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And how do you think anyone could afford to produce games for people to play if they had to pay people to play them?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
My point was that people think that games which aren't perfect should be sold for half price. But do such people also think that EA should pay their employees at most half of the employees' normal wages if the employees don't make perfect games?
But more and more games become real online games and such games usually don't have an offline mode. So they can't be played anymore when the servers are shut down because the game doesn't give the company enough income anymore to maintain the servers. I don't like that very much either. But there is nothing we can do about it if people prefer online social games and won't pay enough for single player offline games anymore.
The digital only is actually alienating some international Simmers right now. I feel bad because one Simmer can't buy the digital packs in their country. There really needs to be a gifting option like the Sims 3 for the Sims 4. Of course there wouldn't be that problem if the packs were tangible instead too. The games would actually be sold in stores in their countries.
I did buy the Sims 4 half off and digital and I regret it. I wish I had bought the disk instead, but I heard it isn't much different.
Edit: The reason why companies do this is that it doesn't cost them anything. But it motivates a few more customers to also buy their next game. So why shouldn't they do it?
But Sims 4 has been sold at half price or less EVERY SINGLE MONTH since it was released. So they are doing that anyway.
And why do they need so many employee's anyway, when they produce a sub-par game with so much missing. Prison Architect has released and is selling and I think it only took 2 people and was completed in 4 years. City Skylines was made and created by 18 and it's sales are doing well.
I'm a female gamer that owned a Commodore 64, and my family was poor. My mother was a person who worked full time in the 1960's and started working at 12. I know no women who could afford to stay at home, but knew several kids who had computers and gaming systems at home.
I can remember when EA was created - Electronics Artists - mission statement - to put developers and game creators in the front seat. When did the mission statement change to shareholders and making profits, or to putting out rushed, half-finished broken games and trying to rip off consumers? Originally EA was well regarded by many, now their a joke on the internet and holder of the worst company award. The original EA saved Maxis who was in trouble, they took the time to put their trust in strange game (sims 1) that nobody could understand. Now EA is famous for holding back content, over-expensive games, overprice expansions and a shedload of DLC.
PS - For a really good understanding about why Simcity has changed (and failed) and how this relates to the sims, see the video from Erant Signal who has a 2 part over the issue. He has some intresting things to say about goals, assets and mobile based play. Reminds me a lot of why I'm alergic to Sims 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUhuCMw7nnk
I gave you an awesome back. The screams will and are continuing to fall on deaf ears as I see more responses of the same thing over and over again. Defending a company who did not deliver a complete product worth the price they charged even though the company promised to complete it just to keep sales and game pre-orders from cancelling
My point is that nobody knows what others are thinking.
As far as I'm concerned games that aren't finished should not be sold at any price - not even if they are free.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
The irony of your comment being that you play Sims:Freeplay
Agree. Release date should be postponed until the game is complete and fix as many bugs as they can before release . Other companies have postponed release of a game to make sure the game meets the AAA price they are charging. GTA V was postponed a few times. The game runs really well on PC. I haven't encountered any bugs either . If there are still some bugs I haven't noticed
If maybe each EA game is developed by about 200 employees in average then this doesn't explain even half of the number of employees. So most of those employees must probably be occupied in sales and marketing. But they need their wages anyway.
I can't find very much information about the numbers of different types of employees in EA. But there are some interesting information on http://www.managementparadise.com/forums/principles-management-p-o-m/208116-swot-analysis-electronic-arts.html where you also can see that EA had a loss of $1.08 billion in the financial year which ended in March 2008 and therefore had to fire a huge number of employees.
The Sims 4 basegame is very important for EA to sell because of course people won't buy the expansions if they don't own the basegame. Games are like newspapers and magazines: The first copy cost millions of dollars to make. But the following copies have extremely low production costs compared with the first one and are nearly free to make. Therefore companies will do almost anything to sell as many copies as possible.
Shame on them for trying to pull that off.
After buying the sims 3 I gave it a shot,but that didnt last long,same with the sims 4 I lost all intrest in it. Back to the sims 2 for me it is.
I know it's far from ideal but at least we have something to go back to! My disappointment with Sims 4 has actually given me a new appreciation for Sims 3 and 2 will always be a game I'm happy to go back to and replay.
I agree that the design choices were made for an online social game. The tiny 'hoods, the loading screens, the UI that looks like it was designed for touch screens. Even their emphasis on the socialization system for adults/young adults (while practically ignoring everything else) is due to this, because that's what players would be doing in an online game with their friends.
As to the second paragraph I bolded, I have to point out that there obviously is a core audience who are interested in a simpler game. Maybe you could go so far as to say they prefer a simpler game that is more cartoon-like and primarily focuses on socialization. I know I've seen some comments about how some felt TS3 was 'too big, and too overwhelming' for them.
