I think you all have to come to grips that this game cannot be fixed in any meaningful way. The engine is just too limited and the design and minimum requirement choices they made are locked in. There can't be any terrain editing and worlds have to remain small, these are just two examples but already so much is limited by the elimination of those two examples. It's like if your making cookies from scratch and the dough doesn't come out right, no matter what you do from then on, you'll never have good cookies. The only option is to dump the dough and start over. This is the reality of the Sims 4 and what we're faced with. Yes the game will improve with new expansions, but it will never be as broad as Sims 2 or Sims 3.
Why target teen girls? I think it's because Maxis thinks teen girls are the most likely to be "casual" gamers who only play for 30 minutes or so at a time and wouldn't notice the lack of depth. Just make the graphics look good and never mind the generational play because the target player isn't supposed to be playing a family for that long! They are supposed to be creating a sim, having some fun with them, and then making a new one to try out. I think Maxis figured out that this game would appeal to mostly "casual" gamers, but supposedly those are the largest segment of the gamer population, especially with the mobile gaming crowd. Maxis figured it could release a mobile quality game and that would be ok for the majority of players.
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Maybe. But some of the boys were computer freaks also in those days and used all their time on computers and gaming
I wasn't one of them though because I was too busy about finishing my studies and starting in my new job. So I didn't own a computer until I bought my first PC late in the 1980s. Earlier I only used computers for more serious matters when I studied computer science or later teach about it on Picoline computers which would have costed my about $6000 if I should have bought one for myself. You can see a picture of such a computer which I used for teaching in the late 1980s on https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillebrandt_regnecentralen_rc759-piccoline.jpg
My first own computer was a 80386DX PC which only had an 80 MB harddisc when I bought it. I later expanded it with a 256 MB harddisc too and later again switched the original 80 MB to a 512 MB harddisc. The original 1 MB ram was also expanded to 4 MB so I also could install OS/2 v. 3 and have it running as a BBS while I also played games on it. Those were the days
When atari entered the home and arcades were big business no one I knew owned a computer.. I did not know anyone in the 80's that owned a computer in home. Not until windows 95 . Maybe things were different in your country
Maybe. But I doubt it. My brother had a Commodore 64 though and even earlier people bought the Sinclair ZX80 gaming computer which was marketed from 1980 with a price of only £99.95. It was soon replaced by the zx81 already in 1981 and the ZX81 cost only £69.95 assembled. You could even buy it for £49.95 unassembled. (Those are UK prices - but I don't remember the Danish prices.)
There was also the TI-99/4A home computer from Texas Instruments which also was released in June 1981. It cost a little more than the Sinclar home computers as it had an introductory price of $525. I saw it in the Danish stores where you could try it and play games like Space Invaders on it.
The next home computer from Sinclair was the ZX Spectrum which was released in April 1982. It's introductory price was £125. So it was a little more expensive than the earlier models which people also still had.
The people I taught later in the 1980s had such small home computers which they used for their gaming. But our computer science classes were extremely popular at the time because people loved our $6000 Piccoline computers which we later replaced with DOS computers from IBM. Later things changed drastically because then people had more powerful PC in their homes than we had for our teaching and our classes therefore became much less popular
I stopped teaching computer science in 2000 but just continued teaching my math classes instead. We don't have computer science classes at all anymore.
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Maybe. But some of the boys were computer freaks also in those days and used all their time on computers and gaming
I wasn't one of them though because I was too busy about finishing my studies and starting in my new job. So I didn't own a computer until I bought my first PC late in the 1980s. Earlier I only used computers for more serious matters when I studied computer science or later teach about it on Picoline computers which would have costed my about $6000 if I should have bought one for myself. You can see a picture of such a computer which I used for teaching in the late 1980s on https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillebrandt_regnecentralen_rc759-piccoline.jpg
My first own computer was a 80386DX PC which only had an 80 MB harddisc when I bought it. I later expanded it with a 256 MB harddisc too and later again switched the original 80 MB to a 512 MB harddisc. The original 1 MB ram was also expanded to 4 MB so I also could install OS/2 v. 3 and have it running as a BBS while I also played games on it. Those were the days
When atari entered the home and arcades were big business no one I knew owned a computer.. I did not know anyone in the 80's that owned a computer in home. Not until windows 95 . Maybe things were different in your country
Maybe. But I doubt it. My brother had a Commodore 64 though and even earlier people bought the Sinclair ZX80 gaming computer which was marketed from 1980 with a price of only £99.95. It was soon replaced by the zx81 already in 1981 and the ZX81 cost only £69.95 assembled. You could even buy it for £49.95 unassembled. (Those are UK prices - but I don't remember the Danish prices.)
There was also the TI-99/4A home computer from Texas Instruments which also was released in June 1981. It cost a little more than the Sinclar home computers as it had an introductory price of $525. I saw it in the Danish stores where you could try it and play games like Space Invaders on it.
The next home computer from Sinclair was the ZX Spectrum which was released in April 1982. It's introductory price was £125. So it was a little more expensive than the earlier models which people also still had.
The people I taught later in the 1980s had such small home computers which they used for their gaming. But our computer science classes were extremely popular at the time because people loved our $6000 Piccoline computers which we later replaced with DOS computers from IBM. Later things changed drastically because then people had more powerful PC in their homes than we had for our teaching and our classes therefore became much less popular
I stopped teaching computer science in 2000 but just continued teaching my math classes instead. We don't have computer science classes at all anymore.
I dont doubt it no one I know would have spent $6000 on a home computer in the 80's and I would not spend $6000 on a computer now. The most I have ever spent on a computer is a little over $2000. I did not start pc gaming until the sims 1. Same goes with many of my friends. All of us game console and still own console today. All of us owned game boy and some of us still do. My son's friends game mostly on console and game boy rather than pc or phone. Some will game on pc but still use the console and game boy more. Why because of multi player games they can play together and not everyone can afford a gaming pc
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Totally with you @phoebebebe13 I think it was more a case of assuming it was male dominated because they were well catered for and it was a time when some backwards opinions about women still existed.
woman's lib did not come in until the 70's so that male dominate mentality was still going and it still goes on today in different ways. Girls are pink , boys a blue garbage. Even when it comes to kids toys. I knew a lot of girls that played with their brother's GI Joe's , had the boy version of the big wheel. Played with legos that is supposed to be a "boy" toy. When will they learn not all girls are girly .
I also think it is poor form to assume that girls were not interested. I certainly was. But all these tools and toys were marketed to boys, they still are. When companies try to capture a female audience, what is the first thing they do? Look, you can get this electronic device in pink and purple! I'm so offended by that...as if the only thing women and girls care about is what color something is and fashion. Oh no, we can never be smart...that's not normal. Grrr...
There is so much more to girls than is ever given credit for. People assign their kids gender roles, but that doesn't mean those girls weren't ever interested.
My analysis of the article:
1. Before launch there were controversies around The Sims 4
Regarding changing from online to offline (if it is true) and toddlers, lots of game companies change the strategies they use in the development of a game during its early development. If EA is wrong than all gaming companies are wrong because a lot do this. I don't see what the big uproar was about.
EA is a publicly traded company so the developers are only going to release information when they legally can not when players demand the information to be released. Also, they have to market the game like any other company has to market a product. They are not an indie development company so their strategies for releasing information is going to be different. There really is no point in complaining that not enough information is released when they are going to release it when they can and they want.
2. The ‘Vision’
The vision of the game is basically clear. They were going for quirky and wilder stories with The Sims 4. Also, I wouldn't consider The Sims 4 a true sequel because the game is a sandbox game and it doesn't follow a storyline. It is more like the 4th installment in a series.
3. Giving funds from The Sims to Titanfall and other titles
Lot of businesses use their profits to fund other projects. This is how a company grows. I don't see the problem with this. In fact, it would be bad business for a company like EA to not expand its offerings.
