@Erpe you have your opinions and I have mine. I don't need to subscribe to your way of thinking, the same as you don't have to mine.
I don't agree with you at all in regards to 'having to change the game'. They didn't need to reinvent the wheel-they knew people would buy the same expansions time and time again but with progression in the core of the game. EA just got obsessed that everything had to be online and shot themselves in the foot because yet again it wasn't based on anything other than a vision of one of their executives.
@Gtompkins48 as much as I hate admitting it I totally agree with both of your recent posts. Well said
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
Do yo really think that EA should have hired an even bigger team of highly educated professionals?
Hmm, that doesn't look too large tbh. Most of those people are testers, family members, and umbrella workers who do work for multiple games simultaneously. The actual development team is fairly small. Take a look at the team sizes for other blockbuster AAA games.
I counted:
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
Do yo really think that EA should have hired an even bigger team of highly educated professionals?
None of us are saying that. If they had done it right the first time, instead of giving leftovers none of this would even be discussed. NOT OUR FAULT!!!!! You need to quit excusing them, although, you are entitled to your opinion. I and others will not excuse them from this.
You have to admit that the article was spot on. After reading it only once, I found it enlightening and informative. I believe that EA should really step up and address each point presented in order to justify the disappointment on many of the players. At least this article wasn't silly "whining and groaning" but an articulate assessment of the facts by the author.
Having said that, I am still a Sims game devotee and probably will be until the end. I only hope that EA will address these points so that many of the gamers will remain with the franchise.
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
Interesting. Perhaps you should take the time to do the math on how many billions they've made on their games overall? I wonder how much they make on shares too. You seem to have plenty of time on your hands.
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
@sparkfairy1 You don't seem to be able to see the problem or the difference from earlier Sims games. But the way that I see it is:
Sims 1: A completely new concept. The game had primitive graphics and not much content. So it was cheap to make. But the supprisingly high sales numbers then caused EA to make a lot of expansions which hadn't been planned. They were not easy to make for that reason and they were therefore also difficult to install. They had to be installed in the correct order and sometimes even this didn't work in the first attempt.
Sims 2: The extremely high sales number for TS1 caused EA to make a much bigger game with advanced graphics. This time the game was prepared for expansions and they therefore also became much easier to make and install. Many simmers hated that TS2 was released anyway though because they had used so much money on TS1. So a lot of people hesitated to buy TS2. But the much more advanced graphics and the much more advanced gameplay finally convinced also the remaining simmers to buy the game.
Sims 3: EA knew the problem with a lot of simmers hesitating to buy a new game from TS2. So they included the open world to convince people - even though the technology wasn't really ready for that step. The open world limited the number of sims in each game and it made subhoods almost impossible. Most of the EPs were therefore released with new buildings which couldn't really be placed in the world where people already played. So usually people had to start a new game for each EP.
Sims 4: The problem about including something new which could convince people to buy the game early and for the full price had become bigger than ever before. There were no longer really any opportunity to just add hugely improved graphics, aging, a more open world or something like that. They just had to find something new - but what should it be?
I don't really know what they should have done. My best proposal would have been gradually increased heights as the children grow up and a possibility to make Sims of different heights as adults. But I think that this would have been nearly impossible to make for technological reasons. At least unless EA would make a game with much higher minimum requirements which probably would cost EA a lot of customers.
So they consider to make it as an online multiplayer game. But ended with emotions, multitasking and an improved build mode instead. How would you have made the game if it still should have enough convincing new content for EA to use in their PR campaigns?
NOT one word you have said here is the truth. Where are you coming up with all this? I was there. Also if you were there you would know why children do not slowly change heights. What a load of malarky. Would you please stop making up things.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
Do yo really think that EA should have hired an even bigger team of highly educated professionals?
Hmm, that doesn't look too large tbh. Most of those people are testers, family members, and umbrella workers who do work for multiple games simultaneously. The actual development team is fairly small. Take a look at the team sizes for other blockbuster AAA games.
I counted:
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
Lmao, 280 is not that big of a team. Count how many devs there are for other franchises of a similar size. There are many AAA teams with 500+ body counts. Give me a break.
