Controversial but with Sims, adult players need to be prioritised with regards to marketing - not kids. We’re the ones with disposable income to actually invest in the franchise. Don’t make it overly childish, we can handle some drama, tragedy etc
For a Teen rated game, Sims 4 seems solely targeted towards children? The players who’ve grown up with the franchise & continue to play seem to have been forgotten about. We want messy storylines, drama, personality, DEPTH. Everything’s just too pretty, happy and dull
They haven’t even bothered to put an affair storyline in, or a secret child or even a death. How fragile do they think we are? We can handle a bit of emotion and scandal
This won’t happen but I’d love The Sims franchise to start being marketed as a 15+ game with teen/adult concepts like violence, crime, scandals etc. Kids will always convince their parents to buy the game no matter the rating anyway. Make it less childish?
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There's nothing stopping you from putting a "secret child" in the game, or make up those story lines. I would not have used such features, because I prefer my own versions of those I have lots of "secrets" in my game, which is rather silly as I am the only one who will ever know, lol.
Oh well, I guess I'm childish, then. I suddenly feel very young.
It's what you make it.
Read Sim 66 here:https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/978195/sim-66/p1
https://kelloggjkellogg.blogspot.com/2020/10/sim-66-prologue.html
The emotion system could do with an overhaul and have more consequences but that's a whole different conversation.
This is a bad argument for anything.
There's a bit of something there going on with Johnny Zest and the Landgraabs (secret adult child?) and the Pancakes have some issues and weirdness going on with them. It's not as much or as clear cut as past games, but they've included a tiny bit. I can't remember the name of the family, but I think there's one that came with Get Together that has a suspicious death tied to it.
I don't think that "for children" means "childish" though. If we remember TS1, it had strippers. It was easier to die, you had more control, the needs were harder to maintain and there was higher risk of a fire, higher risk of drowning, of being electrocuted, etc etc. TS4 is very much an utopia sort of simulator where everyone's happy all the time, there is no drama, there are no scancalds, there is barely any lore, sims don't have deep background stories. That's what I think of when I think of "for children". Everything is easier and the game lacks depth, because children (and I'm generalizing now) don't care about reading up on backstories or investigating scandals and hidden secrets of families.
It also ties into details, because details means more work. TS2 had personality points, horoscopes and turn-offs and turn-ons. TS3 had favorites (favorite food, color, music). These are the things that would make TS4 feel more "adult" for me, because there are more details and more things for the player to control. It's the simplification of gameplay and game mechanics that makes TS4 seem more "for children".
When I say I'd prefer it to be a bit more "adult" I don't mean that I want to install 18+ mods with violence and s*xual content. I just mean I want more depth. Bring me some actual challenge, I don't want a life simulator to be "perfect" where everyone gets what they want and I have to actively make an effort to create and pretend that my sims have drama in their lives, because that's not an actual life simulator. TS4 is an utopia simulator with no challenge, no risks, no drama, no mess, no hardships, and you barely have to put in any effort to succeed.
That's my personal opinion and argument of why TS4 is "for children" rather "for adults".
There's also a bit of lore in the descriptions of several items in the Buy catalog. Maybe not as much as previous games, but it is there.
I mean, I personally think they could get a bit darker without violating their rating code, but I understand why they don't. And honestly it's easier to take the game darker than intended than take a dark game and lighten it up without going to parody levels of melodrama.
I have not played it for about three/four weeks now and do not miss it as I got bored with it.
There is no fun in the game anymore if you just like to play normally and not get too into it.
It's supposed to be a fun game but I don't see the fun in it anymore. It needs more to be a little more adult if it really cares for it's players who have played sims since sims 1 but it's all about money so I doubt us oldies are even considered now.
You know, whenever I hear the terms "Family Friendly," "Kid Friendly," and "Child Friendly," in regards to media, it almost always really means "Parent Friendly." It means parents can sit the kid in front of it and leave them alone without worrying about having to talk to their kids about anything, comfort them in the middle of the night from any nightmares, or answer any awkward questions later. In short, media that makes being more hands-off as a parent easier (for very busy, very lazy, and very conservative parents alike). The thing is, you HAVE to engage with your kids about the media they're exposed to and answer their questions and sooth their fears and teach them right from wrong and fantasy from reality. Just taking everything out of media that would prompt those sorts of interventions not only doesn't help kids (or parents, for that matter) in the long run, it also makes things more dull for everyone else.
Read Sim 66 here:https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/978195/sim-66/p1
https://kelloggjkellogg.blogspot.com/2020/10/sim-66-prologue.html
There’s so many teas and easy-to-get rewards that remove any “obstacles.” You can change your lifetime aspiration at anytime. And the aspiration goals themselves are incredibly easy: say hi to 3 people, read one book, etc. If I’m not mistaken, previous iterations gave you challenges like make friends with 10-15 Sims which actually took awhile and wasn’t something you could do in two gameplay hours at the pub. Nothing a Sim does has any lasting impact on their life or personality. Just some Buffs which have nearly zero impact on the game but are more for the player to read.
I definitely miss the days where it was more challenging, and therefore (at least for me), more rewarding. I’m also not a player that develops a whole head canon, I like to see my gameplay decisions come to fruition on screen with some sort of tangible meaning or outcome. To me, that’s what made previous iterations feel more complex and fulfilling. Without those, 4 does seem more watered down/childish.
One things that this particular community does a lot is fret over whether a game is childish, or perceived as childish, or if fans of one iteration or another are childish. I would offer that these sorts of discussions and distinctions aren't useful, nor do they foster productive discussion. I think you'd be better off just talking about features you like or don't like and leave the labels and their connotations out. But you do you.
To be fair, I don't think that construction worker or janitor were ever career paths in any of the Sims titles.
They didn't put ANY storylines in
@TamakiSakura84 I don't think most simmers are talking about sex and violence, we just don't want a childish game.
Exactly. Just look at both available interactions and traits from Sims 2 and 3 (without mods) and yeah... this game is watered down enormously. The ONLY thing more mature and more controversial in 4 compared to the rest is the gender options.