To better make this argument, you should have complained that the employees should take a pay-cut and receive less pay. The biggest expense for companies are usually employee expenses. Since The Sims 3 employment expenses have risen in California as well as utility and other expenses. The best response would be for the company to move to a cheaper state, the company to layoff employees, or the company to cut employee wages.
4. ‘A truly stable base game’
Not every player has had a game riddled with bugs. The game is stable and that means that it won't have a ton of random crashes caused by bugs. None of the glitches you mentioned cause the game to crash constantly. The game runs stable on my computer. I haven't even had the incest bug you mentioned.
The issue with culling is the game is designed to run on older computers. It isn't a glitch it is rather an annoyance to players. Glitches and annoyances are two different things. The feature works as intended but since players don't like how the feature works, the developers are looking to improve it. I don't see the big issue.
5. ‘We are listening’
Their customer base expands to more than who is on the forums. I do think the SimGurus are listening to players but they aren't going to make a game that every player is going to enjoy. There are also several group of players with conflicting opinions. Just because a group does not feel like they are being listened to right now, does not mean they will never be listened to or they are just being ignored.
Also, EA does not have to act on every opinion the fans throw out at them. If they weren't listening to players, they would not send out surveys and ask opinions on certain issues on the forums. Also, you contradict yourself because in #5 you said the developers were looking into the culling issue. If they weren't listening, they would not be looking into a game mechanic that is working like it is supposed to work.
6. It goes far beyond ‘just’ toddlers, Create a Style or the myriad of other missing content
There is no proof all these features were cut from development. The list are features that we had in previous Sims games that were not appearing in The Sims 4. The developers said from the beginning there would be no Create-a-Style and never said a lot of the other features would be in the base game. You are misdirecting people making it seem like the developers promised these features and then removed them which was not the case. Also, The Sims 4 actually had more features than The Sims 3 base game.
7. Simulation
This is basically an opinion. I disagree with this because I can tell my Sims apart based on their traits and emotions. It could be better but to say all Sims act the same is a huge stretch. I also haven't seen a ton of children wandering my world during school hours. When my Sims stays home from school, most of their friends are usually unavailable during school hours. Also, I really don't care if children wander the streets during school hours because maybe they took a vacation day from school like my Sims.
8. ‘Modder friendly’
You aren't really clear on your argument here. What versions of the game are unplayable with mods? What do you mean by EA is packing up?
9. All customers who give you feedback should be appreciated
This is more of an opinion and it isn't realistic. No company does this so why should EA?
10. The legacy of SimCity 2013
SimCity 2013 and The Sims 4 are two different games made by two different teams. I also just checked my SimCity game and the online features still work and it is not shut down. The statement that the game was shut down is very misleading. Also, I don't understand the comparison when The Sims 4 doesn't have any online features that will impact gameplay.
The game is not perfect but no game is perfect. For what the game has to offer, I think it is a pretty good game.
In regards to #3:
The problem with Sim money being funneled into other projects is that Maxis proceeded to claim that they were forced to leave out content because of resources and funding. This is a slap in the face to fans who have spent billions of dollars on the franchise. I don't think it is appropriate to use revenues for other projects while simultaneously under-funding the future games.
This is not a slap in the face to me but I dont consider myself a fan anyway. I thinks fans should do their research before buying a game if they fill that way about putting money into a franchise. EA is a publicly traded company so their first priority is their stock holdersholders when it comes to how they use their resources and ensuring they remain on the right side of the law. Even if they weren't publicly traded, once you purchase a product, the company has the right to do whatever they want with the money. After the transfer of goods has taken place, the company is not obligated to you legally or morally unless there is a contract present that states so.
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Totally with you @phoebebebe13 I think it was more a case of assuming it was male dominated because they were well catered for and it was a time when some backwards opinions about women still existed.
woman's lib did not come in until the 70's so that male dominate mentality was still going and it still goes on today in different ways. Girls are pink , boys a blue garbage. Even when it comes to kids toys. I knew a lot of girls that played with their brother's GI Joe's , had the boy version of the big wheel. Played with legos that is supposed to be a "boy" toy. When will they learn not all girls are girly .
I also think it is poor form to assume that girls were not interested. I certainly was. But all these tools and toys were marketed to boys, they still are. When companies try to capture a female audience, what is the first thing they do? Look, you can get this electronic device in pink and purple! I'm so offended by that...as if the only thing women and girls care about is what color something is and fashion. Oh no, we can never be smart...that's not normal. Grrr...
There is so much more to girls than is ever given credit for. People assign their kids gender roles, but that doesn't mean those girls weren't ever interested.
I agree and categorizing gender with colors. My room growing up was pink and I hated it. my mother hired a decorator and when it came time for my room back in the 80's the decorator said how about navy blue and white. FINE as long as I never see pink again dont care what color it is LOL I grew up playing with tools because of my father.
Legal or not, EA's decision to cut Sims' funding and use profits from Sims to fund other ventures IS a slap-in the face to Sims customers. You don't excuse a person's crappy actions by saying 'it's in their nature'.
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Maybe. But some of the boys were computer freaks also in those days and used all their time on computers and gaming
I wasn't one of them though because I was too busy about finishing my studies and starting in my new job. So I didn't own a computer until I bought my first PC late in the 1980s. Earlier I only used computers for more serious matters when I studied computer science or later teach about it on Picoline computers which would have costed my about $6000 if I should have bought one for myself. You can see a picture of such a computer which I used for teaching in the late 1980s on https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillebrandt_regnecentralen_rc759-piccoline.jpg
My first own computer was a 80386DX PC which only had an 80 MB harddisc when I bought it. I later expanded it with a 256 MB harddisc too and later again switched the original 80 MB to a 512 MB harddisc. The original 1 MB ram was also expanded to 4 MB so I also could install OS/2 v. 3 and have it running as a BBS while I also played games on it. Those were the days
When atari entered the home and arcades were big business no one I knew owned a computer.. I did not know anyone in the 80's that owned a computer in home. Not until windows 95 . Maybe things were different in your country
Maybe. But I doubt it. My brother had a Commodore 64 though and even earlier people bought the Sinclair ZX80 gaming computer which was marketed from 1980 with a price of only £99.95. It was soon replaced by the zx81 already in 1981 and the ZX81 cost only £69.95 assembled. You could even buy it for £49.95 unassembled. (Those are UK prices - but I don't remember the Danish prices.)
There was also the TI-99/4A home computer from Texas Instruments which also was released in June 1981. It cost a little more than the Sinclar home computers as it had an introductory price of $525. I saw it in the Danish stores where you could try it and play games like Space Invaders on it.
The next home computer from Sinclair was the ZX Spectrum which was released in April 1982. It's introductory price was £125. So it was a little more expensive than the earlier models which people also still had.
The people I taught later in the 1980s had such small home computers which they used for their gaming. But our computer science classes were extremely popular at the time because people loved our $6000 Piccoline computers which we later replaced with DOS computers from IBM. Later things changed drastically because then people had more powerful PC in their homes than we had for our teaching and our classes therefore became much less popular
I stopped teaching computer science in 2000 but just continued teaching my math classes instead. We don't have computer science classes at all anymore.
I dont doubt it no one I know would have spent $6000 on a home computer in the 80's and I would not spend $6000 on a computer now. The most I have ever spent on a computer is a little over $2000. I did not start pc gaming until the sims 1. Same goes with many of my friends. All of us game console and still own console today. All of us owned game boy and some of us still do. My son's friends game mostly on console and game boy rather than pc or phone. Some will game on pc but still use the console and game boy more. Why because of multi player games they can play together and not everyone can afford a gaming pc
Did you even read what I wrote?
The ZX80, ZX81, TI-99/4A and the Commodore 64 all cost less than even $600. So they were very popular home computers. They were cheap because they just used a TV as screen and therefore didn't need their own screens. The ZC80 and ZX81 were even a lot cheaper because they had a cheap keyboard where the keys were soft and made by rubber. You could actually get one of those home computers for less than $100.
Beside that I actually know a couple of teachers who bought their own Picoline computers for (at least) $6000. They weren't gamers though but they liked computers and used them for teaching in computer science or physics. I didn't buy such a computer myself because I knew that it would be aged and worthless way too fast.