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
Interesting. Perhaps you should take the time to do the math on how many billions they've made on their games overall? I wonder how much they make on shares too. You seem to have plenty of time on your hands.
Spot on. If they paid 500 employees 70k a year (which is a VERY generous average salary), that would only be a labor budget of 140 mil for a 4 year team (Realistically, it would only be 104 mil). That budget size is completely reasonable for a cash cow like The Sims.
EA was just being cheap and now we have a terrible, watered down game because of it.
EA clearly listens to complaints. All the Sims 2 players complained about rotation playing and story progression so they gave us Sims 4.
lol (if you can't fix it, take it out)
NO, siimers did not complain of rotational play in Sims 2 - and the only complaints about sp - was there was none by players not interested in playing every household in a hood themselves. You don't use SP in rotational play. The first time we actually had sp for our own sims was sims 3 - and during sims 3 rotational players first had trouble playing the game rotationally because it was not designed for us to play multiple households. People were used to playing all of their own households and did not expect any sims to be moving around doing things - like going to work, having affairs and kids, getting broken marriage because we had never had that kind of game play in Sims 1 or 2. The only sp you saw in Sims 1 and 2 were in the non-controllable sims that the AI controlled like bartenders, shop merchants, service NPCs etc - - but playable sims had none.
When the sims team tweaked some of the annoying culling in Sims 3 (which was the first encounter we actually had with culling playables), and made it possible for us to somewhat have multiple households - there was still a number of issues - switching households - but the worse issue was the changes we encountered playing rotationally because of SP's controlling every household when it was not actively being played by the player. That was the start of the Sims having SP in the playable sims and not hardly anyone liked it very much. We expected our sims households to remain as we had left them - not have game controlled lives when we were trying to play another of our households.
Of course because of the earliest issues even trying to play Sims 3 rotationally some simmers adapted and gave up trying to play their typical rotational play- and many of those simmers did adapt to SP and actually liked the fact the sims did not just sit dormant in households outside of the ones they were playing. Even shutting off sp did not fully shut it off completely. It should have - but it didn't - so there was often arguments between players who never adapted to sp - and those who had.
But no - the more one was considered a rotational player the more these players expected SP not to do things with their other households in their rotation. But the one or two household players loved the fact they did not have to play all the households in the game and that sims life went on whether or not they played any of the household. Simmers got used it - but not everyone liked it.
Some of us that always played rotationally were actually happy when Sims 4 came out and had no sp and was again rotational play - but others were not so happy who had gotten used to sp play or all the newbies we got during Sims 3 that never had played Sims 1 or 2 to know how rotational play actually works - so they fussed about it and Maxis has been tweaking up sp in Sims 4 since - it seems quite often. It still is not as controllable as it was in Sims 3 of course, so a lot of people still complain about there not being any - but I can tell you if there was no sp - your own sims if you play rotationally would not have any changes in their households at all from when you last played their houses if there was no sp.
BUt rotational play and sp does not go well together if you are truly a rotational player. They can have rotational play but they need to make sure it does completely shut off when rotational players shut it off and not be like it was in Sims 3. All I know is have a game controller messing with my other households when I am not playing those households is like some stranger coming in my house and playing my game. I play Sims 1 and 2 style where I control all housesholds I play most of the time in normal sims hoods. I may play differently where I don't mind sp say in an alien type world or a supernatural type world where I am less inclined to play many households - so I like it is there - but they do need to have an on and off button that truly turn it on and off. In sims 3 in off position - sp control did not fully stop and it should have.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Exactly @bekkasan any loss from Olympus was the responsibility of EA. Their mistake, their loss to make up. It's not reasonable to give us an inferior product or experience because of the mistakes made in development.
@Writin_Reg am I right in remembering they let go of staff from TS4 while in development?
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
Do yo really think that EA should have hired an even bigger team of highly educated professionals?
Hmm, that doesn't look too large tbh. Most of those people are testers, family members, and umbrella workers who do work for multiple games simultaneously. The actual development team is fairly small. Take a look at the team sizes for other blockbuster AAA games.
