Regarding the thing about competition: Maybe I'm just in a mood to play devil's advocate, but I think that while in most markets, "competition is great for the customer" is the standard, I'm not entirely convinced it's the case for games.
Consider the MMO market. Oversaturated to an extreme degree and rather than most studios making a solid profit with straightforward, customer-friendly business models, many of them are incredibly reliant on micro-transactions, to the point that half the players just go along with it and insist that without it, the games would die (which may be true).
And why did the MMO market reach this situation? Because MMOs need a ton of players for the community to work and the subscription model is something a lot of players can't afford. So they turn to micro-transactions and sustain themselves on the profit from whales; big spenders. On top of that, the market is so spread out with so many different niche appeal titles that communities are smaller and again, this almost requires them to do the whale model, as there simply aren't enough people playing each game to make the profit they need to be making (or rather, the profit their overseers require them to make).
Granted, this is like the extreme reverse; competition to the point of oversaturation. And it's arguable that one or two other life simulators is not going to break the market and push companies like EA to go for shadier and shadier ways to ensure a profit. But it's also arguable that even a little pressure could push them toward shadier ways to make a profit, rather than a better quality product. Certainly the devs care about the quality of the game, but I doubt most of EA's investors care all that much; they just want to know that EA's finances are on point.
Due to the lack of competition, there is no basis for EA's investors to look at the sims and say, "Look at how little the sims is making compared to [X competitor's] life simulator game. This is unacceptable." The lack of competition means they can only look at it in terms of profit overall, compared to other games. We can't accidentally run into a market-breaking WoW situation, in other words.
The WoW situation is that one game in the market does so ridiculously well for so long that it sets the bar unrealistically high. And rather than focusing primarily on a quality product, would-be competitor studios spend all of their money on trying to win over the crowd that plays WoW.
Now chances are, if competition did arise, the sims would hold its own as the "WoW" in the life simulation market. But I don't know that WoW's competition has spurred it to greater heights, or if it just had a strong base from the start and maintained that base.
I can only assume there are those who feel that the sims 4 is many steps backwards and increased pressure on EA would increase the quality of the sims 4 and any future iterations. But in what way? Would it really be in the ways that people want? In the MMO market, for instance, there are certain features that have become more common, such as "wardrobe" (a feature where you can appear to wear something different than the statted gear you have underneath) but not all MMOs bother with this feature, especially not with the same level of functionality.
I would argue that when competition gets intense, the main thing that happens is it becomes a game of trying to maintain a niche, while also focusing on the features that have the most overall market value in relation to the competition out there. In other words, little room for creative exploration of ideas anymore. Failures are less acceptable as it means you'll get eaten alive by the competition. And you can push the limits of the genre, but only if it will outdo the competition, financially.
That said, no competition certainly has its dangers. Danger of complacency or going through the motions to eke out easy profit. Some might think that's happening now, but I would disagree; I don't think EA/Maxis has reached a place of complacency or going through the motions. The danger always exists, but I don't believe we're in that now. I think we are just feeling the effects of some mixed success and failure.
VIE: Virtual Island of Entertainment is an online playground for adults that provides a mature audience the opportunity to escape and indulge in exclusive shopping, fun entertainment, intriguing and mysterious episodic adventures -- and, if they so choose, intimate encounters.
Release Date: August 2010
Genre: Persistent Online Adventure
Publisher: enVie Interactive
Developer: enVie Interactive
So the copyright is already held for that and any new effort would have to have a different name. (unless EA took the publishers over that is)
PS: One of EA's workers on Sims4 is Joel Eckert who worked for enVIE Interactive in the past..
I'm gonna make a very general statement right now because I think it's better to do so now rather than later:
Those of you trying to dismiss these as rumors or state why you think Project Vie wouldn't work out or why Sims would prove superior? Your bias is showing. I sense quite a bit of defensive bias here. The problem with bias is it's blinding, and it showcases brand loyalty and undying loyalty to EA and the Sims. Why? What do you gain from such an outlook? You don't owe EA or the Sims anything, so if a better alternative comes along, by all means. Stardew Valley for example is supposedly a blatant rip-off of Harvest Moon. The only reason I see to be upset with Stardew Valley is that (and I haven't played it so I dunno) it seems HEAVILY similar, so copying the creative ideas almost word-for-word would admittedly come off as pretty cruddy. (and I could be wrong and maybe they're not super similar) Beyond that though, I as a consumer just want my fun experience, so honestly my attitude is "may the best man win."
We know virtually nothing about Project Vie. We only know it's HIGHLY unlikely it's a baseless rumor since at least two of us distinctly remember hearing about this over a year ago, so obviously something is indeed in the works. We have no reason to believe it'll be a blatant, tasteless rip-off, we have no reason to believe it'll be drastically different, we have no reason to believe it'll bomb and we have no reason to believe it'll succeed and be better than Sims 4. Despite this, I definitely sense that some of us are indeed defensive and want Sims to beat it. That, to me, is blind fan loyalty, and it's illogical and not the least bit beneficial for you, so I'd definitely advise everyone to reflect on this and ask yourself if you have a horse in this race, and if you do, ask why.
Even if this turns out to be a severely overhyped piece of crap that absolutely flops, it's beneficial in the sense EA won't know this until it flops, so it's encouragement to work hard to improve the state of the game and "reinforce their defenses" for the incoming assault. Long-term competition is good too. If for example Project Vie releases and gets critical acclaim for a polished release completely devoid of bugs...? Guess who might CONVENIENTLY suddenly decide they finally wanna fix Friend of the World and collection reward plaques often disappearing?
Competition does help. The above MMO example actually fails to highlight any correlation between competition and a lack of quality. As it stands now, the argument is incomplete and sits at "MMOs are bad and there's a lot of them, therefore competition is bad," which is just faulty logic that fails to prove the lack of quality is a direct consequence of the competition. On the whole, it is widely accepted that competition helps the vast overwhelming majority of the time. Walmart for example boasts about low prices, and I guarentee they would not have low prices if they achieved an absolute global monopoly; those mom and pop shops Walmart is continuously accused of killing? They still at least manage to compromise down Walmart's prices. Or heck, the Cold War and parts of WWII. USA sped up research of atomic bombs specifically BECAUSE it was racing Germany, and later, Russia. Russia and USA, to this day, have unbelievably large militaries with a ridiculous stockpile of atomic weaponry, specifically because both of them were "competing" and the arms market saw a boom in progress and demand.
Here. This is an academic paper exploring and summarizing the merits - and faults - of competition. If you explore the faults section, you'll find potential flaws to be that particularly fierce competition can result in oligarchies or monopolies. Oligarchy is unlikely with only two competitors, and monopoly is what we already have.
The most notable section to me is one that highlights that competition policy makes certain assumptions that consumers seek out the best product for themselves at all times, acting intelligently and rationally. This however isn't always true, and as it highlights, customers may be subject to lower willpower with waiting for a better deal, or they may have certain biases with their purchases. Another snippet discusses how the "sunk cost fallacy" may encourage buyers to continue making payments on an "investment" that's unlikely to achieve optimal results simply because they don't want the money already spent to be "for nothing." See where I'm going with this...? A lot of those actually highlight that flaws with competition come about when customers make mistakes, such as having biases or refusing to jump ship to another product because they've already invested too much in the original.
If you bother to read through that article, you'll find many of the potential flaws have absolutely zero potential to apply to THIS specific scenario, where only two games are competing with each other for sales. If they DID apply...? Then it would potentially be a case where we, as customers, were not open-minded enough to give Project Vie a shot (in an example where Project Vie turns out awesome), so even if it proved to be superior on the whole, we stuck to our desire for brand loyalty, let Project Vie bomb, and then the standard remained status quo instead of improving when it had clear potential to do so. That's more of a case that competition doesn't ALWAYS work, but not due to the faults of the companies, but the consumers making unideal decisions.
In short? Keep an open mind. Recognize your own biases and stop them before they can grow. Don't bank on Project Vie being the second coming of Jesus, but also don't bank on it failing just because you happen to like the Sims; if it would succeed, it would earn it by being better. All and all, this is something to look forward to, regardless of who "wins."
@DeservedCriticism I think the developer of Stardew Valley is very honest about his game being very very much like Harvest Moon (and that this was on purpose because he loved the games so much & wanted to bring them back to the forefront). And he succeeded, all on his own, with excellent steam sales & an honestly excellent game. As far as I remember, I don't think anyone minded at all. But then again, someone always complains, so I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule lol.