My own first computer cost me about $2250 when I bought it. I actually think that I used it for about 10 years which only was possible because I upgraded it several times. It was a DOS computer with Windows 3.0 when I bought it. I never upgraded Windows to version 3.1, 3.11 or 95. But I installed OS/2 v. 3 as an additional OS on it.
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Maybe. But some of the boys were computer freaks also in those days and used all their time on computers and gaming
I wasn't one of them though because I was too busy about finishing my studies and starting in my new job. So I didn't own a computer until I bought my first PC late in the 1980s. Earlier I only used computers for more serious matters when I studied computer science or later teach about it on Picoline computers which would have costed my about $6000 if I should have bought one for myself. You can see a picture of such a computer which I used for teaching in the late 1980s on https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillebrandt_regnecentralen_rc759-piccoline.jpg
My first own computer was a 80386DX PC which only had an 80 MB harddisc when I bought it. I later expanded it with a 256 MB harddisc too and later again switched the original 80 MB to a 512 MB harddisc. The original 1 MB ram was also expanded to 4 MB so I also could install OS/2 v. 3 and have it running as a BBS while I also played games on it. Those were the days
When atari entered the home and arcades were big business no one I knew owned a computer.. I did not know anyone in the 80's that owned a computer in home. Not until windows 95 . Maybe things were different in your country
Maybe. But I doubt it. My brother had a Commodore 64 though and even earlier people bought the Sinclair ZX80 gaming computer which was marketed from 1980 with a price of only £99.95. It was soon replaced by the zx81 already in 1981 and the ZX81 cost only £69.95 assembled. You could even buy it for £49.95 unassembled. (Those are UK prices - but I don't remember the Danish prices.)
There was also the TI-99/4A home computer from Texas Instruments which also was released in June 1981. It cost a little more than the Sinclar home computers as it had an introductory price of $525. I saw it in the Danish stores where you could try it and play games like Space Invaders on it.
The next home computer from Sinclair was the ZX Spectrum which was released in April 1982. It's introductory price was £125. So it was a little more expensive than the earlier models which people also still had.
The people I taught later in the 1980s had such small home computers which they used for their gaming. But our computer science classes were extremely popular at the time because people loved our $6000 Piccoline computers which we later replaced with DOS computers from IBM. Later things changed drastically because then people had more powerful PC in their homes than we had for our teaching and our classes therefore became much less popular
I stopped teaching computer science in 2000 but just continued teaching my math classes instead. We don't have computer science classes at all anymore.
I dont doubt it no one I know would have spent $6000 on a home computer in the 80's and I would not spend $6000 on a computer now. The most I have ever spent on a computer is a little over $2000. I did not start pc gaming until the sims 1. Same goes with many of my friends. All of us game console and still own console today. All of us owned game boy and some of us still do. My son's friends game mostly on console and game boy rather than pc or phone. Some will game on pc but still use the console and game boy more. Why because of multi player games they can play together and not everyone can afford a gaming pc
Did you even read what I wrote?
The ZX80, ZX81, TI-99/4A and the Commodore 64 all cost less than even $600. So they were very popular home computers. They were cheap because they just used a TV as screen and therefore didn't need their own screens. The ZC80 and ZX81 were even a lot cheaper because they had a cheap keyboard where the keys were soft and made by rubber. You could actually get one of those home computers for less than $100.
Beside that I actually know a couple of teachers who bought their own Picoline computers for (at least) $6000. They weren't gamers though but they liked computers and used them for teaching in computer science or physics. I didn't buy such a computer myself because I knew that it would be aged and worthless way too fast.
My own first computer cost me about $2250 when I bought it. I actually think that I used it for about 10 years which only was possible because I upgraded it several times. It was a DOS computer with Windows 3.0 when I bought it. I never upgraded Windows to version 3.1, 3.11 or 95. But I installed OS/2 v. 3 as an additional OS on it.
I did not know anyone who owned a commodore so maybe they were more popular else where? My father was an electrical engineer he also worked on computers and he never bought a home computer until windows 95 and at that point I was not living with my parents.
My windows 98 was over $2000 had it for 7-8 years never upgraded it other than adding more hard drive space but it was killed by a lighting strike or I would have had it longer. Windows 98 was my first computer. Played sims 1 on it
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Maybe. But some of the boys were computer freaks also in those days and used all their time on computers and gaming
I wasn't one of them though because I was too busy about finishing my studies and starting in my new job. So I didn't own a computer until I bought my first PC late in the 1980s. Earlier I only used computers for more serious matters when I studied computer science or later teach about it on Picoline computers which would have costed my about $6000 if I should have bought one for myself. You can see a picture of such a computer which I used for teaching in the late 1980s on https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillebrandt_regnecentralen_rc759-piccoline.jpg
My first own computer was a 80386DX PC which only had an 80 MB harddisc when I bought it. I later expanded it with a 256 MB harddisc too and later again switched the original 80 MB to a 512 MB harddisc. The original 1 MB ram was also expanded to 4 MB so I also could install OS/2 v. 3 and have it running as a BBS while I also played games on it. Those were the days
When atari entered the home and arcades were big business no one I knew owned a computer.. I did not know anyone in the 80's that owned a computer in home. Not until windows 95 . Maybe things were different in your country
Maybe. But I doubt it. My brother had a Commodore 64 though and even earlier people bought the Sinclair ZX80 gaming computer which was marketed from 1980 with a price of only £99.95. It was soon replaced by the zx81 already in 1981 and the ZX81 cost only £69.95 assembled. You could even buy it for £49.95 unassembled. (Those are UK prices - but I don't remember the Danish prices.)
There was also the TI-99/4A home computer from Texas Instruments which also was released in June 1981. It cost a little more than the Sinclar home computers as it had an introductory price of $525. I saw it in the Danish stores where you could try it and play games like Space Invaders on it.
The next home computer from Sinclair was the ZX Spectrum which was released in April 1982. It's introductory price was £125. So it was a little more expensive than the earlier models which people also still had.
The people I taught later in the 1980s had such small home computers which they used for their gaming. But our computer science classes were extremely popular at the time because people loved our $6000 Piccoline computers which we later replaced with DOS computers from IBM. Later things changed drastically because then people had more powerful PC in their homes than we had for our teaching and our classes therefore became much less popular
I stopped teaching computer science in 2000 but just continued teaching my math classes instead. We don't have computer science classes at all anymore.
I dont doubt it no one I know would have spent $6000 on a home computer in the 80's and I would not spend $6000 on a computer now. The most I have ever spent on a computer is a little over $2000. I did not start pc gaming until the sims 1. Same goes with many of my friends. All of us game console and still own console today. All of us owned game boy and some of us still do. My son's friends game mostly on console and game boy rather than pc or phone. Some will game on pc but still use the console and game boy more. Why because of multi player games they can play together and not everyone can afford a gaming pc
Did you even read what I wrote?
The ZX80, ZX81, TI-99/4A and the Commodore 64 all cost less than even $600. So they were very popular home computers. They were cheap because they just used a TV as screen and therefore didn't need their own screens. The ZC80 and ZX81 were even a lot cheaper because they had a cheap keyboard where the keys were soft and made by rubber. You could actually get one of those home computers for less than $100.
Beside that I actually know a couple of teachers who bought their own Picoline computers for (at least) $6000. They weren't gamers though but they liked computers and used them for teaching in computer science or physics. I didn't buy such a computer myself because I knew that it would be aged and worthless way too fast.
My own first computer cost me about $2250 when I bought it. I actually think that I used it for about 10 years which only was possible because I upgraded it several times. It was a DOS computer with Windows 3.0 when I bought it. I never upgraded Windows to version 3.1, 3.11 or 95. But I installed OS/2 v. 3 as an additional OS on it.
I did not know anyone who owned a commodore so maybe they were more popular else where? My father was an electrical engineer he also worked on computers and he never bought a home computer until windows 95 and at that point I was not living with my parents.
