioned Save Cleaner...does that not work with 1.69? I have the original version, not the last updated one (because people were saying it deletes photos) and it seems to work fine.
  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited July 2017
    I can't possibly add to @TreyNutz' eloquently stated list of reasons, but I tried to take as balanced an approach to this as possible when making my own decision to switch over to Steam during the recent sale. I had been on Origin and 1.69 on an all-digital install for the past year. It never really broke my games or made TS3 unplayable for me as it has for others, but there sure were a long list of annoyances stacking up, all of them already mentioned. Then I tried to make a list of the benefits of being on 1.69 from my own experiences -- and there were none. Zero. Other than more fully understanding what other players were going through, which is no reason to keep a program I intend to keep using for years on a platform that makes things so unstable and inconvenient.

    SaveCleaner v1.1 works on Patch 1.69. Versions 2.x do not. But version 1.1 won't clean the TravelDB file, although less important that would have to be done by using S3PE or some other tool.
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  • dreamerz13dreamerz13 Posts: 9,927 Member

    Avoiding the 1.69 patch was my motivation for rebuying all of Sims 3 on Steam a few years back, now I'm not as paranoid about 1.69 but Steam works just fine for me so I'm sticking with it for the time being. :smiley:

    Not to hijack this thread or anything but could someone please explain why so many people hate the 1.69 patch and do everything they can to avoid it? I'm at 1.69 and I just don't understand the fuss lol

    For me the issues with 1.69 were that when I first had it forced on me my game refused to load to anything but a black screen. A reinstall fixed that but it thats so ridiculous to reinstall such a large game and I had other computer issues at the time. I just wanted to play not spend hours fixing something else. And hors turned to days because somehow origin completely broke in the process and I had to fix that. And that was a massive pain. Probably coincidence and not 1.69s fault but it still had a very bad first introduction for me. I was so mad back then and so so stressed.

    And then for a while it was mostly the issue of it randomly deselecting all my packs so it loaded without them if I forgot to check. Annoying again but not the end of the world either. And I did learn to live with that one and could have kept going on origin if that was all.

    But for the last 7 months since my most recent install (2 actually one to try fixing the issue) it's just beeen outright failing to load my EPs most times I load my game. Origin says I have them. My launcher says they're all selected to be played but my game loads and nothing. And I would frequently get up to 5 attempts to load it correctly before I would give up because it was taking too long and I'd have almost no time to play if it did load. Oh and if it didn't load my EPs it usually loaded extra slow. So it was an extremely long process. I could tell how it was going to go by how long it took to get to the initial load screen and then I'd gave to wait that out to quit my game. It could easily take an hour to fail to load my game.


  • 1need4kaffee1need4kaffee Posts: 486 Member
    But I thought Steam was not going to host Sims 3 much longer? Why would you repurchase the game to switch to Steam and then just have to go back to Origin?
  • TreyNutzTreyNutz Posts: 5,780 Member
    edited July 2017
    But I thought Steam was not going to host Sims 3 much longer? Why would you repurchase the game to switch to Steam and then just have to go back to Origin?

    Where did you hear that? It's fairly rare for Steam to stop selling a game. Even rarer for Steam to pull it from your Library. Even if Steam stops selling TS3 I'd be very surprised if they stopped providing it for download. I mean, they just had it on sale. It doesn't make sense they'd take your money and suddenly stop providing it for download and installation.

    If something like that did happen, I imagine Steam would stop selling and "hosting" all EA games they currently sell, not just TS3.
  • 1need4kaffee1need4kaffee Posts: 486 Member
    On these here forums. I am not on Steam so I just filed it and moved on. Probably anti-EA propaganda. EA pulling license from Steam to hoard all the revenue, etc.
  • TreyNutzTreyNutz Posts: 5,780 Member
    On these here forums. I am not on Steam so I just filed it and moved on. Probably anti-EA propaganda. EA pulling license from Steam to hoard all the revenue, etc.

    I'd be surprised if the contract between Steam and EA would allow that to happen. Maybe EA could decline to allow Steam to sell their games, but to stop distributing paid for copies? I would assume Steam drafted the contract to prevent that from happening. The only way EA could "pull the license" would be if the contract allowed it.
  • 3KNPen3KNPen Posts: 2,825 Member
    I did a quick google search and nothing came up for EA pulling games from Steam which you would think would be all over the place not just here on the forums. Maybe some was just worrying that it might someday happen? It's doubtful it will at this point if EA were going to pull their games from Steam fully they'd have done it already once they got Origin up and running and they still make money from having them up on Steam (though granted not as much as on Origin I'm sure) they'd also have to pull games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect which I can only imagine the outcry and backlash on them if they did that this late in the game.
    ~ ~ ~
  • 1need4kaffee1need4kaffee Posts: 486 Member
    Heck, it could have been a necro revival thread from 2011 when there was some nastiness between Steam and EA at Origin's start. I honestly didn't think much about it when I read it. Sorry for the red herring.
  • 3KNPen3KNPen Posts: 2,825 Member
    That makes sense most of the stuff that comes up when I searched was from 2011.

    I'm actually cross-"platforming" my Sims 3. I started playing Sims 3 on Steam so I've continued to purchase it there so that I have it all in one place and also because Steam tends to have better sales and you can port over to Origin from Steam but not the other way around. I'm playing my current save on Origin though because I'm slowly adding in packs one at a time and I already have the full game loaded on Steam.
    ~ ~ ~
  • LinamintsLinamints Posts: 952 Member
    A lot of people recently had their registered game copies pulled from Origin due to third party unauthorized sellers. After being faced with repurchasing the games, the Steam summer sale was a great opportunity. Some of them chose to switch over completely. On to of that, Origin forces patch 1.69 tieing the game to Origin no matter what. There are downsides to this. Both Steam and Mac will stay on patch 1.67 which has no ties to Origin.

    I could have gone with Steam but I decided to purchase any missing physical disc to replace my digital collection. Spent almost the same amount through Amazon and eBay vs the whole collection on Steam(- KP stuff pack). I don't regret it!

    Also, just from browsing the Steam forums during the sale... I think a lot of people new to sims wanted to try Sims 3 but refused to pay the full price for a 8 yr old game despite reviews. The whole collection can be pricey without sales if somebody wanted all of the DLC.

    This pretty much sums up why I switched over during the steam summer sale. I play the Sims 3 pretty actively, and I imagine many of the people who also lost their content would have been playing it actively too and all probably switched to steam to get away from Origin.

    I must say though, I.67 has been a really great change, and bypassing the launcher has done a lot for me personally.

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  • ZeeGeeZeeGee Posts: 5,355 Member
    @Linamints So if you have the Steam version you can bypass the launcher?!
  • SimplyJenSimplyJen Posts: 14,823 Member
    ZeeGee wrote: »
    @Linamints So if you have the Steam version you can bypass the launcher?!
    Patch 1.67 and below you can bypass the launcher. I don't know if it works differently with Steam.

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  • LinamintsLinamints Posts: 952 Member
    edited July 2017
    ZeeGee wrote: »
    @Linamints So if you have the Steam version you can bypass the launcher?!

    Yes, you can bypass the launcher with the steam version since the client is only patched to 1.67, from what I understand 1.69 is only delivered through Origin, and was mainly focused on DRM.

    I never realized why this was important to people until I had it to try for myself.
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  • LinamintsLinamints Posts: 952 Member
    edited July 2017
    Delete, accidental double post.
    "Parenting is just like gardening, except if you let your garden die you don't go to prison." - Anna Blast
  • ShojoDaggerShojoDagger Posts: 320 Member
    Linamints wrote: »
    ZeeGee wrote: »
    @Linamints So if you have the Steam version you can bypass the launcher?!

    Yes, you can bypass the launcher with the steam version since the client is only patched to 1.67, from what I understand 1.69 is only delivered through Origin, and was mainly focused on DRM.

    I never realized why this was important to people until I had it to try for myself.

    Okay. I have SteamSims & I have to know....
    What's the big deal about the launcher?

    On my laptop, going through the launcher adds about 6 or 7 additional seconds to my start up time, 10 maximum. I spend less than 2 seconds barely even looking at as I click the play button.
    I don't see how that's much of a hassle.

    Plus if you bypass the launcher the game doesn't tie into Steam's screenshot tool right.
    With S3's screen capture tool the interfaces are removed by default, that's great for most pics on the forums, but when you want a pic of the interfaces you have to go into options & change the option, which is very inconvenient.
    However, when you take a screenshot with Steam, it gets the game window, including the interfaces. So if start the game through Steam & the launcher you can take whichever type of shot quickly by pressing the appropriate hotkey. (C for S3, f12 for Steam)

    So I find that the "convenience" of not having to look at the launcher for 2 seconds as I start up isn't worth the much greater inconvenience of not having Steam's screenshot tool & having to switch S3 options back & forth.

    I can only guess that the Origin version of the launcher is some sort of horrible, slow loading plum.

    I think the much bigger point for SteamSims vs Origin is that SteamSims runs offline.

    The only time you need to have it online is to authenticate the very first time you start it, and to authenticate EP's the first time you start them.
    After that you can run it completely offline if you want.
    Other than occasional exchange/store downloading I play totally offline.
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  • igazorigazor Posts: 19,330 Member
    edited July 2017
    @ShojoDagger - You are correct in that you are not experiencing the pain that a Launcher requirement brings in that others do.

    The amount of time it takes the Launcher to load and the amount of RAM it consumes temporarily in the process (it does return it when finished) are directly dependent on how much the player has in store content and sims3pack custom content installed and the state of their system. It doesn't matter which mechanism triggers the Launcher to startup. An SSD over a standard HDD can speed up that process considerably. Ten seconds is nothing, but on an HDD I have well over half (maybe two thirds) of the store and a moderate amount of CC installed that way (most of my CC is in package files, which load up later in the process and the Launcher is not involved). Those ten seconds are actually two and a half minutes for me and the amount of RAM temporarily tied up is around 1.4 GB. Others on slower systems, with less RAM to work with, or with heavier loads of content will see a blank screen and four minute delays...maybe six or more? It's just not necessary.

    The only reason for this delay is so that the Launcher can attempt to display installed content in its various poorly defined menu tabs. If the intent is to just play and not mess around with content, there is no point in making it do that every time. This becomes even more painful for those of us who need to reload our games several times in what should be rapid succession such as when designing worlds or testing out mods.

    Also, since one of the later patches, the Launcher is what generates massive amounts of tmp files in the DCCache folder, mirroring all of the installed content. That can be many GBs and, although the tmp files are supposed to be cleaned up either by the time the game starts or when it quits, that doesn't actually happen anymore. Not everyone has enough space or wants to accommodate those tmp files that will always return if they are deleted.
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