At least we now know that players who want toddlers aren't just a small vocal subset on the forums. More than every second Simmer wants them.
The claim that forum users are some unique breed of the fanbase is so incorrect. People have very similar opinions to one another here, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc. You name it.
For instance, here's an excerpt from a Reddit thread regarding feedback on TS4. It has 77 upvotes (meaning 77 people pressed "Agree" with this user!) This small comment alone resonates with so many users here.
You described it perfectly. I stay cause I remember the good times.
The Sims 4 is boring and the Sims 3 was way too laggy and buggy.
The Sims 2 remains my favorite because even though it doesn't have a lot of the features that 3 and 4 have, 2 was a clear improvement from 1. 3 had the right idea with the open world, but all of the Sims end up looking the same and a lot of the personality and quirkiness and intimacy that 2 had was lost for me.
I totally understand and agree, though. I refuse to spend another dime on something that is less than what I expected.
@Sk8rblaze
I think there are huge disparities in the results accross the sites actually. Look at the communication question for exemple, and how different reddit is from the rest (58% satisfactory for reddit vs 22% for the forum !)
@esharpmajor I couldn't agree more. Often polls run where they say they are listening-like the poll on the advert when people said they weren't happy-only reaches a small fraction of respondents. You don't see them then reject those findings because of a 'silent' group of gamers. One has to wonder why in one scenario it's acceptable data and in the other it's wholly unacceptable.
I think it raises some questions that they don't want to consider. It's easier to brush aside criticism than to deal with issues and that's been a recurrent theme.
@Neia while I am a bit nervous to use the numbers from the other sites on their own due to the number of responses being too small to get a really honest read, but I am not surprised that question in particular is different for other platforms vs forums. Dev interaction is different on different sites - for example they are very communicative with the twitter community, so it stands to reason people from that site would have a different answer to that question than forum users. That question is very specific to the site the participants frequent, less so the questions about the game itself.
eta: here is an example of interpreting results - WHY are the answers different? Is it because forum users are by and large more negative or hard to please, or is it because the dev interaction here is less frequent? I don't think my poll can answer that question so I would avoid jumping to that conclusion.
Yeah, I personally voted 'poor' for communication because I steadily see the same topics about serious issues with no guru response, or a single response with no follow up (like relationship culling), news tends to get posted to other sites first before here, etc. Plus SimGuruDrake is mainly the only one I see actively communicate and try to provide answers (which I super appreciate btw!). I know she's the community manager, but other gurus seem far more active on places like Twitter rather than here.
Agreed @Polyrhythm , and I must say if the question has been rate SimGuruDrake's communication with the forum I would have voted Great! But she's only one person, lol!
@Sk8rblaze
I think there are huge disparities in the results accross the sites actually. Look at the communication question for exemple, and how different reddit is from the rest (58% satisfactory for reddit vs 22% for the forum !)
@Neia As a member of the Reddit community too, I can definitely attribute that result to the fact there is more of actual developer presence there than here.
@Neia while I am a bit nervous to use the numbers from the other sites on their own due to the number of responses being too small to get a really honest read, but I am not surprised that question in particular is different for other platforms vs forums. Dev interaction is different on different sites - for example they are very communicative with the twitter community, so it stands to reason people from that site would have a different answer to that question than forum users. That question is very specific to the site the participants frequent, less so the questions about the game itself.
eta: here is an example of interpreting results - WHY are the answers different? Is it because forum users are by and large more negative or hard to please, or is it because the dev interaction here is less frequent? I don't think my poll can answer that question so I would avoid jumping to that conclusion.
I wouldn't jump to conclusion about it either, but Sk8rblaze said people had very similar opinion here, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc and that doesn't seem to be the case in fact. It's not the only question with different results either, so it's not just a matter of communication apparently (Q1 : 10% poor vs 33% poor on the forum for example). Perhaps there isn't enough data, perhaps there is some underlying explanation, I don't know
Agreed Polyrhythm , and I must say if the question has been rate SimGuruDrake's communication with the forum I would have voted Great! But she's only one person, lol!