I counted:
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
Lmao, 280 is not that big of a team. Count how many devs there are for other franchises of a similar size. There are many AAA teams with 500+ body counts. Give me a break.
I think that the 280 were only half of the team because as I wrote they had a huge number of people in the quality assurance team too. But I didn't count them because I don't think that many of them were part of the team from the beginning. Beside that a development time of 4 years is quite long.
Anyway 280 * $100,000 is $28,000,000 a year. So the wages for just those people are probably at least 4 times that which is $112,000,000 and probably a lot more if we count the other expenses too. So EA has to sell a lot of games to get the money back.
Anyway seeing people here attempting to threaten EA to give them exactly the game they want seems to me like they don't understand the economy at all. It sounds nearly to me as if they are saying "We are 500 people and if all of us use $100 less on TS4 then EA will lose all that money (about $50,000) and therefore go bankruptcy!" even though such an amount wouldn't pay the wage for just one of the hundreds of employees for even a single year. So why can't people understand that EA's board doesn't care?
Another thing that people here easily forget is the way the developers usually talk when they present a new game. Listen to such a presentation and you will easily hear that they talk in a way which is meant to mainly pursuade 12 to 14 years old "teens" to get the game. But those customers aren't in this forum and they probably didn't even play any of the previous games. So they don't care much about closed or open worlds.
So the reason that EA mostly ignore people here who are insulted because EA changed "their" game obviously is that EA is much more concerned about other types of customers who probably buy more than 99% of the sold games. You can't really expect EA to be scared by "threats" from a fraction of the remaining 1% who read this forum
@Erpe I don't see 'threats' anywhere. I see good interesting discussion and logical thinking. Please don't try to insult everyone here in the discussion just because people disagree with you
@Writin_Reg well said! If a huge company like EA find it too hard and expensive to make games with all the resources and access to the best and brightest staff that comes with their position in the market then they are in serious trouble.
But look at their other games-they aren't doing this elsewhere!
I mean if they can hand on heart say this is the best they are capable of for the sims I feel sorry for them. Fact is we've seen some of the same staff doing much better things when they were new to the job! Something is preventing them from greatness. Don't care what it is. Just want it fixed. And I do not want to hear any more excuses. If all you have are excuses EA I think it's time you offered refunds to those of us who bought under promises you've been incapable of fulfilling.
I think EA are treating the sims game like a Z grade title. I just dont understand why?
Are they doing this with The Sims 4 because they know the game is not getting any better so they just dont want to spend on it anymore?
The half baked stuff they keep releasing every month, the ignorance to what players demand!
I just don't know what to say. I think before the players EA itself has given up on The Sims 4. So when they did that why should we players have any hope that this game will get any better?
Right now it is just the matter of releasing small packs every month and making fast money of them.
Hypothetically it may well be that their cost benefit analysis shows them that it's not worth salvaging things for those they haven't catered to. We've seen the devs talk about how limiting the engine is and sometimes it is more expensive to try to fix something than it is to start from scratch. I suspect that they may be having issues given the explanation they gave for babies stuck to a bassinet.
They may have expected better returns in profits for the game and the issues may have meant they don't have as much access to further funds to fix the issues.
If that's the case I wish they would just come out and say it and stop stringing people along.
Yes I think the game has been given a potato budget!
Whatever difficulty the developers are saying they have is mainly because of the budget. It is a big shame since this is an A grade title. or better to say was an A grade title
Do yo really think that EA should have hired an even bigger team of highly educated professionals?
Hmm, that doesn't look too large tbh. Most of those people are testers, family members, and umbrella workers who do work for multiple games simultaneously. The actual development team is fairly small. Take a look at the team sizes for other blockbuster AAA games.
I counted:
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
Lmao, 280 is not that big of a team. Count how many devs there are for other franchises of a similar size. There are many AAA teams with 500+ body counts. Give me a break.
I think that the 280 were only half of the team because as I wrote they had a huge number of people in the quality assurance team too. But I didn't count them because I don't think that many of them were part of the team from the beginning. Beside that a development time of 4 years is quite long.