If anything, they overestimated the size of this audience while underestimating the number of their customers who want a more complete, in-depth game full of simulated details and...yes, that "c" word - the complexity that Sims games were previously known for.
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
How many copies of the Sims games are usually sold? 1-3 millions I think.
So where are all those 99% of the customers who don't visit the forums and don't seem to active anywhere else either? They are of course the most important customers for EA because they seem to be such a huge majority. Are we sure that EA didn't succeed either in giving them just the game they wanted?
Ark Survival Revolved not even finished has half a year to a year (they say summer but if it isn't ready I know they will delay it, so put a year). 40 developers working on the game( I think it is 40 too early to search their forums without my first cup of coffee completed). Open world (has rain, snow area and it snows and if you chop down a tree in the snow biome snow falls of said tree), swamp area, beach area, jungle area, forest, and a huge open world sandbox game. You rule because you can host a server, rent a server from other places, change game.ini and etc..The breeding was asked by the customers/players...and we got it.. ..They will be adding 100 + creatures to the game when they started they said 70+, but the customers/players asked for many types of dinos and mammals, so they are putting them in..
Our newest dino..just hatched this am (an hatching an egg isn't easy and takes time)
And yes the grass sways..
And I paid 30.00 dollars for this game...o.o
Paying 80 bucks for a game I expect better quality (not realism graphics I am talking a real honest to good jam gameplay game)..I expect the developers to acknowledge and listen to their customers.. And if a game is sub par and I think they know that because it is on sale all the time to delay it..They had 15 years of actual data from their customers..If they have a large base (not saying majority)of simmers angry or even customers of other games they should listen to the outrage and figure out why and do something about it. If an indie game can do it, Rockstar, Assassin Creed..so can they for 80 bucks they charge for deluxe or just the original base.. and it should not be so barebone to begin with..
I love the previous version, this is the first time I can actually say this game (sims 4) is poop and show lack of love of the series..
Why, yes, Erpe. Yes, I am sure.
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
As the old saying goes "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you".
Whether them somebodies or new otherbodies will continue to buy and continue to play we will only know in time
But for every unhappy customer who refuses to buy, or non-buying customer who isn't interested this franchise slips into danger
Unless EA are willing to take money from batterfield/titan/shooty gun games or from their sports titles (pay every year for exactly the same thing with only names changed) unhappy Sims 4 players (who may stop buying) will matter badly. Sims has always depended on expansions and return customers and from their meeting reports that's what EA is banking on.
We will see
It really is a shame as I know that one particular person does not even like the game because they admitted they don't and don't play it. I don't understand the support for a company that does not deserve or need the support. Maybe they have shares and don't want the money to go down? They have enough of the kiss ups in the company that tell the PTB's what they want to hear, rather than the truth.
EA is a large company, they can spend their money on portajohns if they want to instead of fixing any of their games. But, as customers if we want changes with future games they need to hear our issues and complaints with the current game and that is what we are doing and that is what this person does not seem to understand or believe that it will do any good. I'm happy playing Sims3. I would like for Sims 5 to be better than Sims 3. I would like to know that my comments help, but, if it does not I can say I tried. I can say that I tried over and over again to get them to understand what we want in a game. I will continue to try over and over until I decided to give up. It is not that persons place to tell me to give it up. Anywhoo...they are on ignore now. My first ignore as I can't bear to read anymore of the drivel.
The Cowboy and the Mermaid
So why do I care? The reason is that there are only 2 major possibilities (anything else is just unlikely to happen):
1. The Sims 4 expansions keep selling in a way which EA can accept and then it is most likely that EA will also release TS5 in a few years. I don't think that it is likely that I will like TS5 either. But I don't know yet. So maybe.
2. The Sims 4 expansions stop selling well enough for EA to make a profit. Then EA may attempt to make them smaller to counteract that. But EA will then probably make fewer expansions than EA originally had planned. It is then doubtful if EA will make TS5 at all. But maybe EA will then instead make a few smaller standalone games which won't get any big expansions at all. If they don't sell either then EA will just stop the series for good like EA already has done with other game series.
I strongly prefer the first of those possibilities instead of the second one.
People here are also fantasizing about other companies making games like the Sims games. But I am sure that this won't happen. Besides that it will also be even less likely if EA's Sims games stop selling because who would want to make a game of a type which people don't like or buy anymore? Nobody.
Agreed.
If no one complains or advises, we get more of the same.
'Fantasize' is all this sight allows. On other sites, which Maxis cannot control, there is much more going on to encourage other developers to give the genre consideration. Life simulation genre will not die simply because Maxis stops making them.