As for this game, we'll see in march. I've heard about it a few months ago and was told it was definitely a rumour, so I kinda stopped thinking about it. If it turns out to be some weird kind of trolling, that's fine. If it's a viable alternative, that's also very cool. We'll see when we get there.
the only thing that could be different between the two is maybe Vie might have the stuff that EA wouldn't touch with a Ten foot pole? Everything ELSE would have to be simliar to Sims series (ie: jobs and promotions, marrying, and having babies)
I'm gonna make a very general statement right now because I think it's better to do so now rather than later:
Those of you trying to dismiss these as rumors or state why you think Project Vie wouldn't work out or why Sims would prove superior? Your bias is showing. I sense quite a bit of defensive bias here. The problem with bias is it's blinding, and it showcases brand loyalty and undying loyalty to EA and the Sims. Why? What do you gain from such an outlook? You don't owe EA or the Sims anything, so if a better alternative comes along, by all means. Stardew Valley for example is supposedly a blatant rip-off of Harvest Moon. The only reason I see to be upset with Stardew Valley is that (and I haven't played it so I dunno) it seems HEAVILY similar, so copying the creative ideas almost word-for-word would admittedly come off as pretty cruddy. (and I could be wrong and maybe they're not super similar) Beyond that though, I as a consumer just want my fun experience, so honestly my attitude is "may the best man win."
We know virtually nothing about Project Vie. We only know it's HIGHLY unlikely it's a baseless rumor since at least two of us distinctly remember hearing about this over a year ago, so obviously something is indeed in the works. We have no reason to believe it'll be a blatant, tasteless rip-off, we have no reason to believe it'll be drastically different, we have no reason to believe it'll bomb and we have no reason to believe it'll succeed and be better than Sims 4. Despite this, I definitely sense that some of us are indeed defensive and want Sims to beat it. That, to me, is blind fan loyalty, and it's illogical and not the least bit beneficial for you, so I'd definitely advise everyone to reflect on this and ask yourself if you have a horse in this race, and if you do, ask why.
Even if this turns out to be a severely overhyped piece of plum that absolutely flops, it's beneficial in the sense EA won't know this until it flops, so it's encouragement to work hard to improve the state of the game and "reinforce their defenses" for the incoming assault. Long-term competition is good too. If for example Project Vie releases and gets critical acclaim for a polished release completely devoid of bugs...? Guess who might CONVENIENTLY suddenly decide they finally wanna fix Friend of the World and collection reward plaques often disappearing?
Competition does help. The above MMO example actually fails to highlight any correlation between competition and a lack of quality. As it stands now, the argument is incomplete and sits at "MMOs are bad and there's a lot of them, therefore competition is bad," which is just faulty logic that fails to prove the lack of quality is a direct consequence of the competition. On the whole, it is widely accepted that competition helps the vast overwhelming majority of the time. Walmart for example boasts about low prices, and I guarentee they would not have low prices if they achieved an absolute global monopoly; those mom and pop shops Walmart is continuously accused of killing? They still at least manage to compromise down Walmart's prices. Or heck, the Cold War and parts of WWII. USA sped up research of atomic bombs specifically BECAUSE it was racing Germany, and later, Russia. Russia and USA, to this day, have unbelievably large militaries with a ridiculous stockpile of atomic weaponry, specifically because both of them were "competing" and the arms market saw a boom in progress and demand.
Here. This is an academic paper exploring and summarizing the merits - and faults - of competition. If you explore the faults section, you'll find potential flaws to be that particularly fierce competition can result in oligarchies or monopolies. Oligarchy is unlikely with only two competitors, and monopoly is what we already have.
The most notable section to me is one that highlights that competition policy makes certain assumptions that consumers seek out the best product for themselves at all times, acting intelligently and rationally. This however isn't always true, and as it highlights, customers may be subject to lower willpower with waiting for a better deal, or they may have certain biases with their purchases. Another snippet discusses how the "sunk cost fallacy" may encourage buyers to continue making payments on an "investment" that's unlikely to achieve optimal results simply because they don't want the money already spent to be "for nothing." See where I'm going with this...? A lot of those actually highlight that flaws with competition come about when customers make mistakes, such as having biases or refusing to jump ship to another product because they've already invested too much in the original.
If you bother to read through that article, you'll find many of the potential flaws have absolutely zero potential to apply to THIS specific scenario, where only two games are competing with each other for sales. If they DID apply...? Then it would potentially be a case where we, as customers, were not open-minded enough to give Project Vie a shot (in an example where Project Vie turns out awesome), so even if it proved to be superior on the whole, we stuck to our desire for brand loyalty, let Project Vie bomb, and then the standard remained status quo instead of improving when it had clear potential to do so. That's more of a case that competition doesn't ALWAYS work, but not due to the faults of the companies, but the consumers making unideal decisions.
In short? Keep an open mind. Recognize your own biases and stop them before they can grow. Don't bank on Project Vie being the second coming of Jesus, but also don't bank on it failing just because you happen to like the Sims; if it would succeed, it would earn it by being better. All and all, this is something to look forward to, regardless of who "wins."
Yeah... no. Your bias against EA is showing. You try to use other peoples' bias as the basis of your argument, while you oh-so-subtly imply that people shouldn't have brand loyalty for the sims. If you're going to use decrying bias as the basis of what you're saying, it helps to not be so obviously biased yourself.
Here's the deal: Anyone who is a fan of the sims has some bias in favor of the sims. So what? Do you honestly expect people to not have biases toward particular games? As if choosing a game is some sort of objective exercise, similar to getting the best deal at a grocery store? Video games sell themselves in entertainment, aka: feelings, like all other types of art. Part of the reason competition is so straightforward and simple in some areas is because the product value is measured more objectively. Is the loaf of bread of the exact same Brand and kind being sold for $1 or $2? The sims is not that kind of simple. You can't just copy/paste the feelings people get from playing the sims. You can theoretically evoke similar feelings, but there's no guarantee.
And it's hardly calling one's biases into the picture to be skeptical about an indie-looking life simulator attempt with no details and vague promises managing to be anything against a 17-year-running game series that has never had serious competition and is backed by a mega corporation.
You talk of competition driving EA to "reinforce their defenses," as if you believe EA has an infinite well of resources and they're just being lazy because of lack of competition. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but without demonstrating such a thing, the belief that competition would make it happen is based in an assumption with no backing.
"What do you gain from loyalty to the sims?" Are you kidding me? There are people who went through huge chunks of their lives playing the sims. People who have deep connections with other simmers, with the devs, or just the community in general. People who have built businesses on the sims, people who spend hours of their days creating mods for it, people who have invested hours and hours of their lives creating homes and sims for others to use. The sims is more than a product. It's 17 years worth of a community. Sure, go ahead and try to tell those people that loyalty should mean nothing to them because something shinier comes along.
This is one of the problems the MMO market has, incidentally. Competitive is so fierce that a sizable chunk of players are drifters with no loyalty. They go from game to game based purely on which one can satisfy them most for the time being. You might think this is customer-friendly and sure, it's customer-friendly for them, but it's not customer-friendly for the people whose communities shrink from losing the players with no loyalty flocking to the newest title. Nor is it customer-friendly when an MMO's funding gets shrunk and its features dry up, while it squeezes profit out of its remaining players because so many abandoned it for the newest shiny product.
With all that out of the way, I feel it's worth nothing that I made a casual, half devil's advocate argument in a thread that was originally in the speculation and rumor forum. I won't speak for others, but you're taking this way more seriously than I was and am. Your post reads like someone who believes the future of life simulators and their value rests with Vie and people being open-minded. You're responding to like 12 people writing one-off speculative posts in the sims forums.
@DeservedCriticism People are just trying not to get their hopes up. So far this project does look sketchy at least to me. The only thing they are showing is a logo and that's it until march. There is a possibility of this project failing. They are hyping their game up so much but have yet to show anything for that hype. It would be nice to have another game like the sims around but I don't know...There is so much unknown of this "company" if it is a "company" or whatever. I want more details but at the moment I am just thinking this might not end well.
I honestly think Vie is a hoax.
On Twitter, they are basically describing the "perfect" game that people unhappy with 4, wanted.
It sounds like a Sims Fan has written it, honestly.
That said, if it is real, it's not gonna blow any of The Sims games out of the water.
There have been many attempts to re-create The Sims, but the all fail because they miss the point of The Sims.
Even Cities: Skylines misses the point of the original SimCity games to an extent (although, it's much better than SimCity 2013).
Well, I don't know if it is a hoax, but they are making bold claims without even showing anything. That's what I think is wrong.
They also bash their competitor in public (by claiming they will be better). I think all we can do is wait until march 15, when they share more info.
But I think them making such bold claims and statements about a project we know nothing about is... weird.
That right there is the elephant in the room.
Jumped right out at me when I read it.
How could anyone remotely seious about trying to pull something like this off shoot themselves in the foot by making a ridiculous statemnt like that? It's as if there is no awreness whatsover how crtical and demanding this crowd truly is.