Anyway 280 * $100,000 is $28,000,000 a year. So the wages for just those people are probably at least 4 times that which is $112,000,000 and probably a lot more if we count the other expenses too. So EA has to sell a lot of games to get the money back.
Anyway seeing people here attempting to threaten EA to give them exactly the game they want seems to me like they don't understand the economy at all. It sounds nearly to me as if they are saying "We are 500 people and if all of us use $100 less on TS4 then EA will lose all that money (about $50,000) and therefore go bankruptcy!" even though such an amount wouldn't pay the wage for just one of the hundreds of employees for even a single year. So why can't people understand that EA's board doesn't care?
Another thing that people here easily forget is the way the developers usually talk when they present a new game. Listen to such a presentation and you will easily hear that they talk in a way which is meant to mainly pursuade 12 to 14 years old "teens" to get the game. But those customers aren't in this forum and they probably didn't even play any of the previous games. So they don't care much about closed or open worlds.
So the reason that EA mostly ignore people here who are insulted because EA changed "their" game obviously is that EA is much more concerned about other types of customers who probably buy more than 99% of the sold games. You can't really expect EA to be scared by "threats" from a fraction of the remaining 1% who read this forum
112 million is not a big budget for the most successful PC franchise of all time *facepalm*.
Also, if you seriously believe that all the little people on dev teams are making 100 grand a year, then you don't know much about the gaming industry. Those salaries are reserved for high-level management and software engineers.
Sounds to me like you're being an apologist for cheap and shady business practices. Do you realize how silly it sounds to argue that EA had no choice but to create a horrible game?
@sparkfairy1 You don't seem to be able to see the problem or the difference from earlier Sims games. But the way that I see it is:
Sims 1: A completely new concept. The game had primitive graphics and not much content. So it was cheap to make. But the supprisingly high sales numbers then caused EA to make a lot of expansions which hadn't been planned. They were not easy to make for that reason and they were therefore also difficult to install. They had to be installed in the correct order and sometimes even this didn't work in the first attempt.
Sims 2: The extremely high sales number for TS1 caused EA to make a much bigger game with advanced graphics. This time the game was prepared for expansions and they therefore also became much easier to make and install. Many simmers hated that TS2 was released anyway though because they had used so much money on TS1. So a lot of people hesitated to buy TS2. But the much more advanced graphics and the much more advanced gameplay finally convinced also the remaining simmers to buy the game.
Sims 3: EA knew the problem with a lot of simmers hesitating to buy a new game from TS2. So they included the open world to convince people - even though the technology wasn't really ready for that step. The open world limited the number of sims in each game and it made subhoods almost impossible. Most of the EPs were therefore released with new buildings which couldn't really be placed in the world where people already played. So usually people had to start a new game for each EP.
Sims 4: The problem about including something new which could convince people to buy the game early and for the full price had become bigger than ever before. There were no longer really any opportunity to just add hugely improved graphics, aging, a more open world or something like that. They just had to find something new - but what should it be?
I don't really know what they should have done. My best proposal would have been gradually increased heights as the children grow up and a possibility to make Sims of different heights as adults. But I think that this would have been nearly impossible to make for technological reasons. At least unless EA would make a game with much higher minimum requirements which probably would cost EA a lot of customers.
So they consider to make it as an online multiplayer game. But ended with emotions, multitasking and an improved build mode instead. How would you have made the game if it still should have enough convincing new content for EA to use in their PR campaigns?
NOT one word you have said here is the truth. Where are you coming up with all this? I was there. Also if you were there you would know why children do not slowly change heights. What a load of malarky. Would you please stop making up things.
I was there too. You don't like the way EA is thinking which is OK with me.
Admitted I didn't read the English TS1 forum. But in the first two years after TS2 had been released we had a lot of people in the Danish TS2 forum (which also had a TS1 sub-forum) who refused to buy TS2 because they loved their big collection of TS1 packs too much. They thought that EA shouldn't have released TS2 at all but made more expansions for TS1 instead. After about two years they nearly all disappeared from the TS1 sub-forums.
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
Interesting. Perhaps you should take the time to do the math on how many billions they've made on their games overall? I wonder how much they make on shares too. You seem to have plenty of time on your hands.