My windows 98 was over $2000 had it for 7-8 years never upgraded it other than adding more hard drive space but it was killed by a lighting strike or I would have had it longer. Windows 98 was my first computer. Played sims 1 on it
It is also mentioned that in 1983-1986 the Commodore 64 had between 30% and 40% market share in the US with about 2 million sold each year. In the US its greatest competitors were Atari 400, Atari 800 and Apple II.
Edit: In 1985 the Commodore Amiga was released and therefore the sales numbers for the Commodore 64 decreased. But it was still popular because it's price was much lower than the price for the Amiga - which became more and more popular anyway though.
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Maybe. But some of the boys were computer freaks also in those days and used all their time on computers and gaming
I wasn't one of them though because I was too busy about finishing my studies and starting in my new job. So I didn't own a computer until I bought my first PC late in the 1980s. Earlier I only used computers for more serious matters when I studied computer science or later teach about it on Picoline computers which would have costed my about $6000 if I should have bought one for myself. You can see a picture of such a computer which I used for teaching in the late 1980s on https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillebrandt_regnecentralen_rc759-piccoline.jpg
My first own computer was a 80386DX PC which only had an 80 MB harddisc when I bought it. I later expanded it with a 256 MB harddisc too and later again switched the original 80 MB to a 512 MB harddisc. The original 1 MB ram was also expanded to 4 MB so I also could install OS/2 v. 3 and have it running as a BBS while I also played games on it. Those were the days
When atari entered the home and arcades were big business no one I knew owned a computer.. I did not know anyone in the 80's that owned a computer in home. Not until windows 95 . Maybe things were different in your country
Maybe. But I doubt it. My brother had a Commodore 64 though and even earlier people bought the Sinclair ZX80 gaming computer which was marketed from 1980 with a price of only £99.95. It was soon replaced by the zx81 already in 1981 and the ZX81 cost only £69.95 assembled. You could even buy it for £49.95 unassembled. (Those are UK prices - but I don't remember the Danish prices.)
There was also the TI-99/4A home computer from Texas Instruments which also was released in June 1981. It cost a little more than the Sinclar home computers as it had an introductory price of $525. I saw it in the Danish stores where you could try it and play games like Space Invaders on it.
The next home computer from Sinclair was the ZX Spectrum which was released in April 1982. It's introductory price was £125. So it was a little more expensive than the earlier models which people also still had.
The people I taught later in the 1980s had such small home computers which they used for their gaming. But our computer science classes were extremely popular at the time because people loved our $6000 Piccoline computers which we later replaced with DOS computers from IBM. Later things changed drastically because then people had more powerful PC in their homes than we had for our teaching and our classes therefore became much less popular
I stopped teaching computer science in 2000 but just continued teaching my math classes instead. We don't have computer science classes at all anymore.
I dont doubt it no one I know would have spent $6000 on a home computer in the 80's and I would not spend $6000 on a computer now. The most I have ever spent on a computer is a little over $2000. I did not start pc gaming until the sims 1. Same goes with many of my friends. All of us game console and still own console today. All of us owned game boy and some of us still do. My son's friends game mostly on console and game boy rather than pc or phone. Some will game on pc but still use the console and game boy more. Why because of multi player games they can play together and not everyone can afford a gaming pc
Did you even read what I wrote?
The ZX80, ZX81, TI-99/4A and the Commodore 64 all cost less than even $600. So they were very popular home computers. They were cheap because they just used a TV as screen and therefore didn't need their own screens. The ZC80 and ZX81 were even a lot cheaper because they had a cheap keyboard where the keys were soft and made by rubber. You could actually get one of those home computers for less than $100.
Beside that I actually know a couple of teachers who bought their own Picoline computers for (at least) $6000. They weren't gamers though but they liked computers and used them for teaching in computer science or physics. I didn't buy such a computer myself because I knew that it would be aged and worthless way too fast.
My own first computer cost me about $2250 when I bought it. I actually think that I used it for about 10 years which only was possible because I upgraded it several times. It was a DOS computer with Windows 3.0 when I bought it. I never upgraded Windows to version 3.1, 3.11 or 95. But I installed OS/2 v. 3 as an additional OS on it.
I did not know anyone who owned a commodore so maybe they were more popular else where? My father was an electrical engineer he also worked on computers and he never bought a home computer until windows 95 and at that point I was not living with my parents.
My windows 98 was over $2000 had it for 7-8 years never upgraded it other than adding more hard drive space but it was killed by a lighting strike or I would have had it longer. Windows 98 was my first computer. Played sims 1 on it
It is also mentioned that in 1983-1986 the Commodore 64 had between 30% and 40% market share in the US with about 2 million sold each year. In the US its greatest competitors were Atari 400, Atari 800 and Apple II.
Edit: In 1985 the Commodore Amiga was released and therefore the sales numbers for the Commodore 64 decreased. But it was still popular because it's price was much lower than the price for the Amiga - which became more and more popular anyway though.
it may have been popular for some but I knew no one that owned one in home. Back then $600 was a lot of money. Im sure a lot of businesses owned them as I was working in that time frame and on a computer
Edit to add, VCR when they first came out were over $500. Not many people owned those either until the price dropped to about $200
I don't have an issue with revenue generated from the Sims being used on other projects or whatever, as long as it works both ways. I may be completely wrong but I don't think the Sims 4 budget has been topped up from revenue from other projects and that's what leaves a bit of a sour taste.
Legal or not, EA's decision to cut Sims' funding and use profits from Sims to fund other ventures IS a slap-in the face to Sims customers. You don't excuse a person's crappy actions by saying 'it's in their nature'.
Exactly. And actually at point of sale when I bought I'd seen the devs promise toddlers and other features 'they ran out of time' for. They then went on to deliver for a few of these so acknowledged their commitment to those promises. It's only since they've tried to get out of it at every turn.
I just want to say something here.
We all know the game has too many problems. More than any previous sims game
The developers are very very slow in addressing the issues. And each pack released will add new problems.
With this slow pace do you think this game will ever be fixed to be in an acceptable condition?
I don't think so. I just feel TS4 is never going to make it. EA is not serious about it, maybe because they are making some profit, but what I know that the game is losing more supporters every day so this profit will sure going to take a hit.
When sales get less and less, then EA's only way is to lower the cost and quality of these packs further more in order to maximize the profit from the people who are buying. They will have to recover lost sales from the people who stopped buying the packs by giving the players who buy them more half baked packs. In other words milking them to the full capacity. Sure the prices will remain the same but the packs will be shallower, and become more superficial and half baked. That way if they used to make a profit of $4 from one player they are going to make $6 due to reduced cost.
So some people might ask what is the current quality?
An example is replacing a real bear with a costume! like this
Suppose bear was not in the game and they needed to add it but want to further lower the quality due to less sales they would have not made the costume but a bear statue instead! That what I am expecting to happen with future packs. The badly planned stuff to get worse.
While in other games this is how bear is done.
Lower it further?
Yes lower it more so that it compensates the reduced no. of sales. Lower quality will require less cost and when it does that it will maximizes the profit per game unit sold.
Everything I post is an opinion here and I think every post of others is as well.
I just want to say something here.
We all know the game has too many problems. More than any previous sims game
The developers are very very slow in addressing the issues. And each pack released will add new problems.
With this slow pace do you think this game will ever be fixed to be in an acceptable condition?
I don't think so. I just feel TS4 is never going to make it. EA is not serious about it, maybe because they are making some profit, but what I know that the game is losing more supporters every day so this profit will sure going to take a hit.
When sales get less and less, then EA's only way is to lower the cost and quality of these packs further more in order to maximize the profit from the people who are buying. They will have to recover lost sales from the people who stopped buying the packs by giving the players who buy them more half baked packs. In other words milking them to the full capacity. Sure the prices will remain the same but the packs will be shallower, and become more superficial and half baked. That way if they used to make a profit of $4 from one player they are going to make $6 due to reduced cost.