Actually the QA team I commend really well this year too. Of course it was by @SimGuruDrake 's efforts, but it has been awesome having @SimGuruNick@SimGuruArvin and @SimQARobo around to talk to. Thanks you guys, you guys are awesome. I'm noticing I much faster response to bugs having those guys active on Twitter and forums, so their efforts are much appreciated. Thanks to Simmers like @crinrict and @luthienrising and @rosemow. Your efforts of assisting others haven't gone unnoticed too. Shout out to @egwarhammer for assisting and @Deaderpool for making sure MC Command Center helps make the Sims 4 experience better.
Sorry esharpmajor, there are just some things like this that just can't be expressed in a poll or telemetry. I do have to agree communication is much better this year than last year like SimGuruDrake mentioned, but doesn't mean that trust can't be improved upon further. It's tough SimCity was a real down fall for Maxis and EA, so kind of hard with the Sims 4 being kind of the rebound game for Maxis after that fiasco. Reminds me how Martha was the rebound companion after Rose. But yeah, the whole experience with the Sims 4 reminded me of Doctor Who for that reason I guess. I mean I still don't think the Sims 4 is a bad game, it just doesn't appeal to several of my playstyles. It's like I don't hate it, I just like it less than its predecessors, that's all. I just hope that Maxis listens to ideas on how to make this iteration better. Why I liked the idea of doing a Twitch stream that agent_bev had because it seems like a more personable way to communicate. I guess in regards to the Sims, somewhat open communication has always been apart of it. A big portion of what makes the Sims the Sims is the community. So blocking that takes away part of what made the Sims the Sims to this day. Of course there are legal issues to deal with, but yeah I hope there will come to be some balance with it.
Personally with regards to what happened with Get Together wasn't that it was announced early, but how it was presented at Gamescom. It was presented as a pack with selfies and silly dancing and partying. So Simmers had low expectations for it because of it coming off as shallow at first. I remember it wasn't until LGR's review of it, that I started understanding it was a pack that could impact the autonomy of the Sims themselves. Clubs is still one of the best introductions to this iteration and has a ton of replay value with it. Anyway I think marketing at the beginning of the Sims 4 was very shallow personally. It has gotten a little better with time especially within the past few months.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Oh I completely agree @Scobre as I've said many times we can't get the 'why' from the polls, it only helps us see where a more detailed convo may be required. It's not meant to provide a holistic 'answer' to anything, only to draw attention to the general atmosphere of the forum community.
Oh I completely agree @Scobre as I've said many times we can't get the 'why' from the polls, it only helps us see where a more detailed convo may be required. It's not meant to provide a holistic 'answer' to anything, only to draw attention to the general atmosphere of the forum community.
Yeah I hope it is ok I explained my why reasons in this thread. I do think polls are still beneficial and needed. I don't know, when I researched things in college, I used several sources, not just one. I guess I just expected the same effort or better from a big gaming industry like EA.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
@Neia while I am a bit nervous to use the numbers from the other sites on their own due to the number of responses being too small to get a really honest read, but I am not surprised that question in particular is different for other platforms vs forums. Dev interaction is different on different sites - for example they are very communicative with the twitter community, so it stands to reason people from that site would have a different answer to that question than forum users. That question is very specific to the site the participants frequent, less so the questions about the game itself.
eta: here is an example of interpreting results - WHY are the answers different? Is it because forum users are by and large more negative or hard to please, or is it because the dev interaction here is less frequent? I don't think my poll can answer that question so I would avoid jumping to that conclusion.
I wouldn't jump to conclusion about it either, but Sk8rblaze said people had very similar opinion here, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc and that doesn't seem to be the case in fact. It's not the only question with different results either, so it's not just a matter of communication apparently (Q1 : 10% poor vs 33% poor on the forum for example). Perhaps there isn't enough data, perhaps there is some underlying explanation, I don't know
Unfortunately I have to say there really isn't enough data, in this case. With a population in the hundreds of thousands or more, ~250 people surveyed provides around a 7% margin for error, 8% being the limit that any self respecting statistician would even consider accepting. I'm personally not comfortable with a margin that high. Hopefully the next time I take a crack at this I can do some more targeted questions that are aimed to look into that very question.