Spot on. If they paid 500 employees 70k a year (which is a VERY generous average salary), that would only be a labor budget of 140 mil for a 4 year team (Realistically, it would only be 104 mil). That budget size is completely reasonable for a cash cow like The Sims.
EA was just being cheap and now we have a terrible, watered down game because of it.
Why on earth do you think that a company like EA who makes games just to earn a profit and grow should accept a huge loss of money on TS4 just because they have earned money on other games?!??
Would you do that yourself?
We can all dream about EA using all their income from other games only on the game which we like most. But then we should wake up and return to the real world
@Erpe the point people are making is if they made a sufficient base they would continue to roll in profits as they always have. They've essentially sabotaged themselves and the game by releasing the game unfinished-even when EA CEO himself says EA shouldn't do that!
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
Interesting. Perhaps you should take the time to do the math on how many billions they've made on their games overall? I wonder how much they make on shares too. You seem to have plenty of time on your hands.
Spot on. If they paid 500 employees 70k a year (which is a VERY generous average salary), that would only be a labor budget of 140 mil for a 4 year team (Realistically, it would only be 104 mil). That budget size is completely reasonable for a cash cow like The Sims.
EA was just being cheap and now we have a terrible, watered down game because of it.
Why on earth do you think that a company like EA who makes games just to earn a profit and grow should accept a huge loss of money on TS4 just because they have earned money on other games?!??
Would you do that yourself?
We can all dream about EA using all their income from other games only on the game which we like most. But then we should wake up and return to the real world
EA used so much of the profit from the Sims on other games and did not properly fund the franchise. The franchise has raked in billions of dollars in revenue, so your argument is not sound.
There are plenty of gaming companies that create quality games and still make a profit. The problem with EA was that they refused to invest in their cash cow (which is irrational on their part, because it is now negatively affecting the health of said cash cow).
The Sims was so successful that I really have trouble grasping why you are pretending that they have no choice but to strip the budget.
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
Interesting. Perhaps you should take the time to do the math on how many billions they've made on their games overall? I wonder how much they make on shares too. You seem to have plenty of time on your hands.
Spot on. If they paid 500 employees 70k a year (which is a VERY generous average salary), that would only be a labor budget of 140 mil for a 4 year team (Realistically, it would only be 104 mil). That budget size is completely reasonable for a cash cow like The Sims.
EA was just being cheap and now we have a terrible, watered down game because of it.
Why on earth do you think that a company like EA who makes games just to earn a profit and grow should accept a huge loss of money on TS4 just because they have earned money on other games?!??
Would you do that yourself?
We can all dream about EA using all their income from other games only on the game which we like most. But then we should wake up and return to the real world
EA used so much of the profit from the Sims on other games and did not properly fund the franchise. The franchise has raked in billions of dollars in revenue, so your argument is not sound.
There are plenty of gaming companies that create quality games and still make a profit. The problem with EA was that they refused to invest in their cash cow (which is irrational on their part, because it is now negatively affecting the health of said cash cow).
The Sims was so successful that I really have trouble grasping why you are pretending that they have no choice but to strip the budget.
Because the users position is to defend EA whatever they do. A valid point if that's what they fancy doing, it just doesn't excuse EA of its mistakes with others.
@Erpe the point people are making is if they made a sufficient base they would continue to roll in profits as they always have. They've essentially sabotaged themselves and the game by releasing the game unfinished-even when EA CEO himself says EA shouldn't do that!
Exactly @bekkasan any loss from Olympus was the responsibility of EA. Their mistake, their loss to make up. It's not reasonable to give us an inferior product or experience because of the mistakes made in development.
@Writin_Reg am I right in remembering they let go of staff from TS4 while in development?
@Pary and @Corey785 I know it's just interesting watch the defence bar move whatever is said.