It's not enough to just make a game...the game has to be supported and new content added on a regular basis...bugs need fixing...the infrastructure required for a project of that scope demands money and human resources lots of human resources
These guys aren't talking about a project, they are talking about a life commitment. One that could ruin them if they start making claims they can't back up. Just ask ask Sean Murray
I'm gonna make a very general statement right now because I think it's better to do so now rather than later:
Those of you trying to dismiss these as rumors or state why you think Project Vie wouldn't work out or why Sims would prove superior? Your bias is showing. I sense quite a bit of defensive bias here. The problem with bias is it's blinding, and it showcases brand loyalty and undying loyalty to EA and the Sims. Why? What do you gain from such an outlook? You don't owe EA or the Sims anything, so if a better alternative comes along, by all means. Stardew Valley for example is supposedly a blatant rip-off of Harvest Moon. The only reason I see to be upset with Stardew Valley is that (and I haven't played it so I dunno) it seems HEAVILY similar, so copying the creative ideas almost word-for-word would admittedly come off as pretty cruddy. (and I could be wrong and maybe they're not super similar) Beyond that though, I as a consumer just want my fun experience, so honestly my attitude is "may the best man win."
We know virtually nothing about Project Vie. We only know it's HIGHLY unlikely it's a baseless rumor since at least two of us distinctly remember hearing about this over a year ago, so obviously something is indeed in the works. We have no reason to believe it'll be a blatant, tasteless rip-off, we have no reason to believe it'll be drastically different, we have no reason to believe it'll bomb and we have no reason to believe it'll succeed and be better than Sims 4. Despite this, I definitely sense that some of us are indeed defensive and want Sims to beat it. That, to me, is blind fan loyalty, and it's illogical and not the least bit beneficial for you, so I'd definitely advise everyone to reflect on this and ask yourself if you have a horse in this race, and if you do, ask why.
Even if this turns out to be a severely overhyped piece of plum that absolutely flops, it's beneficial in the sense EA won't know this until it flops, so it's encouragement to work hard to improve the state of the game and "reinforce their defenses" for the incoming assault. Long-term competition is good too. If for example Project Vie releases and gets critical acclaim for a polished release completely devoid of bugs...? Guess who might CONVENIENTLY suddenly decide they finally wanna fix Friend of the World and collection reward plaques often disappearing?
Competition does help. The above MMO example actually fails to highlight any correlation between competition and a lack of quality. As it stands now, the argument is incomplete and sits at "MMOs are bad and there's a lot of them, therefore competition is bad," which is just faulty logic that fails to prove the lack of quality is a direct consequence of the competition. On the whole, it is widely accepted that competition helps the vast overwhelming majority of the time. Walmart for example boasts about low prices, and I guarentee they would not have low prices if they achieved an absolute global monopoly; those mom and pop shops Walmart is continuously accused of killing? They still at least manage to compromise down Walmart's prices. Or heck, the Cold War and parts of WWII. USA sped up research of atomic bombs specifically BECAUSE it was racing Germany, and later, Russia. Russia and USA, to this day, have unbelievably large militaries with a ridiculous stockpile of atomic weaponry, specifically because both of them were "competing" and the arms market saw a boom in progress and demand.
Here. This is an academic paper exploring and summarizing the merits - and faults - of competition. If you explore the faults section, you'll find potential flaws to be that particularly fierce competition can result in oligarchies or monopolies. Oligarchy is unlikely with only two competitors, and monopoly is what we already have.
The most notable section to me is one that highlights that competition policy makes certain assumptions that consumers seek out the best product for themselves at all times, acting intelligently and rationally. This however isn't always true, and as it highlights, customers may be subject to lower willpower with waiting for a better deal, or they may have certain biases with their purchases. Another snippet discusses how the "sunk cost fallacy" may encourage buyers to continue making payments on an "investment" that's unlikely to achieve optimal results simply because they don't want the money already spent to be "for nothing." See where I'm going with this...? A lot of those actually highlight that flaws with competition come about when customers make mistakes, such as having biases or refusing to jump ship to another product because they've already invested too much in the original.
If you bother to read through that article, you'll find many of the potential flaws have absolutely zero potential to apply to THIS specific scenario, where only two games are competing with each other for sales. If they DID apply...? Then it would potentially be a case where we, as customers, were not open-minded enough to give Project Vie a shot (in an example where Project Vie turns out awesome), so even if it proved to be superior on the whole, we stuck to our desire for brand loyalty, let Project Vie bomb, and then the standard remained status quo instead of improving when it had clear potential to do so. That's more of a case that competition doesn't ALWAYS work, but not due to the faults of the companies, but the consumers making unideal decisions.
In short? Keep an open mind. Recognize your own biases and stop them before they can grow. Don't bank on Project Vie being the second coming of Jesus, but also don't bank on it failing just because you happen to like the Sims; if it would succeed, it would earn it by being better. All and all, this is something to look forward to, regardless of who "wins."
Yeah... no. Your bias against EA is showing. You try to use other peoples' bias as the basis of your argument, while you oh-so-subtly imply that people shouldn't have brand loyalty for the sims. If you're going to use decrying bias as the basis of what you're saying, it helps to not be so obviously biased yourself.
How does "don't fall for brand loyalty" immediately equate "hate EA?" The exact same thing could apply towards people that have a passionate, blind belief that Project Vie will be a glowing success when we have zero reason to think so. You're accusing me of wanting Project Vie to stomp the Sims out, but please by all means, quote me where I said as much. I'm pretty sure I've been entirely neutral and the only camp I've spoken for is camp competition-encourages-growth, yet you think I'm for Project Vie from that...? Again, beg your pardon, but I think your bias is showing again.
You talk of competition driving EA to "reinforce their defenses," as if you believe EA has an infinite well of resources and they're just being lazy because of lack of competition. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but without demonstrating such a thing, the belief that competition would make it happen is based in an assumption with no backing.
The Sims team, Maxis, and all on-hand developers have finite funding for this project. EA "does not." What I mean is, EA will fund the project according to what they think the project needs to succeed and earn the best profit possible. IF they are under the impression that there's a threat to their best-selling franchise, yes, you can guarentee they'll wanna funnel a bit more money it's way.
"What do you gain from loyalty to the sims?" Are you kidding me? There are people who went through huge chunks of their lives playing the sims. People who have deep connections with other simmers, with the devs, or just the community in general. People who have built businesses on the sims, people who spend hours of their days creating mods for it, people who have invested hours and hours of their lives creating homes and sims for others to use. The sims is more than a product. It's 17 years worth of a community. Sure, go ahead and try to tell those people that loyalty should mean nothing to them because something shinier comes along.
This ENTIRE snippet is emotional and devoid of any logic. It's exactly what I'm warning against.
Name one developer here that any user on the forums has a personal, close relationship with where they meet on a regular basis and know each other by their first names rather than screennames. I'm sorry, and I don't mean disrespect to the developers when I say this, but the developers are not your friends. EA is not your friend. This is a strictly business relationship, and if you think having a SimGuru respond to a post of yours every so often constitutes a "deep connection," this is exactly the kind of brand loyalty I'm warning against.
I've been playing Sims since I was like 11 and it was Sims 1. This does not mean I owe the Sims anything or that I should be emotionally invested in it. It's a game. Nothing you listed: from the friendships amongst forum-users to the businesses built, is dependent upon the sims to survive. If Project Vie thrived for example, Carl of Carl's Sims 4 guide could easily make a Guide for that game aswell, thus branching the communities together and allowing his business to thrive based upon a new market.
What's more, I just got done citing the "sunk cost fallacy," and that's exactly what you're falling into right now. Did you read my post at all...?
This is one of the problems the MMO market has, incidentally. Competitive is so fierce that a sizable chunk of players are drifters with no loyalty. They go from game to game based purely on which one can satisfy them most for the time being. You might think this is customer-friendly and sure, it's customer-friendly for them, but it's not customer-friendly for the people whose communities shrink from losing the players with no loyalty flocking to the newest title. Nor is it customer-friendly when an MMO's funding gets shrunk and its features dry up, while it squeezes profit out of its remaining players because so many abandoned it for the newest shiny product.
