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About 3 and a half years into Sims 4, how would you rate it?
DeservedCriticism
Posts: 2,251 Member
Simple question wants a simple answer. In one month this game will be at the 3 and a half year mark, with the Sims 3 having the longest lifespan at about 4 and a half years, if I recall correctly. Sims 4 has lived a large enough percentage of the lifespan of it's predecessors now that comparisons are much easier, so I thought it'd be a good time to ask people again what they would rate the game.
If you wish, post a comment saying what you rated the game and why.
If you wish, post a comment saying what you rated the game and why.
"Who are you, that do not know your history?"
About 3 and a half years into Sims 4, how would you rate it? 423 votes
1 out of 10
6%
26 votes
2 out of 10
2%
10 votes
3 out of 10
8%
37 votes
4 out of 10
15%
65 votes
5 out of 10
16%
68 votes
6 out of 10
12%
51 votes
7 out of 10
18%
80 votes
8 out of 10
14%
60 votes
9 out of 10
3%
14 votes
10 out of 10
2%
12 votes
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
EDIT:
Bare in mind though that, by the time TS4 comes to an end, we may raise or lower our scores. If TS4 does not get that much better, then I might score it as a 5 out of 10. It will have to try hard to get me to increase my score though - It may never reach above 7 or 8 out of 10 for me.
I feel I should absolutely drop the score to 3 out of 10 for three main reasons:
1) This is the worst game of the Sims franchise, and as such when you grade it based on what could be achieved, using past games as evidence? This game lacks severely and thus I don't think it deserves a 5 out of 10 in this context.
2) They have yet to produce a single expansion that has been universally well received. To me, that's unprecedented. It's a bit difficult to rate this game above a 5 out of 10 when, if you were to average out the individual ratings and scores of each individual pack, that average would be low. I just find that inexcuseable that within 3 and a half years, they've produced a grand total of 2 out of 22 packs that seem universally well regarded by the fans. (Vampires and Parenthood)
3) To me perhaps the biggest "crime" of development is that they're clearly recycling everything possible in an effort to cut corners and reduce costs, to the point they're even willing to recycle broken systems. Recycling the animations from Get to Work for the Vet career...? It's a little "depressing" since it acts as an indicator the game's budget is lacking or the creators are focused on the cash, but you could also argue recycling such things helps them spend more time on important features.
However, they've also recycled that god awful retail system. Twice. Both times it's bugged out and performed just as poorly as the initial rendition did. They know it's flawed and buggy, and yet they don't care and bring it back again and again. Retail, to this day, has worthless employees and sales hindered by group convos of socialite customers. Three years later, they have yet to go back and simply patch the customers to socialize less or make employees actually work, and are content to leave that expansion pack's content in a completely disfunctional state. Dine Out is perhaps the most stable, but visiting a restaurant as a customer takes an entire day, and the system still bugs out regularly, causing a 1-star review from customers that simply couldn't sit or refused to actually eat their meal. The Vet career - big surprise - has the workers once again doing nothing.
To me if they're copy-pasting that system despite knowing how buggy it is, I take that as an insult. I take that as evidence the team truly does not care and just wants a quick buck. I mean that's like trying to sell a vase with a big crack down the side, the initial customer returns it when they notice it, and then they have the audacity to put the vase back on display for sale while trying to hide the crack from customers. How about actually improving your product instead of just trying to swindle customers...?
In that regard, I do absolutely think the game deserves some points knocked off in protest of such practices.
Overall I just find myself consistently unimpressed while packs produce forgettable experiences, and my motivations for voting it 3 out of 10 include the fact that this game underperforms vs. other games of it's kind/other games in the franchise, the expansion packs are absolutely awful, and all the while EA/Maxis seems completely shameless about recycling broken systems.
for me TS4's not at average 5/10
it's a sims game & i have some basic sims game expectations, which have to be met & TS4 doesn't meet them despite improvements in other areas
list of improvements which had to be made in order of importance :
traits revamp would heave it to 6 or even 7
it had to be improved rather towards how clubs are options to set up than predefined by the devs like in TS3
incl no generic whims, no generic autonomous actions, no unrelated to the current situation actions, no unrelated leading emotion to the situation/main happenings in sim's life like death/cheating/quarrel/birth/love/friendship, healthy human reactions to important situations
to 8 would bring it fixes to
main bugs/glitches for things like invisible autonomous action icons, commands falling out of queue, phantom traits, CAS sculpting jumps, certain jewelry in CAS not displaying combined with certain meshes
getting rid of prescripted things like clothing for careers & festivals
options for no vampires, no aliens, no pets despite having bought the packs, cause just because i want the build/buy objects & clothing doesn't mean i want always to play the content of the whole package incl all gameplay changing interactions ...
cars would get it to 9
it won't ever get to 10 though
because of lack of buildable apartments, poor active jobs, invisible rabbit hole jobs on the street, no actual city structure, unmovable & not freely placeable lots, unchangeable & inaccessible backdrops, not all sims playable (some are just hidden role sims, unchangeabe, unaccessible, not even freely assignable like coworkers & employees)
& TS4 is 4 because of
better assortment of CAS, freedom to assign in CAS every piece of clothing for every occasion & gender, hats with every hair, great lighting, improved roofs, house movable on the lots with & without lot deco, bigger lots placeable on smaller, searching the build/buy mode per name, changeable place of shelfs, windows, pictures, free assignment of spree parties on the go ...
also improvements from previous iterations again included like assignable beds, closeable doors ...
improved CLUBS CLUBS CLUBS !!!
i personally can accept though
loading screens everywhere, flat lots, no terrain tools ... even no CASt, yep ...
& if the listed above improvements would take place then i could even accept TS4's limited & skewed version of business
It really doesn't deserve any lower than that, because it still has the elements that makes it a life simulator game. I just don't like that it is taken as a sequel, because:
- It continues to be less and less sandbox game than any other previous titles.
- Revolutionary additions we're promised: emotions and multitasking - are so borked that you could only forget about say and make them as a record score of the biggest fails brought in TS4.
- Sims, peeps themselves, are less dynamic and diverse, because, blame and point at stupid implementations of emotions that rendered trait system to uselessness.
- So buggy.
- and all etc stuff that I pointed out across the forum with the fallacies this game as (I can't recall all of them at this very moment, because there's too many of them and that itself proofs how a failure this game is in the franchise).
As for other reasons why it still has a half of the wholescore and not any lower than that:
- Huge upgrade in CAS (Create A Style).
- Intuitive BUILD MODE.
- Gallery System/Addition.
- Other minor features & details (club system, lot traits, improved animations, etc).
I'm kinda surprised all of us thought to give off the same score.
It's ok if I pretend it's a side game, but it doesn't feel like "The Sims".
When TS3 came out, I played it and actually went back to TS2 because I disliked the new one so badly. I imagine that's how most feel about TS4 which I do happen to enjoy. I know how frustrating it gets when you feel as if a game you love is being "butchered".
7/10 and it will never get higher because of some major flaws that will remain.
I like the game but the last themes don't interest me.
Since October I has stopped playing because my sims need more hobbies.
The last installed pack was Fitness Stuff, I skip SPs and Pets EP, I'm waiting for the next EP.
Right now, I have fun to create scenes with Daz Studio.
The Sims 4 Ideas Corner
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The Sims 4 General DiscussionThe main reason as to why I voted for a 7 is because after 3.5 years, it feels as if we are not even close to what feels like a full game. At this point in the Sims 3's life span, Seasons had just been released, with University just around the corner. I felt happy with what I could do in The Sims 3, and did not feel as if the game needed much more work from that point onwards.
Yet with the Sims 4, the whole process feels pretty slow, there is still a lot more stuff that I want from this game that does not seem to be coming any time soon.
Like I said, I really do enjoy this game. If this were the game's 2 year mark, it would probably be an 8 or 9, but because it's 3.5 years old (towards what would have been the end of the game's cycle in the previous instalments), I do not feel as if I can mark it as highly.
If this were a side game, it could maybe be acceptable but it’s not. The sims 4 biggest problem is that the sims 2 & 3 exist. We have lost valuable tools along the way not to mention basic things like car pools, school buses, the repo man, the burglar and countless other basic things like supermarkets. We can’t create our own worlds. I can’t have say a luminous green kitchen with a purple fridge and hot pink counter tops. I can’t build a pond in my sims back garden, I can’t give them a back garden with a hill in it. I can’t hsve two sims hold hands and dance nor can I have them lie on a bed and read a book or just cuddle.
Don’t get me started on the lack of building tools. Why can’t I build a park without a chess table? Why am I restricted to having community lots I build follow a check list? That wasn’t even a requirement in the sims 1 for crying out loud.
There’s no consequence, I’m not so much playing a game as I am fighting against a moodlet manipulator. Or maybe that’s my role..
For limiting my creativity and forcing me to play a certain way I feel the game deserves the rating I gave it.
The children facial expressions are precious to me, not to mention the toddlers. The play interaction with toddlers is the best one I've seen in a sims game.
And the list goes on..
https://twitter.com/MarianaF53
I have added some mods recently that has enhanced my gameplay and killed off the happy all the time sim life. Vanilla I give it 5/10.
I was toying with a "5," but couldn't. The game is graphically pleasing enough, but the moodlets just aren't doing it for me. I enjoyed TS2's attraction system and TS3's traits, which did seem to add to the characters. In TS4, the moodlet system feels empty -- the sims' interactions seem to be far less interesting than in games past. I miss the memories of TS2 as well...yet another way to check on my sims and/or see them experience their sim-life. They had firsts that followed them throughout their lifetime, not to mention the relationships they had. Playing TS4 actually makes me miss the best of TS2 and TS3 (and I never even appreciated TS3 until playing TS4!).
I may have gone back to TS2, but can't get it to work on my computer anymore. Even going back to TS3 is tempting -- especially with all of the content. I'm just not exactly ready to bail on TS4 yet. Maybe it's more me than the game itself? Who knows. One thing I can definitely say is that whenever I'd start a sim or sim family in TS2 or TS3, I never was at a loss as to what to do. In TS4, there isn't the same feeling. Maybe everything is too "easy," now? They don't need to wait for the newspaper to find a job (or save to buy a computer or cell); they simply have to use the cell phone they come with. There's no way to travel but by foot. No weather. I can see why many wanted something as mundane as laundry, as it gives sims something to do (however "exciting").
I can't really find my footing in TS4. That never happened before. I could create characters and they'd walk into their own stories. They seemed more substantial in the older games -- without this too-often ridiculous moodlet system (Your husband just died? Sad? Wait...happy??? What?! Oh, that's right...I used the "happy paint" in your house and added a vase. Of course that counters your husband's death. What was I thinking?). Sims just don't seem genuine enough, they wobble too easily in their moods and lose whatever personality I try to create them with. The moodlets dictate too much.
What I really really (really) can't stand is that after 3 previous sims' games, the pattern of "basic game" plus all the other iterations (if we are lucky) of "Seasons," "Vacation," "University," "Pets," etc. etc. is inexcusable. Give us a base game that feels like it's truly a stand-alone game (would it really be that difficult to create all the life stages along with education (to go with those life-stages)/job/retirement options?). Give us seasons in the BASE game/world. That would feel natural. Why are we waiting 3.5+ years for something so basic?
If they did that -- make the base game worthy of a stand-alone (complete) game, then the packs that come after would live up to their description -- Expansions, Stuff, etc. At least TS3's expansions fleshed out the world -- why does TS4 still feel so empty after 3.5 years? Crazy!
Naturally, I do get that TS2 and even TS3 might have felt emptier with just the "base" game. Of course! So maybe with this criticism of TS4 I'm being a bit unfair. But really, it does still feel "empty" to me. And after the same number of years, TS2 and TS3 didn't.
I hate to think that it's only towards the end of TS4's life that I may begin enjoying it.
Please for the love of everything plum, please may TS5 (if there is one) have real fleshed-out content in the base game (full life stages, laundry, parenting, university, careers, retirement, pools, pets, seasons). And then unleash those new expansions!!!!
I was thinking of giving it a higher score until I weighed the pros and cons.
Apartments can’t be saved. Con
Timing issues. Con
Dropped queues. Con
Sims ignoring commands. Con
Still broken active careers. Con
Broken multitasking (not real multitasking). Con
Excessive need to socialize. Con
AI still unabe to prioritize and balance needs. Con
Children’s aspirations limited and repetitive. Con
Babies tied to bassinets and no crib choices. Con
Teens have no identity. Con
Foundations tied to entire lots. Con
Lack of colour choices on objects and build. Con
Constant bugs. Con
Horrible inventory management. Con
Emotion-spamming moodlets. Con
Sims hugging sims after being insulted or worse. Con
awful Saving System. Con
Etc...
The only pros are the full body morphs and separate accessories options in CAS.
I’m disappointed in both build and gameplay in this game, which should be the meat of the game for me. I get frustrated by the limitations whenever I try to give it another chance. The bugs drive me up the wall and updates are dreaded instead of welcomed. I can’t last more than 10 minutes in play mode. It’s not only buggy as Pooh, it’s boring as mud.
Boy where to start. I'm feeling very tired so I don't really have the energy to go into completely full detail. But basically as someone who's played the Sims since the first game, this is by far the worst game in the main series. I was thinking back last night to the spin off games and how good some of them were, and heck, even the Sims Urbz for the Gameboy Advance was far, far better than this game. But yeah here are the main reasons:
The game does not work at a fundamental level. Very badly programmed. Bugs everywhere, most things don't work as supposed to (eg retail, restaurants, sims taking all day to eat out, traits having virtually no effect on personality due to emotions and moodlets, sims not reacting to things in the right way etc). Many things have not been balanced properly and are either one extreme or another, for example vampires constantly breaking into houses to the point where the devs had to make it stop happening nearly altogether. pets are over the top in terms of fears of objects, running away constantly. Things like that should happen once in a blue moon, not all the time as it has happened to some players. They can't seem to get the balance right. When they do try to resolve something that's too extreme, they take it too far the other way so that it almost never ever happens. Not sure whether this is incompetence, a bad game engine or limited resources but it's not acceptable. The game as a whole feels broken to the core and has made it virtually unplayable to me.
Lacklustre content. When I initially bought the Sims 4, I was disappointed but gave it a chance because I naively assumed that we'd get awesome expansion packs like with the other games and it would eventually feel like a full, fleshed out game. This still hasn't happened. And what's worse they're releasing one EP a year in a game that's already starved for content. The quality of the EPs is not acceptable to me. Not one has felt like a full expansion, with corners cut at every turn and new features bugging out. Pets have been downgraded so much it genuinely makes me angry. No buildable appts in City Living. We've been spammed with stuff pack after stuff pack that feel like minimum effort has been put in. Objects feel very disjointed and mismatched, there's not enough objects to fill out each theme etc. Cool kitchen stuff we got barely anything, with an ice cream maker as the pack's USP gimmick. The Sims 2 version of this pack had kitchens AND bathrooms, with whole, complete sets of furniture for both rooms in several styles. We seem to just have modern style in the Sims 4 and that's about it. Some of the gamepacks have been good but it's just not enough. We also haven't seen many genuinely new ideas either. Older games had several new packs and some were really imaginative (makin magic for example). Out of all the Sims 2 EPs, 5 out of 8 were totally new ideas. So far it's just been Get Together with a new feature (clubs), but even then that's mixed in with the nightlife theme so it's not like the whole pack is a new thing. I also worry with just one EP coming every year, they're not going to have enough time to come up with something new once they've done the themes that everyone wants (some of which should've been in the base game. The Sims 2 added some stuff from Sims 1 EPs in the base game after all, such as community lots).
Restrictions. I'm sick of having options to do whatever we want taken away. One of the worst restrictions for me is the fact that neighbourhoods are fixed and we can't add or remove lots. It's so so frustrating! I don't feel like I have the freedom to just create whatever community lot idea that comes into my head, or house, because I have to worry about space and can't just keep building to my hearts content. We have a checklist for community lots, we can't just create whatever pops into our heads. No buildable appts. No lakes. No terrain tools.
Cutting corners and lack of features. This is one that really irritates me. They've missed out so many little details that used to make the other games feel full. No burglars, fire fighters, repoman, paper boy/girl, police officers, social worker etc. And there were other NPCs added later in EPs in previous games, such as the matchmaker that added a lot of fun and things to do. No cars either and that includes carpools, school bus, maid's car, helicopter, taxis etc. Older games had some pretty wacky transport that turned up (the hot air ballon for example in Sims 1 makin magic), but that just added to the experience. Corners have been cut with so many things and especially pets. You can't click on them to view their info, there's training equipment but no reward at the end of it (ie no competitions to put their skills to the test), the pets don't have a training skill but the sim does which makes absolutely no sense, as a dog with a sim with a maxed out skill will be great at the course, but with a sim with no skill it will act like its never used it before. The vet "career" is a combined reskin of the Doctor career in GTW and the restaurant retail system. I guarantee you they only added vets because it was easy to copy and paste. If they had to create it from scratch we almost certainly wouldn't have had it. They cut out small pets, the reason given to flesh out the cats and dogs. But they are not any more fleshed out than previous versions, so that to me signals cut corners with an drummed up excuse taped on.
The sims themselves feel very shallow indeed. Genuine personalities just aren't there, as the traits system gets overridden by the emotions. There's no memory system, no hobbies, no interests, no attraction system (ie turn ons and offs), no reputation, no talents, no body temperature, no influence meter, no aspiration perks, no unique individual lifetime aspirations (they're all identical based on which aspiration you choose), the whim system isn't fleshed out (no fears for example) and doesn't work according to the Sims's traits, just generic whims. There's no decent aspiration objects as rewards either. The sims just feel so awfully shallow as a result. I know most of the above were added in EPs but that's the problem with the Sims 4, nothing like this has been added in EPs. The Sims themselves have barely been changed or added to over time, with the exception of parenthood, vampires and maybe get together. What also annoys me is that they just don't react to things. If someone dies, they forget about it soon after, whereas in older games they would remember and get a though bubble and keep crying periodically. Sims don't react if their partner cheats in front of them. It just feels, so, poorly done.
Overall I just think that if it was going to improve as an overall experience I think it would've done so by now. It's already been 3.5 years now since the release, so I can't see it happening for that reason. I know some people will say I'm being biased because previous games had way more packs and we're only on EP number 4, but to be honest, by EP number 4 in the Sims 2, the game already felt like a well balanced, enjoyable, fleshed out experience. Same with the Sims 1 (I never bought any EPs for the Sims 3 so I can't really comment on that). I remember when I got the Sims 2 after it just came out, and I had so much fun just playing the base game.
But yeah, it really doesn't surprise me that the Sims 4 is such a downgrade compared to the previous games, after all I'm seeing a general pattern forming with most EA games as of late. Most of their franchises have seen terrible new games as of late (eg Mass Effect, Star Wars BF2, Sim City) which has resulted in an alienation of the fan base and cancellation of future games and/or closure of the studio. Therefore it really doesn't surprise me that the same has happened to the Sims. EA has clearly got to a point where making maximum profit is all that matters, and they'll rush out a game before its finished regardless, while investing as little as possible in the creation of the game.
Im curious about the pros. You gave it a 3/4 and only mentioned the cons. Your sentiment mirrors my own so I’m intrigued. What do you like about Sims 4 to give it that score?
Regarding the bolded area: I don’t understand the mentality of decreasing quality to maximize profits. I feel you’re correct, but this is the pattern that usually closes the doors on a company. I just don’t understand why they’d stick their own feet in a grave they appear to be digging. Time will tell, I guess.
Edit: sorry to snip your post. But the quote was so long. Nothing wrong with it. It’s just that you already said it.
Sorry, I haven't really been able to go into detail about everything as I'm too tired and feeling unwell, so I just thought I'd mention my main points. There isn't a whole lot I do like to be honest, but I don't think it's bad enough for 1. I've heard of plenty of games that are so bad they they definitely deserve a 1. I would say the stuff that I haven't mentioned is just meh rather than bad. I kinda like the diversity of skills (piano and art rather than just creativity), collecting stuff etc but there isn't anything I really really like, not enough for me to really go into detail.
You'd better ask EA why they're doing that, I don't know. God knows why a company would do such a thing, but it seems to be exactly what they're doing. Other game companies are doing the same thing, especially ones building games around loot boxes and ruining the gameplay in the process. I think it might be the whole short termism thing. It's well known that large corporations often make their goal maximum profit in the short term, while ignoring long term implications. It's what happened in the early 80s when game companies at the time made awful games with minimal investment and pushed them out at the earliest opportunity. This then caused the game industry to crash and wiped out several game companies. The straw that broke the camel's back was when Atari made the developer of ET the game make the whole thing on his own in 5 weeks. Obviously it was terrible, there was massive outcry and they failed to sell many, hence the whole thousands of game cartridges buried in the desert thing happened. Nintendo was left standing because they didn't do such shady practices and picked up the pieces. Tbh I see a repeat of this looming on the horizon as nearly every major game company (except Nintendo again) is now following suit and making terrible games or adding manipulative monetisation practices. More gamers are getting angry and distrustful of new games, so yeah I would say it's likely to happen again. Analysts are saying that if EA's new game, Athem, is terrible and receives the same reception from gamers as SW BF2, then EA is in serious trouble.
The corporate world has all kinds of phenomenons that have been studied because someone attempted to explain problems.
In this case with Sims 4, something that occassionally happens is that whoever is in charge of the project decides they're going to make a name for themselves by increasing profit. Because they're ambitious about it, they look to every possible method of increasing profit, including cutting back on expenses. They slash the budget, cut back on what's produced and on development costs, maybe even up the price of the product, and wouldn't you know it profit goes up. Now their superior is at their desk shaking their hand, offering a bonus or a promotion or the like.
The thing is, that profit often winds up being short-term. Sure, the first year or two there's a boost to income, but after that there's a backlash. Suddenly staff are realizing why something got the funding that it had because they're having difficulty completing their job with the budget that remains, or customers are getting fed up with the lack of quality and not buying. Unfortunately, because of how shortsighted we tend to be, the manager responsible for all these changes may have already been promoted for saving on costs, thus the blame goes to the next guy. If not, of course they can find someone else to use as their scapegoat. Say a manager cuts on production costs and it works for 2 years, but then suddenly profit dives. Blame the newer employees, blame a change in the market. The business world has a number of different factors going into the success or failure of a product and very few employers/employees who properly understand which are responsible. This means that for the more ambitious managers who don't want to take responsibility for their short-sightedness or their failures, there's also a wide variety of scapegoats available. Scapegoat gets blamed, upper management buys it, and things just continue to get worse until it's over. I see this at my work all the time where sometimes an assistant manager or someone with a supporting role for a project isn't given enough aid to complete their task, but because they aren't in a position of power, the project lead can simply blame them and their superiors are unlikely to question it and ask if the aids and assistants weren't at fault.
I find that companies that think long-term are especially rare these days (but more often successful, which is an especially bitter paradox), and I do think a lot of it has to do with workers wanting to impress so they can move up. It's unfortunate, because long-term thought is immensely profitable, it's just slower, and I think that's why individual workers shy away from it since it requires patience and has less chance of being noticed by their superiors. No one wants to be that investor that makes a steady and reliable income through regular investments over years that require more thought, everyone wants to be that guy that invests in Bitcoin super early and scores millions of dollars within a matter of months. Thing is, the latter also has far more risks, it's just people ignore those when their focus is climbing to the top. They're too focused on the peak of the mountain to notice the potential fall behind them; all they care about is that they can reach the top faster if they don't bother with some of the more tedious safety gear.
Take Breath of the Wild as an example on the gaming market. That game had an unorthodox development because it saw some delays and Nintendo even saw fit to delay it to perfect things like the physics engine. (as I understand it, 5 year development and the last year spent almost exclusively on the physics) Do you need a perfect physics engine to make a great game? No, but they did it and players absolutely notice and appreciate it. I think I remember reading that Nintendo sunk so much money into that game that they needed to sell 2 million copies just to break even.