Actually they let go of staff at the end of Sims 3 to do with the store as all the store was done at the Salt lake city studios and they had to move out all the Sims 3 studio people from there to remade the studios into a state of the art mobile studio. It was not due to the Sims 3 or the Sims 4 - and just 40 employees were affected - the 40 on the sims 3 store team. BUt they did offer to place many of the store team at the Redwood CA studios who wanted to work there. Those that didn't they helped with getting new jobs and such. BUt there was also some loses of personel from both studios also between that time and the actual end days of the Sims 3 too - but less to do with EA - it was people moving on to other jobs or family situations that forced them to move elsewhere. Like Smitty left because her hubby's job had him moved to another part of the country - so naturally she went with him. I know there was another person who had been with EA for many years that was going into business for himself to do with Art - and who was also moving else where. Another left to make their own games with a new start up company.
Oh there were a lot of shuffling around that actually started when the Sims 4 development went from online to offline back in 2012 as well. Like all the online production team were removed from the Sims 4 when it was decided in 2012 they were not happy with the online version (which actually came about before SC2013 came out to be honest - because they had already scrapped the online game engine and let go a handfull of online game /engine development people - but at the same time replaced them with offline engine people to newly build another game engine to go back to the normal offline Sims series type game. All the fiasco with SC 2013 did was confirm what the games developers had already concluded, but of course by the time Sims City came out and failed - they already were salvaging what they could from the offline and adding/developing all the new to the brand new game engine. Several of the people laid off from the online posted much of this info themselves online on their own webpages way back in 2012 -
The next big layoff was when Sims City proved to be a failure - and the decision came to close Emeryville - but again like the move of people from the Salt Lake City studios - many were offered positions at the main EA campus and a few other EA owned studios - and others got some temp work to finish helping get Sims 4 out as well. I know very few were just plain let go - most that were let go had new positions to go to or came back to the Main EA campus.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
@Erpe the point people are making is if they made a sufficient base they would continue to roll in profits as they always have. They've essentially sabotaged themselves and the game by releasing the game unfinished-even when EA CEO himself says EA shouldn't do that!
Exactly. It was complete self-sabotage on their part.
Yes it was. That's what irritated me the most. Andrew Wilson came out to make promises of 'no more unfinished base games released' around TS4 being released. So I thought-and what exactly is so different about the sims that it's acceptable to do that to us as customers?!
Comments
I don't agree with you at all in regards to 'having to change the game'. They didn't need to reinvent the wheel-they knew people would buy the same expansions time and time again but with progression in the core of the game. EA just got obsessed that everything had to be online and shot themselves in the foot because yet again it wasn't based on anything other than a vision of one of their executives.
@Gtompkins48 as much as I hate admitting it I totally agree with both of your recent posts. Well said
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
lol (if you can't fix it, take it out)
I liked my rabbit hole buildings, at least my towns (Sims 3) look like towns.
51 developers in the main development and production team.
87 artists in the art development team.
26 designers in the design team
83 programmers in the engineering team
33 audio employees in the audio team
That is 51+87+26+83+33 = 280 highly educated and probably full time employees besides a huge number of testers in the quality assurance team. How much do you think that 280 highly educated programmers, producers, artists, audio experts and designers are paid for 4 years of work?
Are you really sure that you know about other games who have even more highly educated employees and an even longer development time?
None of us are saying that. If they had done it right the first time, instead of giving leftovers none of this would even be discussed. NOT OUR FAULT!!!!! You need to quit excusing them, although, you are entitled to your opinion. I and others will not excuse them from this.
The Cowboy and the Mermaid
Having said that, I am still a Sims game devotee and probably will be until the end. I only hope that EA will address these points so that many of the gamers will remain with the franchise.
Interesting. Perhaps you should take the time to do the math on how many billions they've made on their games overall? I wonder how much they make on shares too. You seem to have plenty of time on your hands.
NOT one word you have said here is the truth. Where are you coming up with all this? I was there. Also if you were there you would know why children do not slowly change heights. What a load of malarky. Would you please stop making up things.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Lmao, 280 is not that big of a team. Count how many devs there are for other franchises of a similar size. There are many AAA teams with 500+ body counts. Give me a break.
Spot on. If they paid 500 employees 70k a year (which is a VERY generous average salary), that would only be a labor budget of 140 mil for a 4 year team (Realistically, it would only be 104 mil). That budget size is completely reasonable for a cash cow like The Sims.