Oh I completely agree @Scobre as I've said many times we can't get the 'why' from the polls, it only helps us see where a more detailed convo may be required. It's not meant to provide a holistic 'answer' to anything, only to draw attention to the general atmosphere of the forum community.
Yeah I hope it is ok I explained my why reasons in this thread. I do think polls are still beneficial and needed. I don't know, when I researched things in college, I used several sources, not just one. I guess I just expected the same effort or better from a big gaming industry like EA.
Totally agree, and yes you expressed yourself perfectly, I think you're spot on with your observations.
Totally agree, and yes you expressed yourself perfectly, I think you're spot on with your observations.
Oh good. I have a hard time making my observations make sense sometimes. XD Glad you were able to understand it. I'm not the best at expressing myself.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Okay sorry for the delay, question 3 is now fixed.
Over and over I am getting the response that even the over 1500 simmers who took this poll are still a vocal minority. I just have to address this. I know Drake said essentially the same; that these results are from a 'non-focused data pool' and that there are too many variables to achieve an accurate result. I'm sorry but I strongly disagree. This is how polls work: You get a subset of a population to answer your questions, and no matter how giant and unwieldy the population is, a sample size of 500-1500 is more than enough to get accurate 'enough' results (in this case 95% confidence, 5% margin of error, using the forum results only, as the cross platform responses may include duplicate respondents and increase that margin.) As far as creating a targeted data set, the only requirements that are relevant in my mind for such a general questionnaire are 1. are you a fan of the sims franchise? 2. have you played 1 or more sims games? That's it. I think those requirements were met. I don't see a need to be any more specific than that. We are not looking to see how separate demographics feel, we are trying to get a general sense of the community. (Although I DO lament the fact that the survey is available only to English speakers, that is a variable that I am unable to avoid and is a legitimate note, for sure! Certainly though, we can apply these results to the English speaking forum users with total confidence, and then to the larger English speaking simmer community, with a slightly lower degree of confidence due to the bias which I will discuss below.)
The bias here is that this went out to people who are active in the online communities for the sims. Unfortunately, no fan has access to anyone else. The point has been made to me that EA is able to access the silent members via email. I think this is a faulted theory. When EA sends out email questionnaires, the people that answer are likely the same people who are active on various simming communities. I don't know about you guys, but if I get an email for a product I don't care about, do not have an interest in discussing, or don't have a strong opinion on, I am not going to bother filling it out. Heck, even if I love the product, I may not fill it out simply because I don't like receiving e-mails from companies, period. I probably wouldn't even open it, actually. In my opinion, there is no way to reach this so called 'silent majority', by it's very definition. It boggles my mind that some people are intent on dismissing data provided by vocal members of the community, in favor of the hypothetical opinions of these silent members. I don't understand why so many are assuming - with no facts to back these assumptions up - that the silent simmer's experience is totally different from the vocal one's.
Speaking from experience, I am a card holding member of the silent majority of Fallout fans. When I do lurk around on their forums I find that my opinions have already been eloquently stated by others. I feel that the community voice for that franchise perfectly represents me, and though there are opposing views, there is always someone who has said what I feel, and so I do not feel obligated to participate directly. It would frustrate me greatly to think that the company, and/or the community is ignoring those eloquent and thoughtful posts from the vocal members because of some supposed view I may or may not have about the game. I would deeply resent a user or company referring to my silence as confirmation of why an out spoken fan should be ignored. To ignore the members willing to give information and feedback in favor of the inferred opinions of silent players seems wildly illogical to me. As I say in the FAQ, we are all icebergs, beneath us there are thousands of simmers who don't bother to make their opinions heard. And why should they? When I visit a forum, and search for a problem, and see that it has been discussed over and over, must I make yet another topic, or chime in with a redundant 'me too' every time? Why would I, knowing that as soon as I speak out I will be lumped in with this vocal minority and have my opinions brushed away in favor of other fans who did not take the time to share their views? It is hugely discouraging.
Imagine if all political polls were cancelled because 'they were biased towards people who are willing to take polls'. In an attempt to get perfectly accurate results we run the risk of instead getting no results at all. I know my poll is not perfect by any means, hence the dozens of disclaimers explaining as much, but as dangerous as it is to take this sort of data as an absolute, it is equally dangerous to dismiss it completely by making the entirely unsupported decision that vocal community members are having a totally different experience to non vocal community members. Short of treating this like a government census and making polls compulsory to play all iterations of the franchise, there is no way to achieve the level of accuracy that seems necessary to silence these concerns, so why not work with what we have??
Anyway sorry for the rant, but I'm getting a little tired of answering these questions here and reddit and fb and and and... lol this is why I don't usually use social media, it's like bashing your head against 7 different walls.
Thanks for putting in all the effort regardless. I think there is more credibility to this survey than people would have you believe. First of all, you went to different outlets. If anyone has ever been to The Sims subreddit on Reddit, you will know that the simmers there are pretty hostile towards anyone with even the slightest hint of negative attitude towards TS4. It started that way because of how negative the TS4 forums were, and people wanted a "safe haven". They are not as active as here, but right now there are about 100 active users there, out of 47,000 + subscribers. It's one of the most active forums outside of here.
I know people like to say that simmers who use the forums are very negative. That's only half true. For every loud "negative complainer" we have, I can easily find a loud anti-negative/ super positive simmer to match.
The only valid criticism I can find is that you had no way of controlling how many times people could vote in the survey. I call BS on the demographic stuff, it is just as good as what the official TS4 team can do. They've been throwing out surveys to a very small, select group of people within a certain age range that they care about. The super positive sim fan sites always get the surveys as well. How is that any better or less biased?
I think this poll makes people nervous because it crushes the narrative they've been trying to sell us. If they really wanted to criticize the validity of the results they would be going after statistical faults (i.e. indisputable mathematical facts), not qualitative measures that the official sims team themselves cannot implement in their own surveys.
I'm not gonna quote the stuff above me because there is too much but Right On! Maybe I'm simple minded but you had people respond that still love and play Sims 2. You had people respond that still love and play Sims 3. AND, you had people respond who love and play Sims 4. What better cross section of simmers do you need? Sorry, but all the nit-picking regarding this survey comes across as sour grapes to me. The information that this survey provided is very interesting indeed. Interesting that a majority of respondents chose two games that in the world of computer gaming are/would be considered ancient. Over a much newer game. I think it shows without a doubt that EA's plan was and still is a fail. A properly managed company and those making the decisions would/should sit down and look at that information and give careful thought to what it is telling them. Will that happen? Don't know. At this point I doubt it. Somewhere along the line someone made some really bad decisions regarding the direction of the Sims franchise. Does it mean I "hate" EA? Hardly. I've been playing the Sims since 2000. EA's games have given me thousands (or more) hours of fun over 16 years. By the way, and this is just my little pipe dream. Imagine Sims 3 properly optimized, 64 bit, updated graphics, new content and gameplay added in. Whoa. That would have been nothing short of amazing. (All this is just my opinion and does not reflect the opinion of any other human beings or animals except maybe a certain pygmy marmoset that I have a drink with now and then.)
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain
I think they made their decisions and they are not going to back down no matter what we say or ask or explain. They look at all the data THEY collect from the sample audience that THEY select and interpret it to go their way. I've never been sent a poll from EA/Origin or Maxis. I was excited to take this one so my opinions would be counted. This sample audience was majority OFFICIAL forum users and apparently it is not a good enough sample for them to interpret or use as data. All the threads are not good enough to use as data. All the posts are not good enough to use as data. No poll is perfect, and they all have margins of error that should be taken into consideration. Just like counting likes on Facebook as likes, but, not reading the comments under the likes that are 'negative' comments.
@bekkasan
EA purposingly choosing themes that they know won't bring them money
vs
Vocal minority's opinion isn't as universal as they think it is
Which one seems the most likely to you ?
Or number 3 EA writing certain themes off because trying to create after the fact is too expensive despite their claims of how easy it was to alter this game engine to get sales despite acknowledged issues with creating this base. Rewriting the engine after its been released is almost certainly not as easy as doing the job completely before release.
You don't know who is minority/majority. Noone does. So unless you have some good, reliable figures to show that the minority want toddlers your point is nothing more than speculation like the rest of the thread.
@bekkasan
EA purposingly choosing themes that they know won't bring them money
vs
Vocal minority's opinion isn't as universal as they think it is
Which one seems the most likely to you ?
Or number 3 EA writing certain themes off because trying to create after the fact is too expensive despite their claims of how easy it was to alter this game engine to get sales despite acknowledged issues with creating this base. Rewriting the engine after its been released is almost certainly not as easy as doing the job completely before release.
You don't know who is minority/majority. Noone does. So unless you have some good, reliable figures to show that the minority want toddlers your point is nothing more than speculation like the rest of the thread.
We do know the forums are a minority, that's something undisputable. Look at the numbers : SimGuruDrake and esharpmajor's polls both had around 1500 responses after several days. There are 20k users connected on the gallery right now. The forums are definitely a minority, and a vocal one I think, so yes, we are very much a vocal minority. We don't know what the majority want. It could be that they want toddlers, it could be that they don't want toddlers, nobody here knows.
It just seems to me that the minority's opinion not matching the majority's is far more likely than EA willingly sabotaging its game, and purposedly ignoring what would sell the most, for reasons. I personally think they are working on toddlers anyway, so for toddlers it's neither of the two choices I offered.
@bekkasan
EA purposingly choosing themes that they know won't bring them money
vs
Vocal minority's opinion isn't as universal as they think it is
Which one seems the most likely to you ?
Or number 3 EA writing certain themes off because trying to create after the fact is too expensive despite their claims of how easy it was to alter this game engine to get sales despite acknowledged issues with creating this base. Rewriting the engine after its been released is almost certainly not as easy as doing the job completely before release.
You don't know who is minority/majority. Noone does. So unless you have some good, reliable figures to show that the minority want toddlers your point is nothing more than speculation like the rest of the thread.
We do know the forums are a minority, that's something undisputable. Look at the numbers : SimGuruDrake and esharpmajor's polls both had around 1500 responses after several days. There are 20k users connected on the gallery right now. The forums are definitely a minority, and a vocal one I think, so yes, we are very much a vocal minority. We don't know what the majority want. It could be that they want toddlers, it could be that they don't want toddlers, nobody here knows.
It just seems to me that the minority's opinion not matching the majority's is far more likely than EA willingly sabotaging its game, and purposedly ignoring what would sell the most, for reasons. I personally think they are working on toddlers anyway, so for toddlers it's neither of the two choices I offered.
Yes but you don't know what the silent players want or think. Just because they aren't here doesn't mean they are at odds with the vocal people at all. That's taking a huge leap in your conclusion.
When you factor in the 'Not bothered' and 'no' responses, over toddlers, there's a 45-55% split, approximately, going from memory. Which means we're all pretty evenly split amongst definitely wanting and not wanting/not caring. Some of us are vocal about the game's shortcomings, but purchase anyway. Lots more than I probably believe.
At that point, it becomes a straight up does the cost of making them, changing the engine and everything that came before to accommodate them outweigh the benefits of having them. Short answer is probably not. Most of us buy and play without them. Where EA are concerned that question likely outweighs any desire for them.
@bekkasan
EA purposingly choosing themes that they know won't bring them money
vs
Vocal minority's opinion isn't as universal as they think it is
Which one seems the most likely to you ?
Or number 3 EA writing certain themes off because trying to create after the fact is too expensive despite their claims of how easy it was to alter this game engine to get sales despite acknowledged issues with creating this base. Rewriting the engine after its been released is almost certainly not as easy as doing the job completely before release.
You don't know who is minority/majority. Noone does. So unless you have some good, reliable figures to show that the minority want toddlers your point is nothing more than speculation like the rest of the thread.
We do know the forums are a minority, that's something undisputable. Look at the numbers : SimGuruDrake and esharpmajor's polls both had around 1500 responses after several days. There are 20k users connected on the gallery right now. The forums are definitely a minority, and a vocal one I think, so yes, we are very much a vocal minority. We don't know what the majority want. It could be that they want toddlers, it could be that they don't want toddlers, nobody here knows.
It just seems to me that the minority's opinion not matching the majority's is far more likely than EA willingly sabotaging its game, and purposedly ignoring what would sell the most, for reasons. I personally think they are working on toddlers anyway, so for toddlers it's neither of the two choices I offered.
Yes but you don't know what the silent players want or think. Just because they aren't here doesn't mean they are at odds with the vocal people at all. That's taking a huge leap in your conclusion.
But I never said I know what they want. I said nobody knows, that includes me.
I find the poll results interesting and worth discussing, but they are not representative of sims players as a whole. Figuring out if a sample is scientific and generalizable is not just about sample size, it's also about how the sample is obtained. Self-selecting into a survey is not going to give you a proper read of what simmers think in general, because some may be predisposed to volunteering for it (those who feel negative about the game, those on one social media outlet).
Comments
The claim that forum users are some unique breed of the fanbase is so incorrect. People have very similar opinions to one another here, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc. You name it.
For instance, here's an excerpt from a Reddit thread regarding feedback on TS4. It has 77 upvotes (meaning 77 people pressed "Agree" with this user!) This small comment alone resonates with so many users here.
Read the rest of the thread here. You'll find it's almost no different than the feedback section here.
I think there are huge disparities in the results accross the sites actually. Look at the communication question for exemple, and how different reddit is from the rest (58% satisfactory for reddit vs 22% for the forum !)
I think it raises some questions that they don't want to consider. It's easier to brush aside criticism than to deal with issues and that's been a recurrent theme.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
eta: here is an example of interpreting results - WHY are the answers different? Is it because forum users are by and large more negative or hard to please, or is it because the dev interaction here is less frequent? I don't think my poll can answer that question so I would avoid jumping to that conclusion.
@Neia As a member of the Reddit community too, I can definitely attribute that result to the fact there is more of actual developer presence there than here.
I wouldn't jump to conclusion about it either, but Sk8rblaze said people had very similar opinion here, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc and that doesn't seem to be the case in fact. It's not the only question with different results either, so it's not just a matter of communication apparently (Q1 : 10% poor vs 33% poor on the forum for example). Perhaps there isn't enough data, perhaps there is some underlying explanation, I don't know
Sorry esharpmajor, there are just some things like this that just can't be expressed in a poll or telemetry. I do have to agree communication is much better this year than last year like SimGuruDrake mentioned, but doesn't mean that trust can't be improved upon further. It's tough SimCity was a real down fall for Maxis and EA, so kind of hard with the Sims 4 being kind of the rebound game for Maxis after that fiasco. Reminds me how Martha was the rebound companion after Rose. But yeah, the whole experience with the Sims 4 reminded me of Doctor Who for that reason I guess. I mean I still don't think the Sims 4 is a bad game, it just doesn't appeal to several of my playstyles. It's like I don't hate it, I just like it less than its predecessors, that's all. I just hope that Maxis listens to ideas on how to make this iteration better. Why I liked the idea of doing a Twitch stream that agent_bev had because it seems like a more personable way to communicate. I guess in regards to the Sims, somewhat open communication has always been apart of it. A big portion of what makes the Sims the Sims is the community. So blocking that takes away part of what made the Sims the Sims to this day. Of course there are legal issues to deal with, but yeah I hope there will come to be some balance with it.
Personally with regards to what happened with Get Together wasn't that it was announced early, but how it was presented at Gamescom. It was presented as a pack with selfies and silly dancing and partying. So Simmers had low expectations for it because of it coming off as shallow at first. I remember it wasn't until LGR's review of it, that I started understanding it was a pack that could impact the autonomy of the Sims themselves. Clubs is still one of the best introductions to this iteration and has a ton of replay value with it. Anyway I think marketing at the beginning of the Sims 4 was very shallow personally. It has gotten a little better with time especially within the past few months.
Unfortunately I have to say there really isn't enough data, in this case. With a population in the hundreds of thousands or more, ~250 people surveyed provides around a 7% margin for error, 8% being the limit that any self respecting statistician would even consider accepting. I'm personally not comfortable with a margin that high. Hopefully the next time I take a crack at this I can do some more targeted questions that are aimed to look into that very question.
Totally agree, and yes you expressed yourself perfectly, I think you're spot on with your observations.
Thanks for putting in all the effort regardless. I think there is more credibility to this survey than people would have you believe. First of all, you went to different outlets. If anyone has ever been to The Sims subreddit on Reddit, you will know that the simmers there are pretty hostile towards anyone with even the slightest hint of negative attitude towards TS4. It started that way because of how negative the TS4 forums were, and people wanted a "safe haven". They are not as active as here, but right now there are about 100 active users there, out of 47,000 + subscribers. It's one of the most active forums outside of here.
I know people like to say that simmers who use the forums are very negative. That's only half true. For every loud "negative complainer" we have, I can easily find a loud anti-negative/ super positive simmer to match.
The only valid criticism I can find is that you had no way of controlling how many times people could vote in the survey. I call BS on the demographic stuff, it is just as good as what the official TS4 team can do. They've been throwing out surveys to a very small, select group of people within a certain age range that they care about. The super positive sim fan sites always get the surveys as well. How is that any better or less biased?
I think this poll makes people nervous because it crushes the narrative they've been trying to sell us. If they really wanted to criticize the validity of the results they would be going after statistical faults (i.e. indisputable mathematical facts), not qualitative measures that the official sims team themselves cannot implement in their own surveys.
― Mark Twain
I think they made their decisions and they are not going to back down no matter what we say or ask or explain. They look at all the data THEY collect from the sample audience that THEY select and interpret it to go their way. I've never been sent a poll from EA/Origin or Maxis. I was excited to take this one so my opinions would be counted. This sample audience was majority OFFICIAL forum users and apparently it is not a good enough sample for them to interpret or use as data. All the threads are not good enough to use as data. All the posts are not good enough to use as data. No poll is perfect, and they all have margins of error that should be taken into consideration. Just like counting likes on Facebook as likes, but, not reading the comments under the likes that are 'negative' comments.
The Cowboy and the Mermaid
EA purposingly choosing themes that they know won't bring them money
vs
Vocal minority's opinion isn't as universal as they think it is
Which one seems the most likely to you ?
Or number 3 EA writing certain themes off because trying to create after the fact is too expensive despite their claims of how easy it was to alter this game engine to get sales despite acknowledged issues with creating this base. Rewriting the engine after its been released is almost certainly not as easy as doing the job completely before release.
You don't know who is minority/majority. Noone does. So unless you have some good, reliable figures to show that the minority want toddlers your point is nothing more than speculation like the rest of the thread.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
We do know the forums are a minority, that's something undisputable. Look at the numbers : SimGuruDrake and esharpmajor's polls both had around 1500 responses after several days. There are 20k users connected on the gallery right now. The forums are definitely a minority, and a vocal one I think, so yes, we are very much a vocal minority. We don't know what the majority want. It could be that they want toddlers, it could be that they don't want toddlers, nobody here knows.
It just seems to me that the minority's opinion not matching the majority's is far more likely than EA willingly sabotaging its game, and purposedly ignoring what would sell the most, for reasons. I personally think they are working on toddlers anyway, so for toddlers it's neither of the two choices I offered.
Yes but you don't know what the silent players want or think. Just because they aren't here doesn't mean they are at odds with the vocal people at all. That's taking a huge leap in your conclusion.
https://twitter.com/sparkfairy1
At that point, it becomes a straight up does the cost of making them, changing the engine and everything that came before to accommodate them outweigh the benefits of having them. Short answer is probably not. Most of us buy and play without them. Where EA are concerned that question likely outweighs any desire for them.
But I never said I know what they want. I said nobody knows, that includes me.
EA ID: staravia81