Incidently, I happen to be educated on this subject, and you're wrong. A huge chunk of an MMO's community is dependent upon the sunk cost fallacy, where players are reluctant to drift because of all the time, energy and money invested in a character, and how they're reluctant to drift as that'd mean that time was "wasted." What's more, many F2PMMO's focus their efforts towards the whales, AKA, the big spenders. They focus much of their time and effort geared towards those players in particular, because even if you only have 10 players willing to mortgage their home to dump into the game, those 10 can easily keep your business afloat. If you bothered researching F2P MMO's and checking reviews, you'd find a stupidly high number of complaints that an MMO "became corrupt," with devs showing favortism towards big spenders. The entire model is more or less a scheme of sorts to make a select number of big spenders feel like VIPs and take them for a ride, while additional users are just an added bonus that sticks around so long as the game remains halfway decent and so long as they feel "invested" in the game. What's killed the MMO genre is not too much competition, but rather a lack of innovation, the lack of innovation being because at this point the innovation REQUIRES a risk and REQUIRES a huge investment and huge gamble be made in advance. DESPITE competition, many MMO developers are content to keep things status quo because it was easy money to feed off whales. More importantly, because of the sunk cost fallacy, few whales have not been found already and few are willing to move on, meaning an MMO would have to make a giant risk and a giant investment by having tons of new innovations to entice a move, otherwise it's a very expensive failed investment. Generally what happens is MMOs are about equal in quality, so a new MMO just has people asking "why throw away my investment," while any innovation to add groundbreaking new features is a risk on behalf of the company, since they're screwed if the whales STILL refuse to move due to their heavy investments in other titles.
With all that out of the way, I feel it's worth nothing that I made a casual, half devil's advocate argument in a thread that was originally in the speculation and rumor forum. I won't speak for others, but you're taking this way more seriously than I was and am. Your post reads like someone who believes the future of life simulators and their value rests with Vie and people being open-minded. You're responding to like 12 people writing one-off speculative posts in the sims forums.
I've heard this ad-hominem before. I'd thank you to stick to the topic. After all, it is a logical fallacy.
It's all very simple: keep an open mind, and the best game features will be obvious and naturally rise to the top. Show immediate bias towards one side or the other? You're counteracting the entire purpose and benefit of competition, stifling it, and ruining a chance for more progress and innovation.
People are just trying not to get their hopes up. So far this project does look sketchy at least to me. The only thing they are showing is a logo and that's it until march. There is a possibility of this project failing.
100%. But as I said, EA won't know this until Project Vie confirms itself a flop, so even the fear of a Project Vie "boogeyman" can generate some innovation. Ideally it doesn't flop on it's arrival or it probably won't have much impact, but as I said, what's exciting is not Project Vie itself, (as you said, we know nothing about it) but rather that the monopoly is finally being challenged and the champion is being asked to defend it's title.
VIE: Virtual Island of Entertainment is an online playground for adults that provides a mature audience the opportunity to escape and indulge in exclusive shopping, fun entertainment, intriguing and mysterious episodic adventures -- and, if they so choose, intimate encounters.
Release Date: August 2010
Genre: Persistent Online Adventure
Publisher: enVie Interactive
Developer: enVie Interactive
So the copyright is already held for that and any new effort would have to have a different name. (unless EA took the publishers over that is)
PS: One of EA's workers on Sims4 is Joel Eckert who worked for enVIE Interactive in the past..
'Vie' is also French for 'life', if I'm not mistaken. Cest la vie and all that... lol.
I think this might be something. Another sim game is not surprising, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I hope it's worth it, as I said.
I'm gonna make a very general statement right now because I think it's better to do so now rather than later:
Those of you trying to dismiss these as rumors or state why you think Project Vie wouldn't work out or why Sims would prove superior? Your bias is showing. I sense quite a bit of defensive bias here. The problem with bias is it's blinding, and it showcases brand loyalty and undying loyalty to EA and the Sims. Why? What do you gain from such an outlook? You don't owe EA or the Sims anything, so if a better alternative comes along, by all means. Stardew Valley for example is supposedly a blatant rip-off of Harvest Moon. The only reason I see to be upset with Stardew Valley is that (and I haven't played it so I dunno) it seems HEAVILY similar, so copying the creative ideas almost word-for-word would admittedly come off as pretty cruddy. (and I could be wrong and maybe they're not super similar) Beyond that though, I as a consumer just want my fun experience, so honestly my attitude is "may the best man win."
We know virtually nothing about Project Vie. We only know it's HIGHLY unlikely it's a baseless rumor since at least two of us distinctly remember hearing about this over a year ago, so obviously something is indeed in the works. We have no reason to believe it'll be a blatant, tasteless rip-off, we have no reason to believe it'll be drastically different, we have no reason to believe it'll bomb and we have no reason to believe it'll succeed and be better than Sims 4. Despite this, I definitely sense that some of us are indeed defensive and want Sims to beat it. That, to me, is blind fan loyalty, and it's illogical and not the least bit beneficial for you, so I'd definitely advise everyone to reflect on this and ask yourself if you have a horse in this race, and if you do, ask why.
Even if this turns out to be a severely overhyped piece of plum that absolutely flops, it's beneficial in the sense EA won't know this until it flops, so it's encouragement to work hard to improve the state of the game and "reinforce their defenses" for the incoming assault. Long-term competition is good too. If for example Project Vie releases and gets critical acclaim for a polished release completely devoid of bugs...? Guess who might CONVENIENTLY suddenly decide they finally wanna fix Friend of the World and collection reward plaques often disappearing?
Competition does help. The above MMO example actually fails to highlight any correlation between competition and a lack of quality. As it stands now, the argument is incomplete and sits at "MMOs are bad and there's a lot of them, therefore competition is bad," which is just faulty logic that fails to prove the lack of quality is a direct consequence of the competition. On the whole, it is widely accepted that competition helps the vast overwhelming majority of the time. Walmart for example boasts about low prices, and I guarentee they would not have low prices if they achieved an absolute global monopoly; those mom and pop shops Walmart is continuously accused of killing? They still at least manage to compromise down Walmart's prices. Or heck, the Cold War and parts of WWII. USA sped up research of atomic bombs specifically BECAUSE it was racing Germany, and later, Russia. Russia and USA, to this day, have unbelievably large militaries with a ridiculous stockpile of atomic weaponry, specifically because both of them were "competing" and the arms market saw a boom in progress and demand.
Here. This is an academic paper exploring and summarizing the merits - and faults - of competition. If you explore the faults section, you'll find potential flaws to be that particularly fierce competition can result in oligarchies or monopolies. Oligarchy is unlikely with only two competitors, and monopoly is what we already have.
The most notable section to me is one that highlights that competition policy makes certain assumptions that consumers seek out the best product for themselves at all times, acting intelligently and rationally. This however isn't always true, and as it highlights, customers may be subject to lower willpower with waiting for a better deal, or they may have certain biases with their purchases. Another snippet discusses how the "sunk cost fallacy" may encourage buyers to continue making payments on an "investment" that's unlikely to achieve optimal results simply because they don't want the money already spent to be "for nothing." See where I'm going with this...? A lot of those actually highlight that flaws with competition come about when customers make mistakes, such as having biases or refusing to jump ship to another product because they've already invested too much in the original.
If you bother to read through that article, you'll find many of the potential flaws have absolutely zero potential to apply to THIS specific scenario, where only two games are competing with each other for sales. If they DID apply...? Then it would potentially be a case where we, as customers, were not open-minded enough to give Project Vie a shot (in an example where Project Vie turns out awesome), so even if it proved to be superior on the whole, we stuck to our desire for brand loyalty, let Project Vie bomb, and then the standard remained status quo instead of improving when it had clear potential to do so. That's more of a case that competition doesn't ALWAYS work, but not due to the faults of the companies, but the consumers making unideal decisions.
In short? Keep an open mind. Recognize your own biases and stop them before they can grow. Don't bank on Project Vie being the second coming of Jesus, but also don't bank on it failing just because you happen to like the Sims; if it would succeed, it would earn it by being better. All and all, this is something to look forward to, regardless of who "wins."
Yeah... no. Your bias against EA is showing. You try to use other peoples' bias as the basis of your argument, while you oh-so-subtly imply that people shouldn't have brand loyalty for the sims. If you're going to use decrying bias as the basis of what you're saying, it helps to not be so obviously biased yourself.
How does "don't fall for brand loyalty" immediately equate "hate EA?" The exact same thing could apply towards people that have a passionate, blind belief that Project Vie will be a glowing success when we have zero reason to think so. You're accusing me of wanting Project Vie to stomp the Sims out, but please by all means, quote me where I said as much. I'm pretty sure I've been entirely neutral and the only camp I've spoken for is camp competition-encourages-growth, yet you think I'm for Project Vie from that...? Again, beg your pardon, but I think your bias is showing again.
You talk of competition driving EA to "reinforce their defenses," as if you believe EA has an infinite well of resources and they're just being lazy because of lack of competition. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but without demonstrating such a thing, the belief that competition would make it happen is based in an assumption with no backing.
The Sims team, Maxis, and all on-hand developers have finite funding for this project. EA "does not." What I mean is, EA will fund the project according to what they think the project needs to succeed and earn the best profit possible. IF they are under the impression that there's a threat to their best-selling franchise, yes, you can guarentee they'll wanna funnel a bit more money it's way.