EA was just being cheap and now we have a terrible, watered down game because of it.
This. Spark, don't waste your time. Some people are just arguing for the sake of arguing.
NO, siimers did not complain of rotational play in Sims 2 - and the only complaints about sp - was there was none by players not interested in playing every household in a hood themselves. You don't use SP in rotational play. The first time we actually had sp for our own sims was sims 3 - and during sims 3 rotational players first had trouble playing the game rotationally because it was not designed for us to play multiple households. People were used to playing all of their own households and did not expect any sims to be moving around doing things - like going to work, having affairs and kids, getting broken marriage because we had never had that kind of game play in Sims 1 or 2. The only sp you saw in Sims 1 and 2 were in the non-controllable sims that the AI controlled like bartenders, shop merchants, service NPCs etc - - but playable sims had none.
When the sims team tweaked some of the annoying culling in Sims 3 (which was the first encounter we actually had with culling playables), and made it possible for us to somewhat have multiple households - there was still a number of issues - switching households - but the worse issue was the changes we encountered playing rotationally because of SP's controlling every household when it was not actively being played by the player. That was the start of the Sims having SP in the playable sims and not hardly anyone liked it very much. We expected our sims households to remain as we had left them - not have game controlled lives when we were trying to play another of our households.
Of course because of the earliest issues even trying to play Sims 3 rotationally some simmers adapted and gave up trying to play their typical rotational play- and many of those simmers did adapt to SP and actually liked the fact the sims did not just sit dormant in households outside of the ones they were playing. Even shutting off sp did not fully shut it off completely. It should have - but it didn't - so there was often arguments between players who never adapted to sp - and those who had.
But no - the more one was considered a rotational player the more these players expected SP not to do things with their other households in their rotation. But the one or two household players loved the fact they did not have to play all the households in the game and that sims life went on whether or not they played any of the household. Simmers got used it - but not everyone liked it.
Some of us that always played rotationally were actually happy when Sims 4 came out and had no sp and was again rotational play - but others were not so happy who had gotten used to sp play or all the newbies we got during Sims 3 that never had played Sims 1 or 2 to know how rotational play actually works - so they fussed about it and Maxis has been tweaking up sp in Sims 4 since - it seems quite often. It still is not as controllable as it was in Sims 3 of course, so a lot of people still complain about there not being any - but I can tell you if there was no sp - your own sims if you play rotationally would not have any changes in their households at all from when you last played their houses if there was no sp.
BUt rotational play and sp does not go well together if you are truly a rotational player. They can have rotational play but they need to make sure it does completely shut off when rotational players shut it off and not be like it was in Sims 3. All I know is have a game controller messing with my other households when I am not playing those households is like some stranger coming in my house and playing my game. I play Sims 1 and 2 style where I control all housesholds I play most of the time in normal sims hoods. I may play differently where I don't mind sp say in an alien type world or a supernatural type world where I am less inclined to play many households - so I like it is there - but they do need to have an on and off button that truly turn it on and off. In sims 3 in off position - sp control did not fully stop and it should have.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Exactly @bekkasan any loss from Olympus was the responsibility of EA. Their mistake, their loss to make up. It's not reasonable to give us an inferior product or experience because of the mistakes made in development.
@Writin_Reg am I right in remembering they let go of staff from TS4 while in development?
@kremesch73 exactly, well said!
@Gtompkins48 totally agree.
@Pary and @Corey785 I know
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Anyway 280 * $100,000 is $28,000,000 a year. So the wages for just those people are probably at least 4 times that which is $112,000,000 and probably a lot more if we count the other expenses too. So EA has to sell a lot of games to get the money back.
Anyway seeing people here attempting to threaten EA to give them exactly the game they want seems to me like they don't understand the economy at all. It sounds nearly to me as if they are saying "We are 500 people and if all of us use $100 less on TS4 then EA will lose all that money (about $50,000) and therefore go bankruptcy!" even though such an amount wouldn't pay the wage for just one of the hundreds of employees for even a single year. So why can't people understand that EA's board doesn't care?