So some people might ask what is the current quality?
An example is replacing a real bear with a costume! like this
Suppose bear was not in the game and they needed to add it but want to further lower the quality due to less sales they would have not made the costume but a bear statue instead! That what I am expecting to happen with future packs. The badly planned stuff to get worse.
While in other games this is how bear is done.
Lower it further?
It wouldn't surprise me unfortunately.
Me neither. It's essentially a stand off between EA and their customers. That's why the 'If Sims4 doesn't sell there won't be 5' comments. They knew people weren't happy with all the cuts.
I'm sure they didn't expect so many loyal customers to reach their personal limits this early on with TS4 and stop buying. They want to see more sales to 'justify' investing further in the base-whereas many of us want to see the premium base we've already paid for to be finished because we already paid! I'm not paying out twice because the studio couldn't manage their time or budget properly. Their mistake, not mine.
Exactly. They should thank us because we still bought the base game despite they rushing its release but instead they keep ignoring us and shove half baked packs down our throats. No more buying from me.
I'm actually going to make it a habit that with every pack EA releases leaving the base game unfixed to buy another game as an alternative and post what I bought. I started this when Spooky Stuff was released. I posted about it in the off topic section and I am going to do with all the upcoming packs.
It is a way to show EA that my money that they did not take is going somewhere else
Everything I post is an opinion here and I think every post of others is as well.
I just want to say something here.
We all know the game has too many problems. More than any previous sims game
The developers are very very slow in addressing the issues. And each pack released will add new problems.
With this slow pace do you think this game will ever be fixed to be in an acceptable condition?
I don't think so. I just feel TS4 is never going to make it. EA is not serious about it, maybe because they are making some profit, but what I know that the game is losing more supporters every day so this profit will sure going to take a hit.
When sales get less and less, then EA's only way is to lower the cost and quality of these packs further more in order to maximize the profit from the people who are buying. They will have to recover lost sales from the people who stopped buying the packs by giving the players who buy them more half baked packs. In other words milking them to the full capacity. Sure the prices will remain the same but the packs will be shallower, and become more superficial and half baked. That way if they used to make a profit of $4 from one player they are going to make $6 due to reduced cost.
So some people might ask what is the current quality?
An example is replacing a real bear with a costume! like this
Suppose bear was not in the game and they needed to add it but want to further lower the quality due to less sales they would have not made the costume but a bear statue instead! That what I am expecting to happen with future packs. The badly planned stuff to get worse.
While in other games this is how bear is done.
Lower it further?
It wouldn't surprise me unfortunately.
Me neither. It's essentially a stand off between EA and their customers. That's why the 'If Sims4 doesn't sell there won't be 5' comments. They knew people weren't happy with all the cuts.
I'm sure they didn't expect so many loyal customers to reach their personal limits this early on with TS4 and stop buying. They want to see more sales to 'justify' investing further in the base-whereas many of us want to see the premium base we've already paid for to be finished because we already paid! I'm not paying out twice because the studio couldn't manage their time or budget properly. Their mistake, not mine.
And if you support them further by buying the product, in hopes they will use the money to make it different/better, they take it to mean people are happy with what they're doing, so why change course? Catch 22 (for simmers).
That is exactly what is going on.
Everything I post is an opinion here and I think every post of others is as well.
I just want to say something here.
We all know the game has too many problems. More than any previous sims game
The developers are very very slow in addressing the issues. And each pack released will add new problems.
With this slow pace do you think this game will ever be fixed to be in an acceptable condition?
I don't think so. I just feel TS4 is never going to make it. EA is not serious about it, maybe because they are making some profit, but what I know that the game is losing more supporters every day so this profit will sure going to take a hit.
When sales get less and less, then EA's only way is to lower the cost and quality of these packs further more in order to maximize the profit from the people who are buying. They will have to recover lost sales from the people who stopped buying the packs by giving the players who buy them more half baked packs. In other words milking them to the full capacity. Sure the prices will remain the same but the packs will be shallower, and become more superficial and half baked. That way if they used to make a profit of $4 from one player they are going to make $6 due to reduced cost.
So some people might ask what is the current quality?
An example is replacing a real bear with a costume! like this
Suppose bear was not in the game and they needed to add it but want to further lower the quality due to less sales they would have not made the costume but a bear statue instead! That what I am expecting to happen with future packs. The badly planned stuff to get worse.
While in other games this is how bear is done.
Lower it further?
Yes lower it more so that it compensates the reduced no. of sales. Lower quality will require less cost and when it does that it will maximizes the profit per game unit sold.
Yes but will further alienate people. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. They cut deep and release. They expect us to support that. They then have trouble with retention rates of those customers they could rely on who they alienated. They give little progress on the base drip by drip to attempt to placate us while continuing to work on further paid content. Then they start to try to explain away issues by pretending customers who aren't happy are unreasonable. Then those in charge of budgets say it's not reaching the full traditional stable customer base so they need to 'economise' and cut some more. Then some people who are happy with the game start to notice so they start to voice concerns. It is a race to the bottom.
It's sad. Like @CherbitDip says Sims funds helped other games. Why is it that we, as customers, aren't shown the same courtesy as their other customers?!
I just want to say something here.
We all know the game has too many problems. More than any previous sims game
The developers are very very slow in addressing the issues. And each pack released will add new problems.
With this slow pace do you think this game will ever be fixed to be in an acceptable condition?
I don't think so. I just feel TS4 is never going to make it. EA is not serious about it, maybe because they are making some profit, but what I know that the game is losing more supporters every day so this profit will sure going to take a hit.
When sales get less and less, then EA's only way is to lower the cost and quality of these packs further more in order to maximize the profit from the people who are buying. They will have to recover lost sales from the people who stopped buying the packs by giving the players who buy them more half baked packs. In other words milking them to the full capacity. Sure the prices will remain the same but the packs will be shallower, and become more superficial and half baked. That way if they used to make a profit of $4 from one player they are going to make $6 due to reduced cost.
So some people might ask what is the current quality?
An example is replacing a real bear with a costume! like this
Suppose bear was not in the game and they needed to add it but want to further lower the quality due to less sales they would have not made the costume but a bear statue instead! That what I am expecting to happen with future packs. The badly planned stuff to get worse.
While in other games this is how bear is done.
Lower it further?
It wouldn't surprise me unfortunately.
Me neither. It's essentially a stand off between EA and their customers. That's why the 'If Sims4 doesn't sell there won't be 5' comments. They knew people weren't happy with all the cuts.
I'm sure they didn't expect so many loyal customers to reach their personal limits this early on with TS4 and stop buying. They want to see more sales to 'justify' investing further in the base-whereas many of us want to see the premium base we've already paid for to be finished because we already paid! I'm not paying out twice because the studio couldn't manage their time or budget properly. Their mistake, not mine.
Exactly. They should thank us because we still bought the base game despite they rushing its release but instead they keep ignoring us and shove half baked packs down our throats. No more buying from me.
I'm actually going to make it a habit that with every pack EA releases leaving the base game unfixed to buy another game as an alternative and post what I bought. I started this when Spooky Stuff was released. I posted about it in the off topic section and I am going to do with all the upcoming packs.
It is a way to show EA that my money that they did not take is going somewhere else
I hope you are enjoying your other games
For the first time in ten years my gaming budget that I only ever spent on the sims is being spent elsewhere too. And what's nice? I'm supporting developers and companies who appreciate their customers and receiving my money.
I just want to say something here.
We all know the game has too many problems. More than any previous sims game
The developers are very very slow in addressing the issues. And each pack released will add new problems.
With this slow pace do you think this game will ever be fixed to be in an acceptable condition?
I don't think so. I just feel TS4 is never going to make it. EA is not serious about it, maybe because they are making some profit, but what I know that the game is losing more supporters every day so this profit will sure going to take a hit.