"What do you gain from loyalty to the sims?" Are you kidding me? There are people who went through huge chunks of their lives playing the sims. People who have deep connections with other simmers, with the devs, or just the community in general. People who have built businesses on the sims, people who spend hours of their days creating mods for it, people who have invested hours and hours of their lives creating homes and sims for others to use. The sims is more than a product. It's 17 years worth of a community. Sure, go ahead and try to tell those people that loyalty should mean nothing to them because something shinier comes along.
This ENTIRE snippet is emotional and devoid of any logic. It's exactly what I'm warning against.
Name one developer here that any user on the forums has a personal, close relationship with where they meet on a regular basis and know each other by their first names rather than screennames. I'm sorry, and I don't mean disrespect to the developers when I say this, but the developers are not your friends. EA is not your friend. This is a strictly business relationship, and if you think having a SimGuru respond to a post of yours every so often constitutes a "deep connection," this is exactly the kind of brand loyalty I'm warning against.
I've been playing Sims since I was like 11 and it was Sims 1. This does not mean I owe the Sims anything or that I should be emotionally invested in it. It's a game. Nothing you listed: from the friendships amongst forum-users to the businesses built, is dependent upon the sims to survive. If Project Vie thrived for example, Carl of Carl's Sims 4 guide could easily make a Guide for that game aswell, thus branching the communities together and allowing his business to thrive based upon a new market.
What's more, I just got done citing the "sunk cost fallacy," and that's exactly what you're falling into right now. Did you read my post at all...?
This is one of the problems the MMO market has, incidentally. Competitive is so fierce that a sizable chunk of players are drifters with no loyalty. They go from game to game based purely on which one can satisfy them most for the time being. You might think this is customer-friendly and sure, it's customer-friendly for them, but it's not customer-friendly for the people whose communities shrink from losing the players with no loyalty flocking to the newest title. Nor is it customer-friendly when an MMO's funding gets shrunk and its features dry up, while it squeezes profit out of its remaining players because so many abandoned it for the newest shiny product.
Incidently, I happen to be educated on this subject, and you're wrong. A huge chunk of an MMO's community is dependent upon the sunk cost fallacy, where players are reluctant to drift because of all the time, energy and money invested in a character, and how they're reluctant to drift as that'd mean that time was "wasted." What's more, many F2PMMO's focus their efforts towards the whales, AKA, the big spenders. They focus much of their time and effort geared towards those players in particular, because even if you only have 10 players willing to mortgage their home to dump into the game, those 10 can easily keep your business afloat. If you bothered researching F2P MMO's and checking reviews, you'd find a plum high number of complaints that an MMO "became corrupt," with devs showing favortism towards big spenders. The entire model is more or less a scheme of sorts to make a select number of big spenders feel like VIPs and take them for a ride, while additional users are just an added bonus that sticks around so long as the game remains halfway decent and so long as they feel "invested" in the game. What's killed the MMO genre is not too much competition, but rather a lack of innovation, the lack of innovation being because at this point the innovation REQUIRES a risk and REQUIRES a huge investment and huge gamble be made in advance. DESPITE competition, many MMO developers are content to keep things status quo because it was easy money to feed off whales. More importantly, because of the sunk cost fallacy, few whales have not been found already and few are willing to move on, meaning an MMO would have to make a giant risk and a giant investment by having tons of new innovations to entice a move, otherwise it's a very expensive failed investment. Generally what happens is MMOs are about equal in quality, so a new MMO just has people asking "why throw away my investment," while any innovation to add groundbreaking new features is a risk on behalf of the company, since they're screwed if the whales STILL refuse to move due to their heavy investments in other titles.
With all that out of the way, I feel it's worth nothing that I made a casual, half devil's advocate argument in a thread that was originally in the speculation and rumor forum. I won't speak for others, but you're taking this way more seriously than I was and am. Your post reads like someone who believes the future of life simulators and their value rests with Vie and people being open-minded. You're responding to like 12 people writing one-off speculative posts in the sims forums.
I've heard this ad-hominem before. I'd thank you to stick to the topic. After all, it is a logical fallacy.
It's all very simple: keep an open mind, and the best game features will be obvious and naturally rise to the top. Show immediate bias towards one side or the other? You're counteracting the entire purpose and benefit of competition, stifling it, and ruining a chance for more progress and innovation.
People are just trying not to get their hopes up. So far this project does look sketchy at least to me. The only thing they are showing is a logo and that's it until march. There is a possibility of this project failing.
100%. But as I said, EA won't know this until Project Vie confirms itself a flop, so even the fear of a Project Vie "boogeyman" can generate some innovation. Ideally it doesn't flop on it's arrival or it probably won't have much impact, but as I said, what's exciting is not Project Vie itself, (as you said, we know nothing about it) but rather that the monopoly is finally being challenged and the champion is being asked to defend it's title.
like it or not people's attachment to this game (in particular) is largely based on emotion and sentiment.
Fair play if you feel like EA/Maxis takes advantage of this...and believe that competition would drive them to do better.
but make no mistake...any competitor trying to fill those shoes has a long long road to hoe.
So pardon my skepticism but this is truly one of those proof or _______________ moments.
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
I know this is off topic, but how is this considered off topic? There really needs to be a place on the forums where the franchise as a whole can be discussed. Grrrr....
Back on topic, as many of you are saying, competition is a good thing and I agree. Yes, many of us probably have a lot invested in the Sims - time, money, energy, creativity; I definitely agree with that. What I don't agree with is that EA has been or become more complacent over the years - the constant bugs that are left for modders to fix - just as an example. They up their game when they need to - Toddlers being released very fleshed out due to the outcry of the community - as an example. Whatever Project Vie is or isn't, I do hope that it will continue make EA and The Sims up their game with this franchise.
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
I think it's more about how they go about implementing the jobs, aging, life stages.
Your question is kind of like how is one brand of clothing different from another brand. We don't all wear the same kind of clothes, but most of us wear shirts shoes undies, etc...
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
By adding things the sims couldn't because of their rating, for example, so making a more adult version of this type of game (due to being tired, I'm not in the mood to think of any other things atm but I'm sure there are some others). Truth is though, I have a hard time imagining they'll be able to make a "finished" life simulator from the get go, one that would have seasons, pets, jobs, families, ageing, and whatever else the sims has right from the very beginning. Idk, I think it's a hugely complex thing to program & maintain, but I might be wrong. Truth is we don't know anything about Vie, whether it's real, whether it will be any good, or even whether it will really be a "sims imitator" or just a new take on the life simulation genre.
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
I think it's more about how they go about implementing the jobs, aging, life stages.
Your question is kind of like how is one brand of clothing different from another brand. We don't all wear the same kind of clothes, but most of us wear shirts shoes undies, etc...
I think your anology is wanting a bit.
If you think about your thread and all the things you listed that would make it it the perfect game for you....
People would still complain if it was too different from the Sims.
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
By adding things the sims couldn't because of their rating, for example, so making a more adult version of this type of game (due to being tired, I'm not in the mood to think of any other things atm but I'm sure there are some others). Truth is though, I have a hard time imagining they'll be able to make a "finished" life simulator from the get go, one that would have seasons, pets, jobs, families, ageing, and whatever else the sims has right from the very beginning. Idk, I think it's a hugely complex thing to program & maintain, but I might be wrong. Truth is we don't know anything about Vie, whether it's real, whether it will be any good, or even whether it will really be a "sims imitator" or just a new take on the life simulation genre.
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
I think it's more about how they go about implementing the jobs, aging, life stages.
Your question is kind of like how is one brand of clothing different from another brand. We don't all wear the same kind of clothes, but most of us wear shirts shoes undies, etc...
Ah..but there's catch here-in order to "catch" us, simmers fans,-it has to appeal to the same demographics (from 6-Elders) that the Sims does (and yes 6 years old DO play it in Germany it's a 6 year old rating over there) which means it too probably wouldn't be able to add the (M rated stuff) much like the Sims. doesn't have it since if they DID have such stuff older folks wouldn't be interested in stuff.
This is one of the problems the MMO market has, incidentally. Competitive is so fierce that a sizable chunk of players are drifters with no loyalty. They go from game to game based purely on which one can satisfy them most for the time being. You might think this is customer-friendly and sure, it's customer-friendly for them, but it's not customer-friendly for the people whose communities shrink from losing the players with no loyalty flocking to the newest title. Nor is it customer-friendly when an MMO's funding gets shrunk and its features dry up, while it squeezes profit out of its remaining players because so many abandoned it for the newest shiny product.