Another thing that people here easily forget is the way the developers usually talk when they present a new game. Listen to such a presentation and you will easily hear that they talk in a way which is meant to mainly pursuade 12 to 14 years old "teens" to get the game. But those customers aren't in this forum and they probably didn't even play any of the previous games. So they don't care much about closed or open worlds.
So the reason that EA mostly ignore people here who are insulted because EA changed "their" game obviously is that EA is much more concerned about other types of customers who probably buy more than 99% of the sold games. You can't really expect EA to be scared by "threats" from a fraction of the remaining 1% who read this forum
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
112 million is not a big budget for the most successful PC franchise of all time *facepalm*.
Also, if you seriously believe that all the little people on dev teams are making 100 grand a year, then you don't know much about the gaming industry. Those salaries are reserved for high-level management and software engineers.
Sounds to me like you're being an apologist for cheap and shady business practices. Do you realize how silly it sounds to argue that EA had no choice but to create a horrible game?
Admitted I didn't read the English TS1 forum. But in the first two years after TS2 had been released we had a lot of people in the Danish TS2 forum (which also had a TS1 sub-forum) who refused to buy TS2 because they loved their big collection of TS1 packs too much. They thought that EA shouldn't have released TS2 at all but made more expansions for TS1 instead. After about two years they nearly all disappeared from the TS1 sub-forums.
Would you do that yourself?
We can all dream about EA using all their income from other games only on the game which we like most. But then we should wake up and return to the real world
@Gthompkins48 could not agree more.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
EA used so much of the profit from the Sims on other games and did not properly fund the franchise. The franchise has raked in billions of dollars in revenue, so your argument is not sound.
There are plenty of gaming companies that create quality games and still make a profit. The problem with EA was that they refused to invest in their cash cow (which is irrational on their part, because it is now negatively affecting the health of said cash cow).
The Sims was so successful that I really have trouble grasping why you are pretending that they have no choice but to strip the budget.
Because the users position is to defend EA whatever they do. A valid point if that's what they fancy doing, it just doesn't excuse EA of its mistakes with others.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Exactly. It was complete self-sabotage on their part.
Actually they let go of staff at the end of Sims 3 to do with the store as all the store was done at the Salt lake city studios and they had to move out all the Sims 3 studio people from there to remade the studios into a state of the art mobile studio. It was not due to the Sims 3 or the Sims 4 - and just 40 employees were affected - the 40 on the sims 3 store team. BUt they did offer to place many of the store team at the Redwood CA studios who wanted to work there. Those that didn't they helped with getting new jobs and such. BUt there was also some loses of personel from both studios also between that time and the actual end days of the Sims 3 too - but less to do with EA - it was people moving on to other jobs or family situations that forced them to move elsewhere. Like Smitty left because her hubby's job had him moved to another part of the country - so naturally she went with him. I know there was another person who had been with EA for many years that was going into business for himself to do with Art - and who was also moving else where. Another left to make their own games with a new start up company.
Oh there were a lot of shuffling around that actually started when the Sims 4 development went from online to offline back in 2012 as well. Like all the online production team were removed from the Sims 4 when it was decided in 2012 they were not happy with the online version (which actually came about before SC2013 came out to be honest - because they had already scrapped the online game engine and let go a handfull of online game /engine development people - but at the same time replaced them with offline engine people to newly build another game engine to go back to the normal offline Sims series type game. All the fiasco with SC 2013 did was confirm what the games developers had already concluded, but of course by the time Sims City came out and failed - they already were salvaging what they could from the offline and adding/developing all the new to the brand new game engine. Several of the people laid off from the online posted much of this info themselves online on their own webpages way back in 2012 -
The next big layoff was when Sims City proved to be a failure - and the decision came to close Emeryville - but again like the move of people from the Salt Lake City studios - many were offered positions at the main EA campus and a few other EA owned studios - and others got some temp work to finish helping get Sims 4 out as well. I know very few were just plain let go - most that were let go had new positions to go to or came back to the Main EA campus.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Yes it was. That's what irritated me the most. Andrew Wilson came out to make promises of 'no more unfinished base games released' around TS4 being released. So I thought-and what exactly is so different about the sims that it's acceptable to do that to us as customers?!
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1