When sales get less and less, then EA's only way is to lower the cost and quality of these packs further more in order to maximize the profit from the people who are buying. They will have to recover lost sales from the people who stopped buying the packs by giving the players who buy them more half baked packs. In other words milking them to the full capacity. Sure the prices will remain the same but the packs will be shallower, and become more superficial and half baked. That way if they used to make a profit of $4 from one player they are going to make $6 due to reduced cost.
So some people might ask what is the current quality?
An example is replacing a real bear with a costume! like this
Suppose bear was not in the game and they needed to add it but want to further lower the quality due to less sales they would have not made the costume but a bear statue instead! That what I am expecting to happen with future packs. The badly planned stuff to get worse.
While in other games this is how bear is done.
Lower it further?
It wouldn't surprise me unfortunately.
Me neither. It's essentially a stand off between EA and their customers. That's why the 'If Sims4 doesn't sell there won't be 5' comments. They knew people weren't happy with all the cuts.
I'm sure they didn't expect so many loyal customers to reach their personal limits this early on with TS4 and stop buying. They want to see more sales to 'justify' investing further in the base-whereas many of us want to see the premium base we've already paid for to be finished because we already paid! I'm not paying out twice because the studio couldn't manage their time or budget properly. Their mistake, not mine.
Exactly. They should thank us because we still bought the base game despite they rushing its release but instead they keep ignoring us and shove half baked packs down our throats. No more buying from me.
I'm actually going to make it a habit that with every pack EA releases leaving the base game unfixed to buy another game as an alternative and post what I bought. I started this when Spooky Stuff was released. I posted about it in the off topic section and I am going to do with all the upcoming packs.
It is a way to show EA that my money that they did not take is going somewhere else
I hope you are enjoying your other games
For the first time in ten years my gaming budget that I only ever spent on the sims is being spent elsewhere too. And what's nice? I'm supporting developers and companies who appreciate their customers and receiving my money.
Exactly why our Yoshi's Wooly World pre-order just came in the mail today and this game is soooooooooooooo cute. Continues to spend money elsewhere
I just want to say something here.
We all know the game has too many problems. More than any previous sims game
The developers are very very slow in addressing the issues. And each pack released will add new problems.
With this slow pace do you think this game will ever be fixed to be in an acceptable condition?
I don't think so. I just feel TS4 is never going to make it. EA is not serious about it, maybe because they are making some profit, but what I know that the game is losing more supporters every day so this profit will sure going to take a hit.
When sales get less and less, then EA's only way is to lower the cost and quality of these packs further more in order to maximize the profit from the people who are buying. They will have to recover lost sales from the people who stopped buying the packs by giving the players who buy them more half baked packs. In other words milking them to the full capacity. Sure the prices will remain the same but the packs will be shallower, and become more superficial and half baked. That way if they used to make a profit of $4 from one player they are going to make $6 due to reduced cost.
So some people might ask what is the current quality?
An example is replacing a real bear with a costume! like this
Suppose bear was not in the game and they needed to add it but want to further lower the quality due to less sales they would have not made the costume but a bear statue instead! That what I am expecting to happen with future packs. The badly planned stuff to get worse.
While in other games this is how bear is done.
Lower it further?
It wouldn't surprise me unfortunately.
Me neither. It's essentially a stand off between EA and their customers. That's why the 'If Sims4 doesn't sell there won't be 5' comments. They knew people weren't happy with all the cuts.
I'm sure they didn't expect so many loyal customers to reach their personal limits this early on with TS4 and stop buying. They want to see more sales to 'justify' investing further in the base-whereas many of us want to see the premium base we've already paid for to be finished because we already paid! I'm not paying out twice because the studio couldn't manage their time or budget properly. Their mistake, not mine.
Exactly. They should thank us because we still bought the base game despite they rushing its release but instead they keep ignoring us and shove half baked packs down our throats. No more buying from me.
I'm actually going to make it a habit that with every pack EA releases leaving the base game unfixed to buy another game as an alternative and post what I bought. I started this when Spooky Stuff was released. I posted about it in the off topic section and I am going to do with all the upcoming packs.
It is a way to show EA that my money that they did not take is going somewhere else
I hope you are enjoying your other games
For the first time in ten years my gaming budget that I only ever spent on the sims is being spent elsewhere too. And what's nice? I'm supporting developers and companies who appreciate their customers and receiving my money.
My gaming budget has been taken over by the husband! *grumble*
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Maybe. But some of the boys were computer freaks also in those days and used all their time on computers and gaming
I wasn't one of them though because I was too busy about finishing my studies and starting in my new job. So I didn't own a computer until I bought my first PC late in the 1980s. Earlier I only used computers for more serious matters when I studied computer science or later teach about it on Picoline computers which would have costed my about $6000 if I should have bought one for myself. You can see a picture of such a computer which I used for teaching in the late 1980s on https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillebrandt_regnecentralen_rc759-piccoline.jpg
My first own computer was a 80386DX PC which only had an 80 MB harddisc when I bought it. I later expanded it with a 256 MB harddisc too and later again switched the original 80 MB to a 512 MB harddisc. The original 1 MB ram was also expanded to 4 MB so I also could install OS/2 v. 3 and have it running as a BBS while I also played games on it. Those were the days
When atari entered the home and arcades were big business no one I knew owned a computer.. I did not know anyone in the 80's that owned a computer in home. Not until windows 95 . Maybe things were different in your country
Maybe. But I doubt it. My brother had a Commodore 64 though and even earlier people bought the Sinclair ZX80 gaming computer which was marketed from 1980 with a price of only £99.95. It was soon replaced by the zx81 already in 1981 and the ZX81 cost only £69.95 assembled. You could even buy it for £49.95 unassembled. (Those are UK prices - but I don't remember the Danish prices.)
There was also the TI-99/4A home computer from Texas Instruments which also was released in June 1981. It cost a little more than the Sinclar home computers as it had an introductory price of $525. I saw it in the Danish stores where you could try it and play games like Space Invaders on it.
The next home computer from Sinclair was the ZX Spectrum which was released in April 1982. It's introductory price was £125. So it was a little more expensive than the earlier models which people also still had.
The people I taught later in the 1980s had such small home computers which they used for their gaming. But our computer science classes were extremely popular at the time because people loved our $6000 Piccoline computers which we later replaced with DOS computers from IBM. Later things changed drastically because then people had more powerful PC in their homes than we had for our teaching and our classes therefore became much less popular
I stopped teaching computer science in 2000 but just continued teaching my math classes instead. We don't have computer science classes at all anymore.
I dont doubt it no one I know would have spent $6000 on a home computer in the 80's and I would not spend $6000 on a computer now. The most I have ever spent on a computer is a little over $2000. I did not start pc gaming until the sims 1. Same goes with many of my friends. All of us game console and still own console today. All of us owned game boy and some of us still do. My son's friends game mostly on console and game boy rather than pc or phone. Some will game on pc but still use the console and game boy more. Why because of multi player games they can play together and not everyone can afford a gaming pc
Did you even read what I wrote?
The ZX80, ZX81, TI-99/4A and the Commodore 64 all cost less than even $600. So they were very popular home computers. They were cheap because they just used a TV as screen and therefore didn't need their own screens. The ZC80 and ZX81 were even a lot cheaper because they had a cheap keyboard where the keys were soft and made by rubber. You could actually get one of those home computers for less than $100.
Beside that I actually know a couple of teachers who bought their own Picoline computers for (at least) $6000. They weren't gamers though but they liked computers and used them for teaching in computer science or physics. I didn't buy such a computer myself because I knew that it would be aged and worthless way too fast.
My own first computer cost me about $2250 when I bought it. I actually think that I used it for about 10 years which only was possible because I upgraded it several times. It was a DOS computer with Windows 3.0 when I bought it. I never upgraded Windows to version 3.1, 3.11 or 95. But I installed OS/2 v. 3 as an additional OS on it.
I did not know anyone who owned a commodore so maybe they were more popular else where? My father was an electrical engineer he also worked on computers and he never bought a home computer until windows 95 and at that point I was not living with my parents.