I don't have the impression you played a lot of mmo or not for long, majority of people that invest money don't move from a mmo to an other, they will spend all their money in one to become the most OP and feel special, I've played a mmo for years (not my proudest moment), and everyone that did spent money in that game played it for years (and still are), yea from time to time they was pretending to quit to go play an other game, but they always, always came back, cause it was their investment, leaving was meaning they lost their money. It's not about loyalty, it's about that if people spend thousands of dollars in a game/franchise they cannot let go cause they feel like it's a lost of their money, majority of people that still play that mmo I've play don't even like the company, they stay cause of the money they spent or their relations with other players, which honestly if you befriend someone in a game, then you can keep contact out of the game with Facebook, Skype or whatever. I'm sure there's people here that stay and don't necessary love EA as a company. Loving a game =/= loving a company.
A lot of people spend hundred of dollars if not thousand in the Sims, and leaving for an other game/company would make them feel bad cause they lost their money (and time) and feel like it was a bad choice, while people should see it for what it is, it was an experience, but that doesn't mean you cannot be open to others. A lot of people that play a game/series for years have trouble quitting, cause they felt like they wasted their time if they quit, while people need to think ''no I already spend too long here, it's time for something new''.
If the Sims series was over tomorrow, the devs wouldn't keep contact with the simmers, they would move on and find other jobs, let's say you live in a village that have only one hairdresser, you go see her for let's say 5 years cause it's the only one, but oh after 5 years there's an other that arrive, and you heard she's way better and cheaper as well, you would stay with your old one cause ''loyalty and friend''? You pay for a service, she's nice and listen to you when you go, but at the end of the day if you had cancer and lost all your hair she wouldn't just go visit you at the hospital and bring you flowers every week, you're a customer, maybe a good one that she enjoy, but that's a professional relationship, if tomorrow you get sick EA won't send you flowers, the gurus won't message you on their own every week to get of your news, even if you have played since the start and have bought all games and expansions.
It's not about loyalty for EA, if tomorrow the series was sold to Bethesda you would just stop to play it even if it stay the same? No, you'd keep playing, and you might even hope that the series gets better now that it's in different hands (better or different).
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
I think it's more about how they go about implementing the jobs, aging, life stages.
Your question is kind of like how is one brand of clothing different from another brand. We don't all wear the same kind of clothes, but most of us wear shirts shoes undies, etc...
I think your anology is wanting a bit.
If you think about your thread and all the things you listed that would make it it the perfect game for you....
People would still complain if it was too different from the Sims.
Trust me on this one.
I agree...there's not going to be 100% satisfaction...there rarely is in consumerism.
Sorry I don't get the thread comment or were you just making a general statement?
Oh, I think I remember this. If memory serves me right, this whole "project vie" was initiated by someone who was repeatedly banned from r/thesims for trolling. There were suspicions even that some of the people who participated in the reddit thread were sock accounts of that person, basically talking with themselves over basically hot air.
My advice: believe it when you see it and even then take it with more than just a grain of salt.
And if you think that a major already known The Sims modder is behind this, well, the ones I know have never heard of some "Project Vie" whatsoever.
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
I think it's more about how they go about implementing the jobs, aging, life stages.
Your question is kind of like how is one brand of clothing different from another brand. We don't all wear the same kind of clothes, but most of us wear shirts shoes undies, etc...
I think your anology is wanting a bit.
If you think about your thread and all the things you listed that would make it it the perfect game for you....
People would still complain if it was too different from the Sims.
Trust me on this one.
I agree...there's not going to be 100% satisfaction...there rarely is in consumerism.
Sorry I don't get the thread comment or were you just making a general statement?
The therad where you and the other participants set about making the perfect TS5 title.
I was just ponting out if you took the consensus and built that game, a lot of people would be inclined to focus on things it doesn't have that the Sims did.
May I ask a question? With the exception of the " Ten Foot Pole" stuff (ie disabilities and religion and M rated stuff), how could another LIFE simulator game be different from.. the Sims? Since in order for a "Life" simulator to work you need: 1)jobs, 2)ageing, 3)babies, toddlers and children, teens, and elders) .
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
I think it's more about how they go about implementing the jobs, aging, life stages.
Your question is kind of like how is one brand of clothing different from another brand. We don't all wear the same kind of clothes, but most of us wear shirts shoes undies, etc...
I think your anology is wanting a bit.
If you think about your thread and all the things you listed that would make it it the perfect game for you....
People would still complain if it was too different from the Sims.
Trust me on this one.
I agree...there's not going to be 100% satisfaction...there rarely is in consumerism.
Sorry I don't get the thread comment or were you just making a general statement?
The therad where you and the other participants set about making the perfect TS5 title.
I was just ponting out if you took the consensus and built that game, a lot of people would be inclined to focus on things it doesn't have that the Sims did.
Just the nature of the beast. ^shrug^
Ahhh with you now. Thank you for the clarification.
VIE: Virtual Island of Entertainment is an online playground for adults that provides a mature audience the opportunity to escape and indulge in exclusive shopping, fun entertainment, intriguing and mysterious episodic adventures -- and, if they so choose, intimate encounters.
Release Date: August 2010
Genre: Persistent Online Adventure
Publisher: enVie Interactive
Developer: enVie Interactive
So the copyright is already held for that and any new effort would have to have a different name. (unless EA took the publishers over that is)
PS: One of EA's workers on Sims4 is Joel Eckert who worked for enVIE Interactive in the past..
'Vie' is also French for 'life', if I'm not mistaken. Cest la vie and all that... lol.
I think this might be something. Another sim game is not surprising, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I hope it's worth it, as I said.
--T
There was a beta version of VIE but it apparently came to nothing as far as I can find.
There are some videos on Youtube. Looks a bit simple though.
ie:
Comments
Consider the MMO market. Oversaturated to an extreme degree and rather than most studios making a solid profit with straightforward, customer-friendly business models, many of them are incredibly reliant on micro-transactions, to the point that half the players just go along with it and insist that without it, the games would die (which may be true).
And why did the MMO market reach this situation? Because MMOs need a ton of players for the community to work and the subscription model is something a lot of players can't afford. So they turn to micro-transactions and sustain themselves on the profit from whales; big spenders. On top of that, the market is so spread out with so many different niche appeal titles that communities are smaller and again, this almost requires them to do the whale model, as there simply aren't enough people playing each game to make the profit they need to be making (or rather, the profit their overseers require them to make).
Granted, this is like the extreme reverse; competition to the point of oversaturation. And it's arguable that one or two other life simulators is not going to break the market and push companies like EA to go for shadier and shadier ways to ensure a profit. But it's also arguable that even a little pressure could push them toward shadier ways to make a profit, rather than a better quality product. Certainly the devs care about the quality of the game, but I doubt most of EA's investors care all that much; they just want to know that EA's finances are on point.
Due to the lack of competition, there is no basis for EA's investors to look at the sims and say, "Look at how little the sims is making compared to [X competitor's] life simulator game. This is unacceptable." The lack of competition means they can only look at it in terms of profit overall, compared to other games. We can't accidentally run into a market-breaking WoW situation, in other words.
The WoW situation is that one game in the market does so ridiculously well for so long that it sets the bar unrealistically high. And rather than focusing primarily on a quality product, would-be competitor studios spend all of their money on trying to win over the crowd that plays WoW.
Now chances are, if competition did arise, the sims would hold its own as the "WoW" in the life simulation market. But I don't know that WoW's competition has spurred it to greater heights, or if it just had a strong base from the start and maintained that base.
I can only assume there are those who feel that the sims 4 is many steps backwards and increased pressure on EA would increase the quality of the sims 4 and any future iterations. But in what way? Would it really be in the ways that people want? In the MMO market, for instance, there are certain features that have become more common, such as "wardrobe" (a feature where you can appear to wear something different than the statted gear you have underneath) but not all MMOs bother with this feature, especially not with the same level of functionality.
I would argue that when competition gets intense, the main thing that happens is it becomes a game of trying to maintain a niche, while also focusing on the features that have the most overall market value in relation to the competition out there. In other words, little room for creative exploration of ideas anymore. Failures are less acceptable as it means you'll get eaten alive by the competition. And you can push the limits of the genre, but only if it will outdo the competition, financially.
That said, no competition certainly has its dangers. Danger of complacency or going through the motions to eke out easy profit. Some might think that's happening now, but I would disagree; I don't think EA/Maxis has reached a place of complacency or going through the motions. The danger always exists, but I don't believe we're in that now. I think we are just feeling the effects of some mixed success and failure.
http://uk.ign.com/games/vie/web-70912
VIE: Virtual Island of Entertainment is an online playground for adults that provides a mature audience the opportunity to escape and indulge in exclusive shopping, fun entertainment, intriguing and mysterious episodic adventures -- and, if they so choose, intimate encounters.