It has sold over 5 million copies according to an article from December. I think it was last year that we heard absolute confirmation Sims 4 sold 5 mil copies. What took this game 2-3 years, Breath of the Wild achieved in months. It also has a historically high packaged rate, to the point the game itself sold more than the system used to play it. That is absolutely unheard of. The thing to realize is that the way Nintendo planned that, it's not just about the sale of the title itself, but also about the Switch and the faith in that system. Even if they developed it at a loss, if they win profit off of the system because everyone wants to play that game, then it can be worth it long term. People run out to buy a Switch to play the new Zelda, and now that they have the system, of course they pay attention to new game releases for it. Lo and behold, Nintendo is currently making a killing because they've just been on a roll, developing blockbuster title after blockbuster title. The amount of money spent developing their games is practically moot because customer faith in the company is currently at an all-time high, so people shell out for their games pretty quick.
This isn't something that happens often, though. Let's say you developed Breath of the Wild and you developed it at a loss. You sunk so much money into it that even though it's selling super well and winning game of the year, your company lost profit from the title individually. However, the Switch itself is selling historically well. It's breaking records and the number of systems sold offsets any losses on your game with ease.
Guess what happens now: you and the main guy developing the Switch are gonna butt heads about who to thank for the sales. You'll argue your game is what sold it and you purposefully sunk too much money into it in hopes of encouraging system sales for ongoing future company revenue, the team that developed the system will argue it's just a good system and that's why it's selling so well since customers recognize it's quality. Your superior might be scratching his head, unsure who's right, and at the end of the day neither of you has a promotion, or perhaps he decides to play it safe and demote you from being a project lead because "the numbers don't lie."
I think that's precisely why long-term thinkers can sometimes be so rare in the business world. Everyone wants to be the guy getting a pat on the back for increasing profit because that's easy. Cut expenses everywhere, up the product price, and then perhaps by the time everything's on fire because your budget cuts were poorly planned, you'll have already been promoted because "oh look, profit! (short-term, anyways)" But planning long-term...? That takes more thought and care and even has more risks of not being recognized.
I personally think that where EA stands now after the Battlefront fiasco (amongst others), they need to be focused on rebuilding trust with their consumers, not on profit. If they want to re-stabilize, they need to put profit in a backseat role while focusing on making quality games without greedy practices so that customers regain trust. Making a Sims 5 that's good for example would just have Simmers saying "oh thank God, back to normal" and eager to buy expansions. Making Sims 5 just as bad as 4...? That would be enough to get people to just permanently abandon the franchise since they'd assume Sims 4's quality (or lack thereof) is the new standard.
That's the thing though: what do you think happens to the managers that are assigned such a task to increase customer satisfaction? What happens when they just make great games, but company profit actually drops because development costs went up...? That's already a strike against them even if they really are doing the right thing for the company and even if customers are happy with their work, and that's precisely why both the company as a collective entity and the individual workers tend to shy away from that, instead focusing solely on the short-term.
Just a possibility of course, but it's absolutely something that happens a lot in the business world.
This is very similar to my feelings toward the game. I really enjoy it, but the content is slow and there are adjustments needed. I do add a handful of mods that affect gameplay. If I weren't able to use these mods I am not sure whether I'd still be enjoying the game.
Nonetheless, while I can look back and reflect on specific advantages of previous iterations, I just can't bring myself to play the other versions for more than a brief duration. I don't know whether it's because I burned out on the other versions, or because Sims 4 is easier to play and look at. For whatever reason, I'm focused on Sims 4 now.
Sim Stuff by Pegasys
I agree wholeheartedly. You left out one other aspect of cutting corners though.
Being one who’s worked for many publicly owned companies: There is another danger.
Companies promise high numbers within an agreed upon time. They can’t always live up to their promises. They lose shares due to their inability to meet the demands of being publicly owned.
Their solution is to cut costs and raise prices to increase profits.
Both employees and customers suffer.
Customers suffer to higher prices and degrading quality.
Employees suffer to less hours and lower pay, along with the stress of being over-worked and given the bare minimum to complete a task—on a good day.
Meanwhile, the investors and higher management count their coins and pat themselves on the back.
It’s to the point where customers don’t even realize they’re being short-changed anymore. Or
Maybe they just don’t care. It’s come to ‘the best of the worst.’
Anyhoo. If only I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard, “numbers don’t lie.”
No one ever wonders about the actual story they really tell.