My windows 98 was over $2000 had it for 7-8 years never upgraded it other than adding more hard drive space but it was killed by a lighting strike or I would have had it longer. Windows 98 was my first computer. Played sims 1 on it
It is also mentioned that in 1983-1986 the Commodore 64 had between 30% and 40% market share in the US with about 2 million sold each year. In the US its greatest competitors were Atari 400, Atari 800 and Apple II.
Edit: In 1985 the Commodore Amiga was released and therefore the sales numbers for the Commodore 64 decreased. But it was still popular because it's price was much lower than the price for the Amiga - which became more and more popular anyway though.
it may have been popular for some but I knew no one that owned one in home. Back then $600 was a lot of money. Im sure a lot of businesses owned them as I was working in that time frame and on a computer
Edit to add, VCR when they first came out were over $500. Not many people owned those either until the price dropped to about $200
Businesses always bought computers made by IBM back in the 1980s. But those computers were way too expensive to buy for ordinary people. You could buy "IBM-compatible" computers for half of the price for the real IBM PCs if you really wanted a DOS PC. But even this was too expensive for ordinary people and they weren't 100% compatible anyway. Therefore several programs gave problems if you attempted to buy a "IBM-compatible" PC. The reason was that IBM had secrets which gave difficulties for the companies who produced similar products every time IBM updated their OS or hardware. Companies couldn't afford to pay employees wages when their computers had downtime. So they always bought their computers directly from IBM instead of taking any risks. But ordinary people preferred to buy the cheaper models.
IBM dominated the market this way until they updated their video cards from VGA to XGA. At that time the other big companies instead went their own way and made their own super-VGA standard instead. Games began to support super-VGA instead of XGA and IBM lost their dominance for the PC market.
In the late 1980s and in the 1990s there was almost war between the PC gamers and the Amiga loving gamers. But the Commodore Amiga wasn't really ever used for much else than gaming. I think that Windows 95 was the main reason for the final defeat for Commodore and their C64 and Amiga computers.
So fortunately EA hasn't been forced to make Amiga versions of the Sims games too
@Erpe
Erpe Quote "In the 1980s almost all gamers were boys. At that time girls discussed why their boring boyfriends used so much time on something so boring as computers. But since then things have graduately changed. Most games have still most males among their fans. But even shooters, war games and sports games are now also more and more played by girls."
Erpe Above what you stated This is so untrue. We were in the arcades both male and female.Spend the day there. Every house I knew owned an atari. Both male and female. We just did not game for hours in home or on the go like kids do today. We liked to go outside and play not sit in front of a TV all day gaming.
Totally with you @phoebebebe13 I think it was more a case of assuming it was male dominated because they were well catered for and it was a time when some backwards opinions about women still existed.
woman's lib did not come in until the 70's so that male dominate mentality was still going and it still goes on today in different ways. Girls are pink , boys a blue garbage. Even when it comes to kids toys. I knew a lot of girls that played with their brother's GI Joe's , had the boy version of the big wheel. Played with legos that is supposed to be a "boy" toy. When will they learn not all girls are girly .
I also think it is poor form to assume that girls were not interested. I certainly was. But all these tools and toys were marketed to boys, they still are. When companies try to capture a female audience, what is the first thing they do? Look, you can get this electronic device in pink and purple! I'm so offended by that...as if the only thing women and girls care about is what color something is and fashion. Oh no, we can never be smart...that's not normal. Grrr...
There is so much more to girls than is ever given credit for. People assign their kids gender roles, but that doesn't mean those girls weren't ever interested.
Same with boys too. I faced some nasty words since I liked playing with dolls as society depicts them as "girly" toys. I also was told things like "Only real boys play sports" I was constantly asked to play some sort of sport because it would "make me a man". My interest in singing and songs got me in some unflattering situations.
Where I grew up, if a guy did something a girl would normally do it would him "gay".
I hate gender stereotypes so much. Guys are expected to be hunk machines who play sports and girls are expected to be perfectly fit. Ugh, can't we just be who we want to be without being judged.
Same with boys too. I faced some nasty words since I liked playing with dolls as society depicts them as "girly" toys. I also was told things like "Only real boys play sports" I was constantly asked to play some sort of sport because it would "make me a man". My interest in singing and songs got me in some unflattering situations.
Where I grew up, if a guy did something a girl would normally do it would him "gay".
I hate gender stereotypes so much. Guys are expected to be hunk machines who play sports and girls are expected to be perfectly fit. Ugh, can't we just be who we want to be without being judged.
I know how you feel. My mother always bought me barbie dolls and I used to mutilate them by running over them with my brother's trucks. I was constantly threatened that I wasn't going to get any more barbies if I was going to treat them that way, but I always got them. Every time Christmas came around, I was constantly hoping, "This is it! I'm finally getting me some lego!"
But no. I just got more barbies to mutilate.
I agree with you 100%. Stereotypes are just damaging to one's personal growth, imo.
Dissatisfied with Sims 4 and hoping for a better Sims 5
I just want to say something here.
We all know the game has too many problems. More than any previous sims game
The developers are very very slow in addressing the issues. And each pack released will add new problems.
With this slow pace do you think this game will ever be fixed to be in an acceptable condition?
I don't think so. I just feel TS4 is never going to make it. EA is not serious about it, maybe because they are making some profit, but what I know that the game is losing more supporters every day so this profit will sure going to take a hit.
When sales get less and less, then EA's only way is to lower the cost and quality of these packs further more in order to maximize the profit from the people who are buying. They will have to recover lost sales from the people who stopped buying the packs by giving the players who buy them more half baked packs. In other words milking them to the full capacity. Sure the prices will remain the same but the packs will be shallower, and become more superficial and half baked. That way if they used to make a profit of $4 from one player they are going to make $6 due to reduced cost.
So some people might ask what is the current quality?
An example is replacing a real bear with a costume! like this
Suppose bear was not in the game and they needed to add it but want to further lower the quality due to less sales they would have not made the costume but a bear statue instead! That what I am expecting to happen with future packs. The badly planned stuff to get worse.
While in other games this is how bear is done.
Lower it further?
It wouldn't surprise me unfortunately.
Me neither. It's essentially a stand off between EA and their customers. That's why the 'If Sims4 doesn't sell there won't be 5' comments. They knew people weren't happy with all the cuts.
I'm sure they didn't expect so many loyal customers to reach their personal limits this early on with TS4 and stop buying. They want to see more sales to 'justify' investing further in the base-whereas many of us want to see the premium base we've already paid for to be finished because we already paid! I'm not paying out twice because the studio couldn't manage their time or budget properly. Their mistake, not mine.
Exactly. They should thank us because we still bought the base game despite they rushing its release but instead they keep ignoring us and shove half baked packs down our throats. No more buying from me.
I'm actually going to make it a habit that with every pack EA releases leaving the base game unfixed to buy another game as an alternative and post what I bought. I started this when Spooky Stuff was released. I posted about it in the off topic section and I am going to do with all the upcoming packs.
It is a way to show EA that my money that they did not take is going somewhere else
I hope you are enjoying your other games
For the first time in ten years my gaming budget that I only ever spent on the sims is being spent elsewhere too. And what's nice? I'm supporting developers and companies who appreciate their customers and receiving my money.
I'm saving money! I went back to Sims 3 though I must admit I did buy a few thousand sim points so I could get some items from the store I didn't have.
Comments
Why target teen girls? I think it's because Maxis thinks teen girls are the most likely to be "casual" gamers who only play for 30 minutes or so at a time and wouldn't notice the lack of depth. Just make the graphics look good and never mind the generational play because the target player isn't supposed to be playing a family for that long! They are supposed to be creating a sim, having some fun with them, and then making a new one to try out. I think Maxis figured out that this game would appeal to mostly "casual" gamers, but supposedly those are the largest segment of the gamer population, especially with the mobile gaming crowd. Maxis figured it could release a mobile quality game and that would be ok for the majority of players.