Release Date: August 2010
Genre: Persistent Online Adventure
Publisher: enVie Interactive
Developer: enVie Interactive
So the copyright is already held for that and any new effort would have to have a different name. (unless EA took the publishers over that is)
PS: One of EA's workers on Sims4 is Joel Eckert who worked for enVIE Interactive in the past..
Those of you trying to dismiss these as rumors or state why you think Project Vie wouldn't work out or why Sims would prove superior? Your bias is showing. I sense quite a bit of defensive bias here. The problem with bias is it's blinding, and it showcases brand loyalty and undying loyalty to EA and the Sims. Why? What do you gain from such an outlook? You don't owe EA or the Sims anything, so if a better alternative comes along, by all means. Stardew Valley for example is supposedly a blatant rip-off of Harvest Moon. The only reason I see to be upset with Stardew Valley is that (and I haven't played it so I dunno) it seems HEAVILY similar, so copying the creative ideas almost word-for-word would admittedly come off as pretty cruddy. (and I could be wrong and maybe they're not super similar) Beyond that though, I as a consumer just want my fun experience, so honestly my attitude is "may the best man win."
We know virtually nothing about Project Vie. We only know it's HIGHLY unlikely it's a baseless rumor since at least two of us distinctly remember hearing about this over a year ago, so obviously something is indeed in the works. We have no reason to believe it'll be a blatant, tasteless rip-off, we have no reason to believe it'll be drastically different, we have no reason to believe it'll bomb and we have no reason to believe it'll succeed and be better than Sims 4. Despite this, I definitely sense that some of us are indeed defensive and want Sims to beat it. That, to me, is blind fan loyalty, and it's illogical and not the least bit beneficial for you, so I'd definitely advise everyone to reflect on this and ask yourself if you have a horse in this race, and if you do, ask why.
Even if this turns out to be a severely overhyped piece of crap that absolutely flops, it's beneficial in the sense EA won't know this until it flops, so it's encouragement to work hard to improve the state of the game and "reinforce their defenses" for the incoming assault. Long-term competition is good too. If for example Project Vie releases and gets critical acclaim for a polished release completely devoid of bugs...? Guess who might CONVENIENTLY suddenly decide they finally wanna fix Friend of the World and collection reward plaques often disappearing?
Competition does help. The above MMO example actually fails to highlight any correlation between competition and a lack of quality. As it stands now, the argument is incomplete and sits at "MMOs are bad and there's a lot of them, therefore competition is bad," which is just faulty logic that fails to prove the lack of quality is a direct consequence of the competition. On the whole, it is widely accepted that competition helps the vast overwhelming majority of the time. Walmart for example boasts about low prices, and I guarentee they would not have low prices if they achieved an absolute global monopoly; those mom and pop shops Walmart is continuously accused of killing? They still at least manage to compromise down Walmart's prices. Or heck, the Cold War and parts of WWII. USA sped up research of atomic bombs specifically BECAUSE it was racing Germany, and later, Russia. Russia and USA, to this day, have unbelievably large militaries with a ridiculous stockpile of atomic weaponry, specifically because both of them were "competing" and the arms market saw a boom in progress and demand.
Here. This is an academic paper exploring and summarizing the merits - and faults - of competition. If you explore the faults section, you'll find potential flaws to be that particularly fierce competition can result in oligarchies or monopolies. Oligarchy is unlikely with only two competitors, and monopoly is what we already have.
The most notable section to me is one that highlights that competition policy makes certain assumptions that consumers seek out the best product for themselves at all times, acting intelligently and rationally. This however isn't always true, and as it highlights, customers may be subject to lower willpower with waiting for a better deal, or they may have certain biases with their purchases. Another snippet discusses how the "sunk cost fallacy" may encourage buyers to continue making payments on an "investment" that's unlikely to achieve optimal results simply because they don't want the money already spent to be "for nothing." See where I'm going with this...? A lot of those actually highlight that flaws with competition come about when customers make mistakes, such as having biases or refusing to jump ship to another product because they've already invested too much in the original.
If you bother to read through that article, you'll find many of the potential flaws have absolutely zero potential to apply to THIS specific scenario, where only two games are competing with each other for sales. If they DID apply...? Then it would potentially be a case where we, as customers, were not open-minded enough to give Project Vie a shot (in an example where Project Vie turns out awesome), so even if it proved to be superior on the whole, we stuck to our desire for brand loyalty, let Project Vie bomb, and then the standard remained status quo instead of improving when it had clear potential to do so. That's more of a case that competition doesn't ALWAYS work, but not due to the faults of the companies, but the consumers making unideal decisions.
In short? Keep an open mind. Recognize your own biases and stop them before they can grow. Don't bank on Project Vie being the second coming of Jesus, but also don't bank on it failing just because you happen to like the Sims; if it would succeed, it would earn it by being better. All and all, this is something to look forward to, regardless of who "wins."
As for this game, we'll see in march. I've heard about it a few months ago and was told it was definitely a rumour, so I kinda stopped thinking about it. If it turns out to be some weird kind of trolling, that's fine. If it's a viable alternative, that's also very cool. We'll see when we get there.
Here's the deal: Anyone who is a fan of the sims has some bias in favor of the sims. So what? Do you honestly expect people to not have biases toward particular games? As if choosing a game is some sort of objective exercise, similar to getting the best deal at a grocery store? Video games sell themselves in entertainment, aka: feelings, like all other types of art. Part of the reason competition is so straightforward and simple in some areas is because the product value is measured more objectively. Is the loaf of bread of the exact same Brand and kind being sold for $1 or $2? The sims is not that kind of simple. You can't just copy/paste the feelings people get from playing the sims. You can theoretically evoke similar feelings, but there's no guarantee.
And it's hardly calling one's biases into the picture to be skeptical about an indie-looking life simulator attempt with no details and vague promises managing to be anything against a 17-year-running game series that has never had serious competition and is backed by a mega corporation.
You talk of competition driving EA to "reinforce their defenses," as if you believe EA has an infinite well of resources and they're just being lazy because of lack of competition. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but without demonstrating such a thing, the belief that competition would make it happen is based in an assumption with no backing.
"What do you gain from loyalty to the sims?" Are you kidding me? There are people who went through huge chunks of their lives playing the sims. People who have deep connections with other simmers, with the devs, or just the community in general. People who have built businesses on the sims, people who spend hours of their days creating mods for it, people who have invested hours and hours of their lives creating homes and sims for others to use. The sims is more than a product. It's 17 years worth of a community. Sure, go ahead and try to tell those people that loyalty should mean nothing to them because something shinier comes along.
This is one of the problems the MMO market has, incidentally. Competitive is so fierce that a sizable chunk of players are drifters with no loyalty. They go from game to game based purely on which one can satisfy them most for the time being. You might think this is customer-friendly and sure, it's customer-friendly for them, but it's not customer-friendly for the people whose communities shrink from losing the players with no loyalty flocking to the newest title. Nor is it customer-friendly when an MMO's funding gets shrunk and its features dry up, while it squeezes profit out of its remaining players because so many abandoned it for the newest shiny product.
With all that out of the way, I feel it's worth nothing that I made a casual, half devil's advocate argument in a thread that was originally in the speculation and rumor forum. I won't speak for others, but you're taking this way more seriously than I was and am. Your post reads like someone who believes the future of life simulators and their value rests with Vie and people being open-minded. You're responding to like 12 people writing one-off speculative posts in the sims forums.
That right there is the elephant in the room.
Jumped right out at me when I read it.
How could anyone remotely seious about trying to pull something like this off shoot themselves in the foot by making a ridiculous statemnt like that? It's as if there is no awreness whatsover how crtical and demanding this crowd truly is.
It's not enough to just make a game...the game has to be supported and new content added on a regular basis...bugs need fixing...the infrastructure required for a project of that scope demands money and human resources lots of human resources
These guys aren't talking about a project, they are talking about a life commitment. One that could ruin them if they start making claims they can't back up. Just ask ask Sean Murray
How does "don't fall for brand loyalty" immediately equate "hate EA?" The exact same thing could apply towards people that have a passionate, blind belief that Project Vie will be a glowing success when we have zero reason to think so. You're accusing me of wanting Project Vie to stomp the Sims out, but please by all means, quote me where I said as much. I'm pretty sure I've been entirely neutral and the only camp I've spoken for is camp competition-encourages-growth, yet you think I'm for Project Vie from that...? Again, beg your pardon, but I think your bias is showing again.
The Sims team, Maxis, and all on-hand developers have finite funding for this project. EA "does not." What I mean is, EA will fund the project according to what they think the project needs to succeed and earn the best profit possible. IF they are under the impression that there's a threat to their best-selling franchise, yes, you can guarentee they'll wanna funnel a bit more money it's way.