Maybe. But I doubt it. My brother had a Commodore 64 though and even earlier people bought the Sinclair ZX80 gaming computer which was marketed from 1980 with a price of only £99.95. It was soon replaced by the zx81 already in 1981 and the ZX81 cost only £69.95 assembled. You could even buy it for £49.95 unassembled. (Those are UK prices - but I don't remember the Danish prices.)
There was also the TI-99/4A home computer from Texas Instruments which also was released in June 1981. It cost a little more than the Sinclar home computers as it had an introductory price of $525. I saw it in the Danish stores where you could try it and play games like Space Invaders on it.
The next home computer from Sinclair was the ZX Spectrum which was released in April 1982. It's introductory price was £125. So it was a little more expensive than the earlier models which people also still had.
The people I taught later in the 1980s had such small home computers which they used for their gaming. But our computer science classes were extremely popular at the time because people loved our $6000 Piccoline computers which we later replaced with DOS computers from IBM. Later things changed drastically because then people had more powerful PC in their homes than we had for our teaching and our classes therefore became much less popular
I stopped teaching computer science in 2000 but just continued teaching my math classes instead. We don't have computer science classes at all anymore.
I dont doubt it no one I know would have spent $6000 on a home computer in the 80's and I would not spend $6000 on a computer now. The most I have ever spent on a computer is a little over $2000. I did not start pc gaming until the sims 1. Same goes with many of my friends. All of us game console and still own console today. All of us owned game boy and some of us still do. My son's friends game mostly on console and game boy rather than pc or phone. Some will game on pc but still use the console and game boy more. Why because of multi player games they can play together and not everyone can afford a gaming pc
I also think it is poor form to assume that girls were not interested. I certainly was. But all these tools and toys were marketed to boys, they still are. When companies try to capture a female audience, what is the first thing they do? Look, you can get this electronic device in pink and purple! I'm so offended by that...as if the only thing women and girls care about is what color something is and fashion. Oh no, we can never be smart...that's not normal. Grrr...
There is so much more to girls than is ever given credit for. People assign their kids gender roles, but that doesn't mean those girls weren't ever interested.
This is not a slap in the face to me but I dont consider myself a fan anyway. I thinks fans should do their research before buying a game if they fill that way about putting money into a franchise. EA is a publicly traded company so their first priority is their stock holdersholders when it comes to how they use their resources and ensuring they remain on the right side of the law. Even if they weren't publicly traded, once you purchase a product, the company has the right to do whatever they want with the money. After the transfer of goods has taken place, the company is not obligated to you legally or morally unless there is a contract present that states so.
I agree and categorizing gender with colors. My room growing up was pink and I hated it. my mother hired a decorator and when it came time for my room back in the 80's the decorator said how about navy blue and white. FINE as long as I never see pink again dont care what color it is LOL I grew up playing with tools because of my father.
The ZX80, ZX81, TI-99/4A and the Commodore 64 all cost less than even $600. So they were very popular home computers. They were cheap because they just used a TV as screen and therefore didn't need their own screens. The ZC80 and ZX81 were even a lot cheaper because they had a cheap keyboard where the keys were soft and made by rubber. You could actually get one of those home computers for less than $100.
Beside that I actually know a couple of teachers who bought their own Picoline computers for (at least) $6000. They weren't gamers though but they liked computers and used them for teaching in computer science or physics. I didn't buy such a computer myself because I knew that it would be aged and worthless way too fast.
My own first computer cost me about $2250 when I bought it. I actually think that I used it for about 10 years which only was possible because I upgraded it several times. It was a DOS computer with Windows 3.0 when I bought it. I never upgraded Windows to version 3.1, 3.11 or 95. But I installed OS/2 v. 3 as an additional OS on it.
I did not know anyone who owned a commodore so maybe they were more popular else where? My father was an electrical engineer he also worked on computers and he never bought a home computer until windows 95 and at that point I was not living with my parents.
My windows 98 was over $2000 had it for 7-8 years never upgraded it other than adding more hard drive space but it was killed by a lighting strike or I would have had it longer. Windows 98 was my first computer. Played sims 1 on it
It is also mentioned that in 1983-1986 the Commodore 64 had between 30% and 40% market share in the US with about 2 million sold each year. In the US its greatest competitors were Atari 400, Atari 800 and Apple II.
Edit: In 1985 the Commodore Amiga was released and therefore the sales numbers for the Commodore 64 decreased. But it was still popular because it's price was much lower than the price for the Amiga - which became more and more popular anyway though.
it may have been popular for some but I knew no one that owned one in home. Back then $600 was a lot of money. Im sure a lot of businesses owned them as I was working in that time frame and on a computer
Edit to add, VCR when they first came out were over $500. Not many people owned those either until the price dropped to about $200
Exactly. And actually at point of sale when I bought I'd seen the devs promise toddlers and other features 'they ran out of time' for. They then went on to deliver for a few of these so acknowledged their commitment to those promises. It's only since they've tried to get out of it at every turn.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Yes lower it more so that it compensates the reduced no. of sales. Lower quality will require less cost and when it does that it will maximizes the profit per game unit sold.
Thank you @GymeaLillie
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Exactly. They should thank us because we still bought the base game despite they rushing its release but instead they keep ignoring us and shove half baked packs down our throats. No more buying from me.
I'm actually going to make it a habit that with every pack EA releases leaving the base game unfixed to buy another game as an alternative and post what I bought. I started this when Spooky Stuff was released. I posted about it in the off topic section and I am going to do with all the upcoming packs.
It is a way to show EA that my money that they did not take is going somewhere else
That is exactly what is going on.
Yes but will further alienate people. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. They cut deep and release. They expect us to support that. They then have trouble with retention rates of those customers they could rely on who they alienated. They give little progress on the base drip by drip to attempt to placate us while continuing to work on further paid content. Then they start to try to explain away issues by pretending customers who aren't happy are unreasonable. Then those in charge of budgets say it's not reaching the full traditional stable customer base so they need to 'economise' and cut some more. Then some people who are happy with the game start to notice so they start to voice concerns. It is a race to the bottom.
It's sad. Like @CherbitDip says Sims funds helped other games. Why is it that we, as customers, aren't shown the same courtesy as their other customers?!
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
I hope you are enjoying your other games
For the first time in ten years my gaming budget that I only ever spent on the sims is being spent elsewhere too. And what's nice? I'm supporting developers and companies who appreciate their customers and receiving my money.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
Exactly why our Yoshi's Wooly World pre-order just came in the mail today and this game is soooooooooooooo cute.
My gaming budget has been taken over by the husband! *grumble*
IBM dominated the market this way until they updated their video cards from VGA to XGA. At that time the other big companies instead went their own way and made their own super-VGA standard instead. Games began to support super-VGA instead of XGA and IBM lost their dominance for the PC market.
In the late 1980s and in the 1990s there was almost war between the PC gamers and the Amiga loving gamers. But the Commodore Amiga wasn't really ever used for much else than gaming. I think that Windows 95 was the main reason for the final defeat for Commodore and their C64 and Amiga computers.
So fortunately EA hasn't been forced to make Amiga versions of the Sims games too
Same with boys too. I faced some nasty words since I liked playing with dolls as society depicts them as "girly" toys. I also was told things like "Only real boys play sports" I was constantly asked to play some sort of sport because it would "make me a man". My interest in singing and songs got me in some unflattering situations.
Where I grew up, if a guy did something a girl would normally do it would him "gay".
I hate gender stereotypes so much. Guys are expected to be hunk machines who play sports and girls are expected to be perfectly fit. Ugh, can't we just be who we want to be without being judged.
I know how you feel. My mother always bought me barbie dolls and I used to mutilate them by running over them with my brother's trucks. I was constantly threatened that I wasn't going to get any more barbies if I was going to treat them that way, but I always got them. Every time Christmas came around, I was constantly hoping, "This is it! I'm finally getting me some lego!"
But no. I just got more barbies to mutilate.
I agree with you 100%. Stereotypes are just damaging to one's personal growth, imo.
I'm saving money! I went back to Sims 3 though I must admit I did buy a few thousand sim points so I could get some items from the store I didn't have.