This ENTIRE snippet is emotional and devoid of any logic. It's exactly what I'm warning against.
Name one developer here that any user on the forums has a personal, close relationship with where they meet on a regular basis and know each other by their first names rather than screennames. I'm sorry, and I don't mean disrespect to the developers when I say this, but the developers are not your friends. EA is not your friend. This is a strictly business relationship, and if you think having a SimGuru respond to a post of yours every so often constitutes a "deep connection," this is exactly the kind of brand loyalty I'm warning against.
I've been playing Sims since I was like 11 and it was Sims 1. This does not mean I owe the Sims anything or that I should be emotionally invested in it. It's a game. Nothing you listed: from the friendships amongst forum-users to the businesses built, is dependent upon the sims to survive. If Project Vie thrived for example, Carl of Carl's Sims 4 guide could easily make a Guide for that game aswell, thus branching the communities together and allowing his business to thrive based upon a new market.
What's more, I just got done citing the "sunk cost fallacy," and that's exactly what you're falling into right now. Did you read my post at all...?
Incidently, I happen to be educated on this subject, and you're wrong. A huge chunk of an MMO's community is dependent upon the sunk cost fallacy, where players are reluctant to drift because of all the time, energy and money invested in a character, and how they're reluctant to drift as that'd mean that time was "wasted." What's more, many F2PMMO's focus their efforts towards the whales, AKA, the big spenders. They focus much of their time and effort geared towards those players in particular, because even if you only have 10 players willing to mortgage their home to dump into the game, those 10 can easily keep your business afloat. If you bothered researching F2P MMO's and checking reviews, you'd find a stupidly high number of complaints that an MMO "became corrupt," with devs showing favortism towards big spenders. The entire model is more or less a scheme of sorts to make a select number of big spenders feel like VIPs and take them for a ride, while additional users are just an added bonus that sticks around so long as the game remains halfway decent and so long as they feel "invested" in the game. What's killed the MMO genre is not too much competition, but rather a lack of innovation, the lack of innovation being because at this point the innovation REQUIRES a risk and REQUIRES a huge investment and huge gamble be made in advance. DESPITE competition, many MMO developers are content to keep things status quo because it was easy money to feed off whales. More importantly, because of the sunk cost fallacy, few whales have not been found already and few are willing to move on, meaning an MMO would have to make a giant risk and a giant investment by having tons of new innovations to entice a move, otherwise it's a very expensive failed investment. Generally what happens is MMOs are about equal in quality, so a new MMO just has people asking "why throw away my investment," while any innovation to add groundbreaking new features is a risk on behalf of the company, since they're screwed if the whales STILL refuse to move due to their heavy investments in other titles.
I've heard this ad-hominem before. I'd thank you to stick to the topic. After all, it is a logical fallacy.
It's all very simple: keep an open mind, and the best game features will be obvious and naturally rise to the top. Show immediate bias towards one side or the other? You're counteracting the entire purpose and benefit of competition, stifling it, and ruining a chance for more progress and innovation.
@LadyJester
100%. But as I said, EA won't know this until Project Vie confirms itself a flop, so even the fear of a Project Vie "boogeyman" can generate some innovation. Ideally it doesn't flop on it's arrival or it probably won't have much impact, but as I said, what's exciting is not Project Vie itself, (as you said, we know nothing about it) but rather that the monopoly is finally being challenged and the champion is being asked to defend it's title.
'Vie' is also French for 'life', if I'm not mistaken. Cest la vie and all that... lol.
I think this might be something. Another sim game is not surprising, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I hope it's worth it, as I said.
--T
like it or not people's attachment to this game (in particular) is largely based on emotion and sentiment.
Fair play if you feel like EA/Maxis takes advantage of this...and believe that competition would drive them to do better.
but make no mistake...any competitor trying to fill those shoes has a long long road to hoe.
So pardon my skepticism but this is truly one of those proof or _______________ moments.
I do remember back in Sims 3 there was start up of another life simulator (forget the name) but they didn't get enough cash to start up and it would have had nuns and Monks as careers.
Back on topic, as many of you are saying, competition is a good thing and I agree. Yes, many of us probably have a lot invested in the Sims - time, money, energy, creativity; I definitely agree with that. What I don't agree with is that EA has been or become more complacent over the years - the constant bugs that are left for modders to fix - just as an example. They up their game when they need to - Toddlers being released very fleshed out due to the outcry of the community - as an example. Whatever Project Vie is or isn't, I do hope that it will continue make EA and The Sims up their game with this franchise.
I think it's more about how they go about implementing the jobs, aging, life stages.
Your question is kind of like how is one brand of clothing different from another brand. We don't all wear the same kind of clothes, but most of us wear shirts shoes undies, etc...
By adding things the sims couldn't because of their rating, for example, so making a more adult version of this type of game (due to being tired, I'm not in the mood to think of any other things atm but I'm sure there are some others). Truth is though, I have a hard time imagining they'll be able to make a "finished" life simulator from the get go, one that would have seasons, pets, jobs, families, ageing, and whatever else the sims has right from the very beginning. Idk, I think it's a hugely complex thing to program & maintain, but I might be wrong. Truth is we don't know anything about Vie, whether it's real, whether it will be any good, or even whether it will really be a "sims imitator" or just a new take on the life simulation genre.
I think your anology is wanting a bit.
If you think about your thread and all the things you listed that would make it it the perfect game for you....
People would still complain if it was too different from the Sims.
Trust me on this one.
Ah..but there's catch here-in order to "catch" us, simmers fans,-it has to appeal to the same demographics (from 6-Elders) that the Sims does (and yes 6 years old DO play it in Germany it's a 6 year old rating over there) which means it too probably wouldn't be able to add the (M rated stuff) much like the Sims. doesn't have it since if they DID have such stuff older folks wouldn't be interested in stuff.
I don't have the impression you played a lot of mmo or not for long, majority of people that invest money don't move from a mmo to an other, they will spend all their money in one to become the most OP and feel special, I've played a mmo for years (not my proudest moment), and everyone that did spent money in that game played it for years (and still are), yea from time to time they was pretending to quit to go play an other game, but they always, always came back, cause it was their investment, leaving was meaning they lost their money. It's not about loyalty, it's about that if people spend thousands of dollars in a game/franchise they cannot let go cause they feel like it's a lost of their money, majority of people that still play that mmo I've play don't even like the company, they stay cause of the money they spent or their relations with other players, which honestly if you befriend someone in a game, then you can keep contact out of the game with Facebook, Skype or whatever. I'm sure there's people here that stay and don't necessary love EA as a company. Loving a game =/= loving a company.
A lot of people spend hundred of dollars if not thousand in the Sims, and leaving for an other game/company would make them feel bad cause they lost their money (and time) and feel like it was a bad choice, while people should see it for what it is, it was an experience, but that doesn't mean you cannot be open to others. A lot of people that play a game/series for years have trouble quitting, cause they felt like they wasted their time if they quit, while people need to think ''no I already spend too long here, it's time for something new''.
If the Sims series was over tomorrow, the devs wouldn't keep contact with the simmers, they would move on and find other jobs, let's say you live in a village that have only one hairdresser, you go see her for let's say 5 years cause it's the only one, but oh after 5 years there's an other that arrive, and you heard she's way better and cheaper as well, you would stay with your old one cause ''loyalty and friend''? You pay for a service, she's nice and listen to you when you go, but at the end of the day if you had cancer and lost all your hair she wouldn't just go visit you at the hospital and bring you flowers every week, you're a customer, maybe a good one that she enjoy, but that's a professional relationship, if tomorrow you get sick EA won't send you flowers, the gurus won't message you on their own every week to get of your news, even if you have played since the start and have bought all games and expansions.
It's not about loyalty for EA, if tomorrow the series was sold to Bethesda you would just stop to play it even if it stay the same? No, you'd keep playing, and you might even hope that the series gets better now that it's in different hands (better or different).
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-eckert-b501a712
Vie, the original game seems to have died a death after 2011.
I agree...there's not going to be 100% satisfaction...there rarely is in consumerism.
Sorry I don't get the thread comment or were you just making a general statement?
My advice: believe it when you see it and even then take it with more than just a grain of salt.
And if you think that a major already known The Sims modder is behind this, well, the ones I know have never heard of some "Project Vie" whatsoever.
The therad where you and the other participants set about making the perfect TS5 title.
I was just ponting out if you took the consensus and built that game, a lot of people would be inclined to focus on things it doesn't have that the Sims did.
Just the nature of the beast. ^shrug^
Ahhh with you now. Thank you for the clarification.
There was a beta version of VIE but it apparently came to nothing as far as I can find.
There are some videos on Youtube. Looks a bit simple though.
ie: