@catloverplayer The Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile didn’t fail! Actually they were the first mobile Sims games that didn’t fail like the mobile versions of TS2, TS3 and the Sims Medieval all did - and exactly because TSF and TSM were online multiplayer games!
I don’t know if TS5 will fail or not because we don’t know anything about it yet (except that it has been in development since 2014 and almost certainly is multiplayer). Most likely it will be very different from the earlier big Sims games but still get packs and DLC.
But I know that the small group of hardcore veteran simmers (maybe about a thousand?) in this forum are hard to convince because they just refuse the fact that they aren’t even in the target group for the big Sims games which instead are the millions of new young casual simmers who buy the huge majority of the games. (Therefore the gurus ignore this forum and use twitter instead.)
Neither of those games are multiplayer, at least not in any way that would qualify a PC game as multiplayer. Both of those games are also free to install, and for the most part free to play.
EA tried multiplayer with this game and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why you are basing your prediction for the sequel on mobile games, or a speculative “new group of casual simmers“. You don’t know who is installing those apps, or buying this game; for all you know there could be considerable overlap.
EA tried rain and weather in the Sims 2 basegame. But it didn’t work out. The game became unstable and it was raining inside the houses. So EA just gave up and decided never to include weather in the Sims games, right?
We all know that this wasn’t what happened. EA planned multiplayer for TS4 and for SimCity 2013. But when SimCity 2013 was released EA saw that multiplayer had been made in the wrong way and there wasn’t enough time to make it better in TS4. Therefore TS4 didn’t become a multiplayer game anyway. But EA then gave up and removed multiplayer from all its PC games? No, of course not! Instead EA began making TS5 and give it an improved multiplayer part that didn’t have the same problems.
There are a huge number of ways to make multiplayer games and I don’t understand why it isn’t multiplayer when I am visiting cities belonging to my friends in the Sims Freeplay or let my sims become friends with sims that are owned by other simmers in any of the two mobile games??
The two mobile games aren’t identical and in the Sims Mobile we can’t even visit cities belonging to other simmers as we can in Freeplay. TS5 will likely have multiplayer in a third way which I can’t guess yet. Maybe we can visit cities belonging to other simmers or maybe we can’t. Maybe we can invite sims belonging to other simmers like in the Sims Mobile. Maybe TS5 will be real-time too even though I doubt it. Maybe TS5 will require an Internet connection all the time or maybe it like so many multiplayer games can be played offline too. We just don’t know yet. But that EA should throw millions of dollars away by ignoring the huge minority of new young simmers just to please a few thousand older veteran simmers who want packs for TS4 in at least 20 more years isn’t within the real world no matter how hard you fight to convince me that EA care more about veteran simmers than about money
There is no Sims 5. Please stop spreading information that there is. Until they confirm it, it’s not coming. Grant has already replied to people on Twitter than TS5 isn’t coming.
Don’t lie! Grant has instead been very careful not to say anything about TS5 at all!
The only time he ever has mentioned TS5 was when somebody asked him if the EPs he plans making are for TS5? Then he answered “No, they are for TS4.” But once more he just omitted the natural continuation which of course would have been ”..because TS5 won’t be released for a couple of years.” So don’t lie! Just because EA hasn’t yet told us which Sims games EA will release in the future this doesn’t mean that EA has said that they never ever will release a new Sims game again!
And the majority of new Simmers have also disliked the idea of online. There have been several polls on various sites with people saying they don’t want an online game.
Nevertheless EA released both the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile anyway!
There had also been several polls that showed that TS1 simmers didn’t want TS2 because they wanted more EPs for TS1 instead. But EA released TS2 anyway and I still remember how extremely angry almost all TS1 became.
Then it became the Sims 2 simmers who hated the idea about TS3 and wanted many more EPs for TS2. But EA just released TS3 after 5 years anyway.
Then it became the Sims 3 simmers who hated the idea about TS4 and many of them still refuse to play TS4 at all. But after 5 years EA released TS4 anyway.
Now (for the fourth time) the current simmers (who now play TS4) hate the idea about TS5 and demand more EPs for TS4 instead. But for the fourth time they won’t be able to stop EA from announcing and releasing TS5 which likely again has been in development since 2014.
The only thing that is new is that the Sims 4 simmers seem to have been able to make EA release more packs even after the release of TS5 which shows me that TS5 must be an online multiplayer game because such games usually have a much longer life than offline games have. (World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and still get new content now 14 years later.)
So no! I don’t doubt that TS5 is about to be announced this summer. You may be right that most Sims 4 simmers won’t like it and won’t buy it very soon because EA seems to expect that too. But it will be the game for all the young new simmers who now only have the mobile Sims games to play.
What I am most curious about is if EA really wants TS5 be based on subscriptions in a way similar to how World of Warcraft works? EA Access could be used for that. But exactly how EA will do it we just don’t know yet.
Ask yourself why Grant so many times just has repeated that TS4 isn’t dead and still has a lot of planned content when he instead just could have said: “We are not ready to switch to Sims 5 for at least a couple more years. So don’t worry about TS4! It will still be our main Sims games for more years!” Why was it so important for him not to say that and to avoid mentioning TS5 at all??
For the exact same reason that they cannot speak about unannounced content. Even if Sims 5 is/isn't in development, they are not allowed to speak about it.
@catloverplayer The Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile didn’t fail! Actually they were the first mobile Sims games that didn’t fail like the mobile versions of TS2, TS3 and the Sims Medieval all did - and exactly because TSF and TSM were online multiplayer games!
I don’t know if TS5 will fail or not because we don’t know anything about it yet (except that it has been in development since 2014 and almost certainly is multiplayer). Most likely it will be very different from the earlier big Sims games but still get packs and DLC.
But I know that the small group of hardcore veteran simmers (maybe about a thousand?) in this forum are hard to convince because they just refuse the fact that they aren’t even in the target group for the big Sims games which instead are the millions of new young casual simmers who buy the huge majority of the games. (Therefore the gurus ignore this forum and use twitter instead.)
Neither of those games are multiplayer, at least not in any way that would qualify a PC game as multiplayer. Both of those games are also free to install, and for the most part free to play.
EA tried multiplayer with this game and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why you are basing your prediction for the sequel on mobile games, or a speculative “new group of casual simmers“. You don’t know who is installing those apps, or buying this game; for all you know there could be considerable overlap.
EA tried rain and weather in the Sims 2 basegame. But it didn’t work out. The game became unstable and it was raining inside the houses. So EA just gave up and decided never to include weather in the Sims games, right?
We all know that this wasn’t what happened. EA planned multiplayer for TS4 and for SimCity 2013. But when SimCity 2013 was released EA saw that multiplayer had been made in the wrong way and there wasn’t enough time to make it better in TS4. Therefore TS4 didn’t become a multiplayer game anyway. But EA then gave up and removed multiplayer from all its PC games? No, of course not! Instead EA began making TS5 and give it an improved multiplayer part that didn’t have the same problems.
There are a huge number of ways to make multiplayer games and I don’t understand why it isn’t multiplayer when I am visiting cities belonging to my friends in the Sims Freeplay or let my sims become friends with sims that are owned by other simmers in any of the two mobile games??
The two mobile games aren’t identical and in the Sims Mobile we can’t even visit cities belonging to other simmers as we can in Freeplay. TS5 will likely have multiplayer in a third way which I can’t guess yet. Maybe we can visit cities belonging to other simmers or maybe we can’t. Maybe we can invite sims belonging to other simmers like in the Sims Mobile. Maybe TS5 will be real-time too even though I doubt it. Maybe TS5 will require an Internet connection all the time or maybe it like so many multiplayer games can be played offline too. We just don’t know yet. But that EA should throw millions of dollars away by ignoring the huge minority of new young simmers just to please a few thousand older veteran simmers who want packs for TS4 in at least 20 more years isn’t within the real world no matter how hard you fight to convince me that EA care more about veteran simmers than about money
There is no Sims 5. Please stop spreading information that there is. Until they confirm it, it’s not coming. Grant has already replied to people on Twitter than TS5 isn’t coming.
Don’t lie! Grant has instead been very careful not to say anything about TS5 at all!
The only time he ever has mentioned TS5 was when somebody asked him if the EPs he plans making are for TS5? Then he answered “No, they are for TS4.” But once more he just omitted the natural continuation which of course would have been ”..because TS5 won’t be released for a couple of years.” So don’t lie! Just because EA hasn’t yet told us which Sims games EA will release in the future this doesn’t mean that EA has said that they never ever will release a new Sims game again!
And the majority of new Simmers have also disliked the idea of online. There have been several polls on various sites with people saying they don’t want an online game.
Nevertheless EA released both the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile anyway!
There had also been several polls that showed that TS1 simmers didn’t want TS2 because they wanted more EPs for TS1 instead. But EA released TS2 anyway and I still remember how extremely angry almost all TS1 became.
Then it became the Sims 2 simmers who hated the idea about TS3 and wanted many more EPs for TS2. But EA just released TS3 after 5 years anyway.
Then it became the Sims 3 simmers who hated the idea about TS4 and many of them still refuse to play TS4 at all. But after 5 years EA released TS4 anyway.
Now (for the fourth time) the current simmers (who now play TS4) hate the idea about TS5 and demand more EPs for TS4 instead. But for the fourth time they won’t be able to stop EA from announcing and releasing TS5 which likely again has been in development since 2014.
The only thing that is new is that the Sims 4 simmers seem to have been able to make EA release more packs even after the release of TS5 which shows me that TS5 must be an online multiplayer game because such games usually have a much longer life than offline games have. (World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and still get new content now 14 years later.)
So no! I don’t doubt that TS5 is about to be announced this summer. You may be right that most Sims 4 simmers won’t like it and won’t buy it very soon because EA seems to expect that too. But it will be the game for all the young new simmers who now only have the mobile Sims games to play.
What I am most curious about is if EA really wants TS5 be based on subscriptions in a way similar to how World of Warcraft works? EA Access could be used for that. But exactly how EA will do it we just don’t know yet.
Ask yourself why Grant so many times just has repeated that TS4 isn’t dead and still has a lot of planned content when he instead just could have said: “We are not ready to switch to Sims 5 for at least a couple more years. So don’t worry about TS4! It will still be our main Sims games for more years!” Why was it so important for him not to say that and to avoid mentioning TS5 at all??
For the exact same reason that they cannot speak about unannounced content. Even if Sims 5 is/isn't in development, they are not allowed to speak about it.
That is how it usually works. But it was so extremely important for Grant to tell us that TS4 isn’t over that he even said that he expected to make packs to TS4 for years. This just made someone question him if those packs would be for TS5? But he only said ”No, they are for TS4.”
So Grant broke the normal rules and talked first just about future packs for TS4. When that wasn’t enough for him he even talked about packs years out in the future. But he omitted the obvious thing which just was to say that ”We won’t switch to TS5 in the next couple of years.” This omission was clearly the reason why both Grant and other developers had to say so many times that ”TS4’s time isn’t over!”
But why couldn’t he tell us that the switch to TS5 won’t happen in he next couple of years even when he could tell us that TS4 still will get packs??
As I have written enough times already the most likely answer is that TS5 will be released anyway and before the packs for TS5 stops!
I don’t think that Sims 5 is the most likely name for the next game though under those circumstances. But the name Sims Online was used already in 2002 for another Sims game. Maybe a name like “World of Sims” could be used instead for such a big online multiplayer game
@catloverplayer The Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile didn’t fail! Actually they were the first mobile Sims games that didn’t fail like the mobile versions of TS2, TS3 and the Sims Medieval all did - and exactly because TSF and TSM were online multiplayer games!
I don’t know if TS5 will fail or not because we don’t know anything about it yet (except that it has been in development since 2014 and almost certainly is multiplayer). Most likely it will be very different from the earlier big Sims games but still get packs and DLC.
But I know that the small group of hardcore veteran simmers (maybe about a thousand?) in this forum are hard to convince because they just refuse the fact that they aren’t even in the target group for the big Sims games which instead are the millions of new young casual simmers who buy the huge majority of the games. (Therefore the gurus ignore this forum and use twitter instead.)
Neither of those games are multiplayer, at least not in any way that would qualify a PC game as multiplayer. Both of those games are also free to install, and for the most part free to play.
EA tried multiplayer with this game and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why you are basing your prediction for the sequel on mobile games, or a speculative “new group of casual simmers“. You don’t know who is installing those apps, or buying this game; for all you know there could be considerable overlap.
EA tried rain and weather in the Sims 2 basegame. But it didn’t work out. The game became unstable and it was raining inside the houses. So EA just gave up and decided never to include weather in the Sims games, right?
We all know that this wasn’t what happened. EA planned multiplayer for TS4 and for SimCity 2013. But when SimCity 2013 was released EA saw that multiplayer had been made in the wrong way and there wasn’t enough time to make it better in TS4. Therefore TS4 didn’t become a multiplayer game anyway. But EA then gave up and removed multiplayer from all its PC games? No, of course not! Instead EA began making TS5 and give it an improved multiplayer part that didn’t have the same problems.
There are a huge number of ways to make multiplayer games and I don’t understand why it isn’t multiplayer when I am visiting cities belonging to my friends in the Sims Freeplay or let my sims become friends with sims that are owned by other simmers in any of the two mobile games??
The two mobile games aren’t identical and in the Sims Mobile we can’t even visit cities belonging to other simmers as we can in Freeplay. TS5 will likely have multiplayer in a third way which I can’t guess yet. Maybe we can visit cities belonging to other simmers or maybe we can’t. Maybe we can invite sims belonging to other simmers like in the Sims Mobile. Maybe TS5 will be real-time too even though I doubt it. Maybe TS5 will require an Internet connection all the time or maybe it like so many multiplayer games can be played offline too. We just don’t know yet. But that EA should throw millions of dollars away by ignoring the huge minority of new young simmers just to please a few thousand older veteran simmers who want packs for TS4 in at least 20 more years isn’t within the real world no matter how hard you fight to convince me that EA care more about veteran simmers than about money
There is no Sims 5. Please stop spreading information that there is. Until they confirm it, it’s not coming. Grant has already replied to people on Twitter than TS5 isn’t coming.
Don’t lie! Grant has instead been very careful not to say anything about TS5 at all!
The only time he ever has mentioned TS5 was when somebody asked him if the EPs he plans making are for TS5? Then he answered “No, they are for TS4.” But once more he just omitted the natural continuation which of course would have been ”..because TS5 won’t be released for a couple of years.” So don’t lie! Just because EA hasn’t yet told us which Sims games EA will release in the future this doesn’t mean that EA has said that they never ever will release a new Sims game again!
And the majority of new Simmers have also disliked the idea of online. There have been several polls on various sites with people saying they don’t want an online game.
Nevertheless EA released both the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile anyway!
There had also been several polls that showed that TS1 simmers didn’t want TS2 because they wanted more EPs for TS1 instead. But EA released TS2 anyway and I still remember how extremely angry almost all TS1 became.
Then it became the Sims 2 simmers who hated the idea about TS3 and wanted many more EPs for TS2. But EA just released TS3 after 5 years anyway.
Then it became the Sims 3 simmers who hated the idea about TS4 and many of them still refuse to play TS4 at all. But after 5 years EA released TS4 anyway.
Now (for the fourth time) the current simmers (who now play TS4) hate the idea about TS5 and demand more EPs for TS4 instead. But for the fourth time they won’t be able to stop EA from announcing and releasing TS5 which likely again has been in development since 2014.
The only thing that is new is that the Sims 4 simmers seem to have been able to make EA release more packs even after the release of TS5 which shows me that TS5 must be an online multiplayer game because such games usually have a much longer life than offline games have. (World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and still get new content now 14 years later.)
So no! I don’t doubt that TS5 is about to be announced this summer. You may be right that most Sims 4 simmers won’t like it and won’t buy it very soon because EA seems to expect that too. But it will be the game for all the young new simmers who now only have the mobile Sims games to play.
What I am most curious about is if EA really wants TS5 be based on subscriptions in a way similar to how World of Warcraft works? EA Access could be used for that. But exactly how EA will do it we just don’t know yet.
Ask yourself why Grant so many times just has repeated that TS4 isn’t dead and still has a lot of planned content when he instead just could have said: “We are not ready to switch to Sims 5 for at least a couple more years. So don’t worry about TS4! It will still be our main Sims games for more years!” Why was it so important for him not to say that and to avoid mentioning TS5 at all??
For the exact same reason that they cannot speak about unannounced content. Even if Sims 5 is/isn't in development, they are not allowed to speak about it.
That is how it usually works. But it was so extremely important for Grant to tell us that TS4 isn’t over that he even said that he expected to make packs to TS4 for years. This just made someone question him if those packs would be for TS5? But he only said ”No, they are for TS4.”
So Grant broke the normal rules and talked first just about future packs for TS4. When that wasn’t enough for him he even talked about packs years out in the future. But he omitted the obvious thing which just was to say that ”We won’t switch to TS5 in the next couple of years.” This omission was clearly the reason why both Grant and other developers had to say so many times that ”TS4’s time isn’t over!”
But why couldn’t he tell us that the switch to TS5 won’t happen in he next couple of years even when he could tell us that TS4 still will get packs??
As I have written enough times already the most likely answer is that TS5 will be released anyway and before the packs for TS5 stops!
I don’t think that Sims 5 is the most likely name for the next game though under those circumstances. But the name Sims Online was used already in 2002 for another Sims game. Maybe a name like “World of Sims” could be used instead for such a big online multiplayer game
Probably because they have made concrete plans to continue making packs for TS4, while the future of TS5 is still being determined.
Erpe... the only reason Grant keeps saying Sims 4 isn’t done is because everyone keeps tweeting at him about the sims 4 being over or Seasons being the last EP. There’s no grand conspiracy to trick people. Sims 5 may come eventually, but it won’t be any time soon. I’m sure you’ll have some fascinating explanation when 2019 rolls around and there’s still no Sims 5, though.
Erpe... the only reason Grant keeps saying Sims 4 isn’t done is because everyone keeps tweeting at him about the sims 4 being over or Seasons being the last EP. There’s no grand conspiracy to trick people. Sims 5 may come eventually, but it won’t be any time soon. I’m sure you’ll have some fascinating explanation when 2019 rolls around and there’s still no Sims 5, though.
I'm waiting for the fascinating explanation when said announcement doesn't materialize before August 21.
Last year EA announced Cats&Dogs at Gamescom. But if they announce something big about Sims there this year then it likely will be TS5. I would expect TS5 to be announced earlier though.
@catloverplayer The Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile didn’t fail! Actually they were the first mobile Sims games that didn’t fail like the mobile versions of TS2, TS3 and the Sims Medieval all did - and exactly because TSF and TSM were online multiplayer games!
I don’t know if TS5 will fail or not because we don’t know anything about it yet (except that it has been in development since 2014 and almost certainly is multiplayer). Most likely it will be very different from the earlier big Sims games but still get packs and DLC.
But I know that the small group of hardcore veteran simmers (maybe about a thousand?) in this forum are hard to convince because they just refuse the fact that they aren’t even in the target group for the big Sims games which instead are the millions of new young casual simmers who buy the huge majority of the games. (Therefore the gurus ignore this forum and use twitter instead.)
Neither of those games are multiplayer, at least not in any way that would qualify a PC game as multiplayer. Both of those games are also free to install, and for the most part free to play.
EA tried multiplayer with this game and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why you are basing your prediction for the sequel on mobile games, or a speculative “new group of casual simmers“. You don’t know who is installing those apps, or buying this game; for all you know there could be considerable overlap.
EA tried rain and weather in the Sims 2 basegame. But it didn’t work out. The game became unstable and it was raining inside the houses. So EA just gave up and decided never to include weather in the Sims games, right?
We all know that this wasn’t what happened. EA planned multiplayer for TS4 and for SimCity 2013. But when SimCity 2013 was released EA saw that multiplayer had been made in the wrong way and there wasn’t enough time to make it better in TS4. Therefore TS4 didn’t become a multiplayer game anyway. But EA then gave up and removed multiplayer from all its PC games? No, of course not! Instead EA began making TS5 and give it an improved multiplayer part that didn’t have the same problems.
There are a huge number of ways to make multiplayer games and I don’t understand why it isn’t multiplayer when I am visiting cities belonging to my friends in the Sims Freeplay or let my sims become friends with sims that are owned by other simmers in any of the two mobile games??
The two mobile games aren’t identical and in the Sims Mobile we can’t even visit cities belonging to other simmers as we can in Freeplay. TS5 will likely have multiplayer in a third way which I can’t guess yet. Maybe we can visit cities belonging to other simmers or maybe we can’t. Maybe we can invite sims belonging to other simmers like in the Sims Mobile. Maybe TS5 will be real-time too even though I doubt it. Maybe TS5 will require an Internet connection all the time or maybe it like so many multiplayer games can be played offline too. We just don’t know yet. But that EA should throw millions of dollars away by ignoring the huge minority of new young simmers just to please a few thousand older veteran simmers who want packs for TS4 in at least 20 more years isn’t within the real world no matter how hard you fight to convince me that EA care more about veteran simmers than about money
There is no Sims 5. Please stop spreading information that there is. Until they confirm it, it’s not coming. Grant has already replied to people on Twitter than TS5 isn’t coming.
Don’t lie! Grant has instead been very careful not to say anything about TS5 at all!
The only time he ever has mentioned TS5 was when somebody asked him if the EPs he plans making are for TS5? Then he answered “No, they are for TS4.” But once more he just omitted the natural continuation which of course would have been ”..because TS5 won’t be released for a couple of years.” So don’t lie! Just because EA hasn’t yet told us which Sims games EA will release in the future this doesn’t mean that EA has said that they never ever will release a new Sims game again!
And the majority of new Simmers have also disliked the idea of online. There have been several polls on various sites with people saying they don’t want an online game.
Nevertheless EA released both the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile anyway!
There had also been several polls that showed that TS1 simmers didn’t want TS2 because they wanted more EPs for TS1 instead. But EA released TS2 anyway and I still remember how extremely angry almost all TS1 became.
Then it became the Sims 2 simmers who hated the idea about TS3 and wanted many more EPs for TS2. But EA just released TS3 after 5 years anyway.
Then it became the Sims 3 simmers who hated the idea about TS4 and many of them still refuse to play TS4 at all. But after 5 years EA released TS4 anyway.
Now (for the fourth time) the current simmers (who now play TS4) hate the idea about TS5 and demand more EPs for TS4 instead. But for the fourth time they won’t be able to stop EA from announcing and releasing TS5 which likely again has been in development since 2014.
The only thing that is new is that the Sims 4 simmers seem to have been able to make EA release more packs even after the release of TS5 which shows me that TS5 must be an online multiplayer game because such games usually have a much longer life than offline games have. (World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and still get new content now 14 years later.)
So no! I don’t doubt that TS5 is about to be announced this summer. You may be right that most Sims 4 simmers won’t like it and won’t buy it very soon because EA seems to expect that too. But it will be the game for all the young new simmers who now only have the mobile Sims games to play.
What I am most curious about is if EA really wants TS5 be based on subscriptions in a way similar to how World of Warcraft works? EA Access could be used for that. But exactly how EA will do it we just don’t know yet.
Ask yourself why Grant so many times just has repeated that TS4 isn’t dead and still has a lot of planned content when he instead just could have said: “We are not ready to switch to Sims 5 for at least a couple more years. So don’t worry about TS4! It will still be our main Sims games for more years!” Why was it so important for him not to say that and to avoid mentioning TS5 at all??
For the exact same reason that they cannot speak about unannounced content. Even if Sims 5 is/isn't in development, they are not allowed to speak about it.
That is how it usually works. But it was so extremely important for Grant to tell us that TS4 isn’t over that he even said that he expected to make packs to TS4 for years. This just made someone question him if those packs would be for TS5? But he only said ”No, they are for TS4.”
So Grant broke the normal rules and talked first just about future packs for TS4. When that wasn’t enough for him he even talked about packs years out in the future. But he omitted the obvious thing which just was to say that ”We won’t switch to TS5 in the next couple of years.” This omission was clearly the reason why both Grant and other developers had to say so many times that ”TS4’s time isn’t over!”
But why couldn’t he tell us that the switch to TS5 won’t happen in he next couple of years even when he could tell us that TS4 still will get packs??
As I have written enough times already the most likely answer is that TS5 will be released anyway and before the packs for TS5 stops!
I don’t think that Sims 5 is the most likely name for the next game though under those circumstances. But the name Sims Online was used already in 2002 for another Sims game. Maybe a name like “World of Sims” could be used instead for such a big online multiplayer game
He made those statements because both and on Reddit, people were proclaiming en masse that Sims 4 was ending, that the game was doomed, etc. I personally was happy he stepped in and made an effort to calm things down.
Simmer since 2000! Sims 1, Sims, 2, Sims 3, Sims 4. Legacy player at heart.
@catloverplayer The Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile didn’t fail! Actually they were the first mobile Sims games that didn’t fail like the mobile versions of TS2, TS3 and the Sims Medieval all did - and exactly because TSF and TSM were online multiplayer games!
I don’t know if TS5 will fail or not because we don’t know anything about it yet (except that it has been in development since 2014 and almost certainly is multiplayer). Most likely it will be very different from the earlier big Sims games but still get packs and DLC.
But I know that the small group of hardcore veteran simmers (maybe about a thousand?) in this forum are hard to convince because they just refuse the fact that they aren’t even in the target group for the big Sims games which instead are the millions of new young casual simmers who buy the huge majority of the games. (Therefore the gurus ignore this forum and use twitter instead.)
Neither of those games are multiplayer, at least not in any way that would qualify a PC game as multiplayer. Both of those games are also free to install, and for the most part free to play.
EA tried multiplayer with this game and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why you are basing your prediction for the sequel on mobile games, or a speculative “new group of casual simmers“. You don’t know who is installing those apps, or buying this game; for all you know there could be considerable overlap.
EA tried rain and weather in the Sims 2 basegame. But it didn’t work out. The game became unstable and it was raining inside the houses. So EA just gave up and decided never to include weather in the Sims games, right?
We all know that this wasn’t what happened. EA planned multiplayer for TS4 and for SimCity 2013. But when SimCity 2013 was released EA saw that multiplayer had been made in the wrong way and there wasn’t enough time to make it better in TS4. Therefore TS4 didn’t become a multiplayer game anyway. But EA then gave up and removed multiplayer from all its PC games? No, of course not! Instead EA began making TS5 and give it an improved multiplayer part that didn’t have the same problems.
There are a huge number of ways to make multiplayer games and I don’t understand why it isn’t multiplayer when I am visiting cities belonging to my friends in the Sims Freeplay or let my sims become friends with sims that are owned by other simmers in any of the two mobile games??
The two mobile games aren’t identical and in the Sims Mobile we can’t even visit cities belonging to other simmers as we can in Freeplay. TS5 will likely have multiplayer in a third way which I can’t guess yet. Maybe we can visit cities belonging to other simmers or maybe we can’t. Maybe we can invite sims belonging to other simmers like in the Sims Mobile. Maybe TS5 will be real-time too even though I doubt it. Maybe TS5 will require an Internet connection all the time or maybe it like so many multiplayer games can be played offline too. We just don’t know yet. But that EA should throw millions of dollars away by ignoring the huge minority of new young simmers just to please a few thousand older veteran simmers who want packs for TS4 in at least 20 more years isn’t within the real world no matter how hard you fight to convince me that EA care more about veteran simmers than about money
There is no Sims 5. Please stop spreading information that there is. Until they confirm it, it’s not coming. Grant has already replied to people on Twitter than TS5 isn’t coming.
Don’t lie! Grant has instead been very careful not to say anything about TS5 at all!
The only time he ever has mentioned TS5 was when somebody asked him if the EPs he plans making are for TS5? Then he answered “No, they are for TS4.” But once more he just omitted the natural continuation which of course would have been ”..because TS5 won’t be released for a couple of years.” So don’t lie! Just because EA hasn’t yet told us which Sims games EA will release in the future this doesn’t mean that EA has said that they never ever will release a new Sims game again!
And the majority of new Simmers have also disliked the idea of online. There have been several polls on various sites with people saying they don’t want an online game.
Nevertheless EA released both the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile anyway!
There had also been several polls that showed that TS1 simmers didn’t want TS2 because they wanted more EPs for TS1 instead. But EA released TS2 anyway and I still remember how extremely angry almost all TS1 became.
Then it became the Sims 2 simmers who hated the idea about TS3 and wanted many more EPs for TS2. But EA just released TS3 after 5 years anyway.
Then it became the Sims 3 simmers who hated the idea about TS4 and many of them still refuse to play TS4 at all. But after 5 years EA released TS4 anyway.
Now (for the fourth time) the current simmers (who now play TS4) hate the idea about TS5 and demand more EPs for TS4 instead. But for the fourth time they won’t be able to stop EA from announcing and releasing TS5 which likely again has been in development since 2014.
The only thing that is new is that the Sims 4 simmers seem to have been able to make EA release more packs even after the release of TS5 which shows me that TS5 must be an online multiplayer game because such games usually have a much longer life than offline games have. (World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and still get new content now 14 years later.)
So no! I don’t doubt that TS5 is about to be announced this summer. You may be right that most Sims 4 simmers won’t like it and won’t buy it very soon because EA seems to expect that too. But it will be the game for all the young new simmers who now only have the mobile Sims games to play.
What I am most curious about is if EA really wants TS5 be based on subscriptions in a way similar to how World of Warcraft works? EA Access could be used for that. But exactly how EA will do it we just don’t know yet.
Ask yourself why Grant so many times just has repeated that TS4 isn’t dead and still has a lot of planned content when he instead just could have said: “We are not ready to switch to Sims 5 for at least a couple more years. So don’t worry about TS4! It will still be our main Sims games for more years!” Why was it so important for him not to say that and to avoid mentioning TS5 at all??
For the exact same reason that they cannot speak about unannounced content. Even if Sims 5 is/isn't in development, they are not allowed to speak about it.
That is how it usually works. But it was so extremely important for Grant to tell us that TS4 isn’t over that he even said that he expected to make packs to TS4 for years. This just made someone question him if those packs would be for TS5? But he only said ”No, they are for TS4.”
So Grant broke the normal rules and talked first just about future packs for TS4. When that wasn’t enough for him he even talked about packs years out in the future. But he omitted the obvious thing which just was to say that ”We won’t switch to TS5 in the next couple of years.” This omission was clearly the reason why both Grant and other developers had to say so many times that ”TS4’s time isn’t over!”
But why couldn’t he tell us that the switch to TS5 won’t happen in he next couple of years even when he could tell us that TS4 still will get packs??
As I have written enough times already the most likely answer is that TS5 will be released anyway and before the packs for TS5 stops!
I don’t think that Sims 5 is the most likely name for the next game though under those circumstances. But the name Sims Online was used already in 2002 for another Sims game. Maybe a name like “World of Sims” could be used instead for such a big online multiplayer game
He made those statements because both and on Reddit, people were proclaiming en masse that Sims 4 was ending, that the game was doomed, etc. I personally was happy he stepped in and made an effort to calm things down.
He and the other gurus went on twitter just to tell us that TS4 isn’t over. So the tweets began after that.
Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs. So the obvious thing to do to convince people was tto say that the switch from TS4 to TS5 won’t happen within the next couple of years. But Grant obviously couldn’t do that and therefore had to say that he expect to make more content for TS4 for years.
So why this mysterious silence about TS5 not being released next year when he can talk about packs for TS4 for even more years?
Simmers are dreamers who often just think that they can make the world change and TS5 not to be made just by not talking about TS5 and prolong TS4’s life that way. They are also not interested in the reason why EA always has released a new basegame after 5 years because they think that they can avoid it by denying it. But I know that EA always has done it because EA knows that an old basegame with too many already released packs can’t attract all the new simmers who are so extremely important for EA. Therefore I have never believed that EA doesn’t care about the millions of dollars that EA will lose if EA doesn’t again release a new basegame after 5 years.
I don’t know when TS5 will be announced (under a different name). But my current guess is that it will be announced at Gamescom 2018 and released 15 months later in November 2019.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
It caused A LOT of panic. There were a lot of people saying the sims was going mobile for at least a year prior, so there were many people that found it easy to believe. Not to mention that a lot of people would have heard from someone else that a developer said that, rather than reading it for themselves. Of course it wasn't just about the reddit comment, as previously mentioned it was also people losing their jobs and the lack of any communication due to not having a community manager. The reason the Gurus didn't address the reddit comment directly, is because nobody asked about it directly, they asked whether TS4 was ending. There's nothing suspicious about someone just answering the question asked.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
There are several things to notice:
1. He didn’t ever tell anything about the development teams or critizised how they worked or were made.
2. He didn’t describe or critizise in any way the different stages in the game’s development.
3. He wrote that EA is stopping with PC games to concentrate on only mobile games even though that isn’t true at all! (But apparently he was angry because EA had made the Sims Mobile too when he wanted all the money used on TS4 instead because that was the game he played.)
He wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But not that he was a former employer or developer in EA which I don’t think that he ever was. Most like he just meant that he was one of the earlier tech experts who gave advice in this forum and knew more about the game than most simmers.
The devs usually play other and very different games instead when they aren’t at work. Their education is general and they can make all kinds of games. So usually it was just some random things that caused them to become Sims game developers at all. (The devs who make the Sims Freeplay made almost only racing games until EA suddenly chose them to make the Sims Freeplay too. And the devs in Salt Lake City made a lot of Tiger Woods golf games until EA suddenly chose them to make EPs for TS3!) Therefore a real earlier SimGuru (who also was a developer) would be very unlikely to talk just like a disappointed Sims fan and not as a developer instead!
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
If an online Sims game was released and ran concurrently with Sims 4 but had a different name that was different in tone and structure from the mainline games wouldn't it then be considered a spin-off game and not really Sims 5? I mean Sims Medieval came out concurrently to Sims 3 but it was not Sims 4. The same with Castaway and the Ubrz and all the other spin-off games that came before it.
I would say we're probably due for a non-mobile spin off sims game. They may even attempt to make it an online game again. But just because they release a game doesn't automatically make it Sims 5. Sims 5 is not coming out anytime soon.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
There are several things to notice:
1. He didn’t ever tell anything about the development teams or critizised how they worked or were made.
2. He didn’t describe or critizise in any way the different stages in the game’s development.
3. He wrote that EA is stopping with PC games to concentrate on only mobile games even though that isn’t true at all! (But apparently he was angry because EA had made the Sims Mobile too when he wanted all the money used on TS4 instead because that was the game he played.)
He wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But not that he was a former employer or developer in EA which I don’t think that he ever was. Most like he just meant that he was one of the earlier tech experts who gave advice in this forum and knew more about the game than most simmers.
The devs usually play other and very different games instead when they aren’t at work. Their education is general and they can make all kinds of games. So usually it was just some random things that caused them to become Sims game developers at all. (The devs who make the Sims Freeplay made almost only racing games until EA suddenly chose them to make the Sims Freeplay too. And the devs in Salt Lake City made a lot of Tiger Woods golf games until EA suddenly chose them to make EPs for TS3!) Therefore a real earlier SimGuru (who also was a developer) would be very unlikely to talk just like a disappointed Sims fan and not as a developer instead!
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
Why always focus on what 'didn't' happen rather than what did? Did you see the part about him posting inside knowledge of the game? No? Speculating about what he didn't say makes no sense at all. Anyway, the point was that his statement plus the other things that were going on is what ultimately led to Gurus debunking the rumors.
If an online Sims game was released and ran concurrently with Sims 4 but had a different name that was different in tone and structure from the mainline games wouldn't it then be considered a spin-off game and not really Sims 5? I mean Sims Medieval came out concurrently to Sims 3 but it was not Sims 4. The same with Castaway and the Ubrz and all the other spin-off games that came before it.
I would say we're probably due for a non-mobile spin off sims game. They may even attempt to make it an online game again. But just because they release a game doesn't automatically make it Sims 5. Sims 5 is not coming out anytime soon.
I agree that EA usually has just made spin-off games that replace EPs and Medieval was just one of them. But spin-off games are always kept small because EA wants us to return to the main game as fast as possible.
But the online game is different because online multiplayer games (that act as live services and have subscriptions) are the games that EA wants to make in the future because they are easier to market and because they usually give bigger income and profit to the game companies. Just look at Steam which has quite many such games that each are played by many more gamers than even the big Sims games are.
EA knows that this kind of games are easier to sell to young gamers though and that especially a lot of simmers likely won’t switch to such a game. Therefore EA wants to keep TS4 for those simmers a few more years until sales numbers become too low to make that profitable anyway.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
There are several things to notice:
1. He didn’t ever tell anything about the development teams or critizised how they worked or were made.
2. He didn’t describe or critizise in any way the different stages in the game’s development.
3. He wrote that EA is stopping with PC games to concentrate on only mobile games even though that isn’t true at all! (But apparently he was angry because EA had made the Sims Mobile too when he wanted all the money used on TS4 instead because that was the game he played.)
He wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But not that he was a former employer or developer in EA which I don’t think that he ever was. Most like he just meant that he was one of the earlier tech experts who gave advice in this forum and knew more about the game than most simmers.
The devs usually play other and very different games instead when they aren’t at work. Their education is general and they can make all kinds of games. So usually it was just some random things that caused them to become Sims game developers at all. (The devs who make the Sims Freeplay made almost only racing games until EA suddenly chose them to make the Sims Freeplay too. And the devs in Salt Lake City made a lot of Tiger Woods golf games until EA suddenly chose them to make EPs for TS3!) Therefore a real earlier SimGuru (who also was a developer) would be very unlikely to talk just like a disappointed Sims fan and not as a developer instead!
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
Why always focus on what 'didn't' happen rather than what did? Did you see the part about him posting inside knowledge of the game? No? Speculating about what he didn't say makes no sense at all. Anyway, the point was that his statement plus the other things that were going on is what ultimately led to Gurus debunking the rumors.
No. He didn’t post any inside information from the game which we didn’t know already. But his lack of inside information from both the work in the Sims studio and his confusion about EA’s future plans revealed that he never worked in the current Sims studio as a developer (at least not under the Sims 4).
If you really want me to be positive then just maybe he could have had a job as a student for a few months in the former Sims 3 studio. (But I doubt it!)
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
There are several things to notice:
1. He didn’t ever tell anything about the development teams or critizised how they worked or were made.
2. He didn’t describe or critizise in any way the different stages in the game’s development.
3. He wrote that EA is stopping with PC games to concentrate on only mobile games even though that isn’t true at all! (But apparently he was angry because EA had made the Sims Mobile too when he wanted all the money used on TS4 instead because that was the game he played.)
He wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But not that he was a former employer or developer in EA which I don’t think that he ever was. Most like he just meant that he was one of the earlier tech experts who gave advice in this forum and knew more about the game than most simmers.
The devs usually play other and very different games instead when they aren’t at work. Their education is general and they can make all kinds of games. So usually it was just some random things that caused them to become Sims game developers at all. (The devs who make the Sims Freeplay made almost only racing games until EA suddenly chose them to make the Sims Freeplay too. And the devs in Salt Lake City made a lot of Tiger Woods golf games until EA suddenly chose them to make EPs for TS3!) Therefore a real earlier SimGuru (who also was a developer) would be very unlikely to talk just like a disappointed Sims fan and not as a developer instead!
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
Why always focus on what 'didn't' happen rather than what did? Did you see the part about him posting inside knowledge of the game? No? Speculating about what he didn't say makes no sense at all. Anyway, the point was that his statement plus the other things that were going on is what ultimately led to Gurus debunking the rumors.
No. He didn’t post any inside information from the game which we didn’t know already. But his lack of inside information from both the work in the Sims studio and his confusion about EA’s future plans revealed that he never worked in the current Sims studio as a developer (at least not under the Sims 4).
If you really want me to be positive then just maybe he could have had a job as a student for a few months in the former Sims 3 studio. (But I doubt it!)
Really? So you already knew that one of the offices in the GTW Science Lab was decorated as a homage to Mulder's office in The X Files? I sure didn't. And I doubt that the average simmer does, either.
He was responding to a thread about gurus being laid off. His work within the studio wasn't the topic of discussion. He might even be under an NDA that doesn't allow him to say much.
By the way, how do you know that EA won't eventually concentrate mostly on mobile? We don't know what their plans are for the future regarding PC games. We only have a bit of knowledge on TS4 and the next few years of its life.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
So basically what you’ve been doing here? I mean, you sure like to talk a lot about EA’s future plans for The Sims like you were in the room and know what’s going on behind the scenes.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
So basically what you’ve been doing here? I mean, you sure like to talk a lot about EA’s future plans for The Sims like you were in the room and know what’s going on behind the scenes.
So you too think that EA just makes decisions at random and plans to just throw hundreds of millions of dollars away by switching it’s very profitable PC Sims games out with the much less profitable mobile Sims games
EA has made many mobile Sims games earlier and also some Sims games for consoles. But before the Sims Freeplay and TS4 those Sims games for other platforms earned so little money that EA soon withdraw them from the market while all the PC Sims games earned huge profit to EA (and especially from all the extra packs that EA released).
Mobile games similar to the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile are made by many other game companies too. But those game companies usually also release them in version for PCs because this is very cheap to do and increases their income. But EA only release the Sims Freeplay for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, WebOS, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone. That is a lot of platforms. But where are the versions for Mac and Windows PC? Those PC versions would cost almost nothing to make. But EA wouldn’t make them because EA feared that they then would steal customers from the many times more profitable Sims 3 and Sims 4 games and packs!
So no. You can’t convince me that EA cares so little about losing hundreds of millions of dollars by switching from the many times more profitable PC platforms to the many times less profitable mobile platforms (even though EA now finally have found a way to earn just a little profit from mobile Sims games too)! The PC platform is still the most profitable platform ever even though EA now has found a way to make packs too for a console port of the PC game and thus earn money that way too.
Wishful thinking. I'm going to Gamescom this year so I hope they do some big announcement while I'm there.
I'm really thinking about going too actually! It's not that far away from my where I live xD Feel like I consider this every year, and never end up going, but maybe this year will be different! Enjoy!!
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
So basically what you’ve been doing here? I mean, you sure like to talk a lot about EA’s future plans for The Sims like you were in the room and know what’s going on behind the scenes.
So you too think that EA just makes decisions at random and plans to just throw hundreds of millions of dollars away by switching it’s very profitable PC Sims games out with the much less profitable mobile Sims games
EA has made many mobile Sims games earlier and also some Sims games for consoles. But before the Sims Freeplay and TS4 those Sims games for other platforms earned so little money that EA soon withdraw them from the market while all the PC Sims games earned huge profit to EA (and especially from all the extra packs that EA released).
Mobile games similar to the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile are made by many other game companies too. But those game companies usually also release them in version for PCs because this is very cheap to do and increases their income. But EA only release the Sims Freeplay for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, WebOS, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone. That is a lot of platforms. But where are the versions for Mac and Windows PC? Those PC versions would cost almost nothing to make. But EA wouldn’t make them because EA feared that they then would steal customers from the many times more profitable Sims 3 and Sims 4 games and packs!
So no. You can’t convince me that EA cares so little about losing hundreds of millions of dollars by switching from the many times more profitable PC platforms to the many times less profitable mobile platforms (even though EA now finally have found a way to earn just a little profit from mobile Sims games too)! The PC platform is still the most profitable platform ever even though EA now has found a way to make packs too for a console port of the PC game and thus earn money that way too.
I’ve actually never said that.
I’m kind of going to gloss over most of this post, because you have made a huge error in your second paragraph. More specifically in your statement regarding the mobile games; there were a total of 5 Sims titles developed and released for iOS (TS3, TS3:World Adventures, TS3:Ambitions, TS: Medieval, and TS: Freeplay) between 2009 and 2011. The paid apps were not removed from the iOS AppStore until 2015, a year after The Sims 4 released on PC. I don’t know what you consider to be “soon”, but 4-6 years is a significant chunk of time to bring in money. Because, again, 4 of those 5 games cost money to even download and also featured micro transactions for additional in-game content. If those apps were not making enough money to be of any value to EA they would have pulled them, but instead they made more... because they were more profitable than you think. Do they make PC scale money? No, but no one has said they did. PC Sims makes nothing compared to other EA owned franchises, but that hasn’t stopped them from making more Sims games has it?
@catloverplayer The Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile didn’t fail! Actually they were the first mobile Sims games that didn’t fail like the mobile versions of TS2, TS3 and the Sims Medieval all did - and exactly because TSF and TSM were online multiplayer games!
I don’t know if TS5 will fail or not because we don’t know anything about it yet (except that it has been in development since 2014 and almost certainly is multiplayer). Most likely it will be very different from the earlier big Sims games but still get packs and DLC.
But I know that the small group of hardcore veteran simmers (maybe about a thousand?) in this forum are hard to convince because they just refuse the fact that they aren’t even in the target group for the big Sims games which instead are the millions of new young casual simmers who buy the huge majority of the games. (Therefore the gurus ignore this forum and use twitter instead.)
Neither of those games are multiplayer, at least not in any way that would qualify a PC game as multiplayer. Both of those games are also free to install, and for the most part free to play.
EA tried multiplayer with this game and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why you are basing your prediction for the sequel on mobile games, or a speculative “new group of casual simmers“. You don’t know who is installing those apps, or buying this game; for all you know there could be considerable overlap.
EA tried rain and weather in the Sims 2 basegame. But it didn’t work out. The game became unstable and it was raining inside the houses. So EA just gave up and decided never to include weather in the Sims games, right?
We all know that this wasn’t what happened. EA planned multiplayer for TS4 and for SimCity 2013. But when SimCity 2013 was released EA saw that multiplayer had been made in the wrong way and there wasn’t enough time to make it better in TS4. Therefore TS4 didn’t become a multiplayer game anyway. But EA then gave up and removed multiplayer from all its PC games? No, of course not! Instead EA began making TS5 and give it an improved multiplayer part that didn’t have the same problems.
There are a huge number of ways to make multiplayer games and I don’t understand why it isn’t multiplayer when I am visiting cities belonging to my friends in the Sims Freeplay or let my sims become friends with sims that are owned by other simmers in any of the two mobile games??
The two mobile games aren’t identical and in the Sims Mobile we can’t even visit cities belonging to other simmers as we can in Freeplay. TS5 will likely have multiplayer in a third way which I can’t guess yet. Maybe we can visit cities belonging to other simmers or maybe we can’t. Maybe we can invite sims belonging to other simmers like in the Sims Mobile. Maybe TS5 will be real-time too even though I doubt it. Maybe TS5 will require an Internet connection all the time or maybe it like so many multiplayer games can be played offline too. We just don’t know yet. But that EA should throw millions of dollars away by ignoring the huge minority of new young simmers just to please a few thousand older veteran simmers who want packs for TS4 in at least 20 more years isn’t within the real world no matter how hard you fight to convince me that EA care more about veteran simmers than about money
There is no Sims 5. Please stop spreading information that there is. Until they confirm it, it’s not coming. Grant has already replied to people on Twitter than TS5 isn’t coming.
Don’t lie! Grant has instead been very careful not to say anything about TS5 at all!
The only time he ever has mentioned TS5 was when somebody asked him if the EPs he plans making are for TS5? Then he answered “No, they are for TS4.” But once more he just omitted the natural continuation which of course would have been ”..because TS5 won’t be released for a couple of years.” So don’t lie! Just because EA hasn’t yet told us which Sims games EA will release in the future this doesn’t mean that EA has said that they never ever will release a new Sims game again!
And the majority of new Simmers have also disliked the idea of online. There have been several polls on various sites with people saying they don’t want an online game.
Nevertheless EA released both the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile anyway!
There had also been several polls that showed that TS1 simmers didn’t want TS2 because they wanted more EPs for TS1 instead. But EA released TS2 anyway and I still remember how extremely angry almost all TS1 became.
Then it became the Sims 2 simmers who hated the idea about TS3 and wanted many more EPs for TS2. But EA just released TS3 after 5 years anyway.
Then it became the Sims 3 simmers who hated the idea about TS4 and many of them still refuse to play TS4 at all. But after 5 years EA released TS4 anyway.
Now (for the fourth time) the current simmers (who now play TS4) hate the idea about TS5 and demand more EPs for TS4 instead. But for the fourth time they won’t be able to stop EA from announcing and releasing TS5 which likely again has been in development since 2014.
The only thing that is new is that the Sims 4 simmers seem to have been able to make EA release more packs even after the release of TS5 which shows me that TS5 must be an online multiplayer game because such games usually have a much longer life than offline games have. (World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and still get new content now 14 years later.)
So no! I don’t doubt that TS5 is about to be announced this summer. You may be right that most Sims 4 simmers won’t like it and won’t buy it very soon because EA seems to expect that too. But it will be the game for all the young new simmers who now only have the mobile Sims games to play.
What I am most curious about is if EA really wants TS5 be based on subscriptions in a way similar to how World of Warcraft works? EA Access could be used for that. But exactly how EA will do it we just don’t know yet.
Ask yourself why Grant so many times just has repeated that TS4 isn’t dead and still has a lot of planned content when he instead just could have said: “We are not ready to switch to Sims 5 for at least a couple more years. So don’t worry about TS4! It will still be our main Sims games for more years!” Why was it so important for him not to say that and to avoid mentioning TS5 at all??
I think one of the problems here is that you keep reading Grant's quote in the wrong context. Maybe it's a language barrier, maybe it's just errant reading comprehension, but to clarify:
A person on Twitter asked:
"When you say a potential future pack, do you mean like for The Sims 5?"
To which Grant replied:
"No. Focused on Sims 4."
I notice that when you repeat his answer, you put a comma between "no" and "focused", making his answer one sentence and assuming a deflected answer. This is incorrect. He first answered, "No." Period. As in, "No, I do NOT mean a potential future pack for Sims 5." Then he added, "Focused on Sims 4." As in, "Potential future pack ONLY for Sims 4." His sentence structure made his meaning perfectly clear. It has nothing to do with "wishful thinking" or interpretation.
Also, I don't understand why you expect him to say anything that implies "Sims 5 in a few years" because that was not the question asked, nor has there been any implication whatsoever of even a hint to Sims 5 existing at all. If anything, his firm answer regarding development focus on Sims 4 for years to come, does more to imply that Sims 5 is nowhere near completion, if it's even being developed at all.
Furthermore, it doesn't seem to occur to you that your theory about EA "needing a new Sims game every five years because new young simmers can't buy all of the packs to a full game and they are the most important customers" might be completely wrong. Especially when all evidence currently points to the fact that Sims 4 is doing extremely well with sales and is, in fact, growing its player base and new Simmers are joining in on Sims 4 just fine. Which is why EA has decided to have the devs be more active on Twitter, (a social media network popular to younger generations), to engage the new generation of Simmers and to promote The Sims 4 and the new Seasons expansion. Remember, Seasons was only announced one month before its release date, which is very different from how EPs were handled before. So EA has decided on a new strategy to use twitter to market the expansions in a shorter time period. EA is also now interested in what these new Simmers want for Sims 4, so Grant, the lead producer, is taking polls and suggestions in order to continue full speed ahead with years more of development. Grant even stated it himself that they are indeed planning Sims 4 content for years to come. This is not "wishful thinking", this is actual factual statements from the lead producer himself.
You ask why the devs have suddenly appeared on Twitter but you keep avoiding the most obvious answer: EA wants to continue to market Sims 4 to new Simmers because that's where the money is. Things are different for this era of The Sims. The game hasn't even reached its peak yet, but it is gaining momentum and more players join every day. There are brand new EA programs for Game Changers and there's Fan Kits now, and merchandise, and Sims 4 is more sensationalized than ever. This is Sims 4 in its heyday and there is no room for Sims 5 right now. It might be in development but it's very unlikely to be anywhere near ready to release. And if it were, It would only bring competition to its own profits, which is bad business. EA wouldn't risk releasing a competitor and dividing its own fanbase by making them choose which game to support. If you think parents have trouble buying their kids a Sims game with lots of extra packs, why in the world then, would they support two Sims games with lots of packs? By your own logic, the parents wouldn't support it. Especially if their young Simmer was already invested in the first game.
There is more evidence against Sims 5 coming out anytime soon than there is to justify it's existence. It would be a bad business move by EA and they wouldn't compete with their own game in its prime, no matter how different the "new" model is. If anything, that is wishful thinking.
@catloverplayer The Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile didn’t fail! Actually they were the first mobile Sims games that didn’t fail like the mobile versions of TS2, TS3 and the Sims Medieval all did - and exactly because TSF and TSM were online multiplayer games!
I don’t know if TS5 will fail or not because we don’t know anything about it yet (except that it has been in development since 2014 and almost certainly is multiplayer). Most likely it will be very different from the earlier big Sims games but still get packs and DLC.
But I know that the small group of hardcore veteran simmers (maybe about a thousand?) in this forum are hard to convince because they just refuse the fact that they aren’t even in the target group for the big Sims games which instead are the millions of new young casual simmers who buy the huge majority of the games. (Therefore the gurus ignore this forum and use twitter instead.)
Neither of those games are multiplayer, at least not in any way that would qualify a PC game as multiplayer. Both of those games are also free to install, and for the most part free to play.
EA tried multiplayer with this game and it didn’t work out. I don’t know why you are basing your prediction for the sequel on mobile games, or a speculative “new group of casual simmers“. You don’t know who is installing those apps, or buying this game; for all you know there could be considerable overlap.
EA tried rain and weather in the Sims 2 basegame. But it didn’t work out. The game became unstable and it was raining inside the houses. So EA just gave up and decided never to include weather in the Sims games, right?
We all know that this wasn’t what happened. EA planned multiplayer for TS4 and for SimCity 2013. But when SimCity 2013 was released EA saw that multiplayer had been made in the wrong way and there wasn’t enough time to make it better in TS4. Therefore TS4 didn’t become a multiplayer game anyway. But EA then gave up and removed multiplayer from all its PC games? No, of course not! Instead EA began making TS5 and give it an improved multiplayer part that didn’t have the same problems.
There are a huge number of ways to make multiplayer games and I don’t understand why it isn’t multiplayer when I am visiting cities belonging to my friends in the Sims Freeplay or let my sims become friends with sims that are owned by other simmers in any of the two mobile games??
The two mobile games aren’t identical and in the Sims Mobile we can’t even visit cities belonging to other simmers as we can in Freeplay. TS5 will likely have multiplayer in a third way which I can’t guess yet. Maybe we can visit cities belonging to other simmers or maybe we can’t. Maybe we can invite sims belonging to other simmers like in the Sims Mobile. Maybe TS5 will be real-time too even though I doubt it. Maybe TS5 will require an Internet connection all the time or maybe it like so many multiplayer games can be played offline too. We just don’t know yet. But that EA should throw millions of dollars away by ignoring the huge minority of new young simmers just to please a few thousand older veteran simmers who want packs for TS4 in at least 20 more years isn’t within the real world no matter how hard you fight to convince me that EA care more about veteran simmers than about money
There is no Sims 5. Please stop spreading information that there is. Until they confirm it, it’s not coming. Grant has already replied to people on Twitter than TS5 isn’t coming.
Don’t lie! Grant has instead been very careful not to say anything about TS5 at all!
The only time he ever has mentioned TS5 was when somebody asked him if the EPs he plans making are for TS5? Then he answered “No, they are for TS4.” But once more he just omitted the natural continuation which of course would have been ”..because TS5 won’t be released for a couple of years.” So don’t lie! Just because EA hasn’t yet told us which Sims games EA will release in the future this doesn’t mean that EA has said that they never ever will release a new Sims game again!
And the majority of new Simmers have also disliked the idea of online. There have been several polls on various sites with people saying they don’t want an online game.
Nevertheless EA released both the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile anyway!
There had also been several polls that showed that TS1 simmers didn’t want TS2 because they wanted more EPs for TS1 instead. But EA released TS2 anyway and I still remember how extremely angry almost all TS1 became.
Then it became the Sims 2 simmers who hated the idea about TS3 and wanted many more EPs for TS2. But EA just released TS3 after 5 years anyway.
Then it became the Sims 3 simmers who hated the idea about TS4 and many of them still refuse to play TS4 at all. But after 5 years EA released TS4 anyway.
Now (for the fourth time) the current simmers (who now play TS4) hate the idea about TS5 and demand more EPs for TS4 instead. But for the fourth time they won’t be able to stop EA from announcing and releasing TS5 which likely again has been in development since 2014.
The only thing that is new is that the Sims 4 simmers seem to have been able to make EA release more packs even after the release of TS5 which shows me that TS5 must be an online multiplayer game because such games usually have a much longer life than offline games have. (World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and still get new content now 14 years later.)
So no! I don’t doubt that TS5 is about to be announced this summer. You may be right that most Sims 4 simmers won’t like it and won’t buy it very soon because EA seems to expect that too. But it will be the game for all the young new simmers who now only have the mobile Sims games to play.
What I am most curious about is if EA really wants TS5 be based on subscriptions in a way similar to how World of Warcraft works? EA Access could be used for that. But exactly how EA will do it we just don’t know yet.
Ask yourself why Grant so many times just has repeated that TS4 isn’t dead and still has a lot of planned content when he instead just could have said: “We are not ready to switch to Sims 5 for at least a couple more years. So don’t worry about TS4! It will still be our main Sims games for more years!” Why was it so important for him not to say that and to avoid mentioning TS5 at all??
I think one of the problems here is that you keep reading Grant's quote in the wrong context. Maybe it's a language barrier, maybe it's just errant reading comprehension, but to clarify:
A person on Twitter asked:
"When you say a potential future pack, do you mean like for The Sims 5?"
To which Grant replied:
"No. Focused on Sims 4."
I notice that when you repeat his answer, you put a comma between "no" and "focused", making his answer one sentence and assuming a deflected answer. This is incorrect. He first answered, "No." Period. As in, "No, I do NOT mean a potential future pack for Sims 5." Then he added, "Focused on Sims 4." As in, "Potential future pack ONLY for Sims 4." His sentence structure made his meaning perfectly clear. It has nothing to do with "wishful thinking" or interpretation.
Also, I don't understand why you expect him to say anything that implies "Sims 5 in a few years" because that was not the question asked, nor has there been any implication whatsoever of even a hint to Sims 5 existing at all. If anything, his firm answer regarding development focus on Sims 4 for years to come, does more to imply that Sims 5 is nowhere near completion, if it's even being developed at all.
Furthermore, it doesn't seem to occur to you that your theory about EA "needing a new Sims game every five years because new young simmers can't buy all of the packs to a full game and they are the most important customers" might be completely wrong. Especially when all evidence currently points to the fact that Sims 4 is doing extremely well with sales and is, in fact, growing its player base and new Simmers are joining in on Sims 4 just fine. Which is why EA has decided to have the devs be more active on Twitter, (a social media network popular to younger generations), to engage the new generation of Simmers and to promote The Sims 4 and the new Seasons expansion. Remember, Seasons was only announced one month before its release date, which is very different from how EPs were handled before. So EA has decided on a new strategy to use twitter to market the expansions in a shorter time period. EA is also now interested in what these new Simmers want for Sims 4, so Grant, the lead producer, is taking polls and suggestions in order to continue full speed ahead with years more of development. Grant even stated it himself that they are indeed planning Sims 4 content for years to come. This is not "wishful thinking", this is actual factual statements from the lead producer himself.
You ask why the devs have suddenly appeared on Twitter but you keep avoiding the most obvious answer: EA wants to continue to market Sims 4 to new Simmers because that's where the money is. Things are different for this era of The Sims. The game hasn't even reached its peak yet, but it is gaining momentum and more players join every day. There are brand new EA programs for Game Changers and there's Fan Kits now, and merchandise, and Sims 4 is more sensationalized than ever. This is Sims 4 in its heyday and there is no room for Sims 5 right now. It might be in development but it's very unlikely to be anywhere near ready to release. And if it were, It would only bring competition to its own profits, which is bad business. EA wouldn't risk releasing a competitor and dividing its own fanbase by making them choose which game to support. If you think parents have trouble buying their kids a Sims game with lots of extra packs, why in the world then, would they support two Sims games with lots of packs? By your own logic, the parents wouldn't support it. Especially if their young Simmer was already invested in the first game.
There is more evidence against Sims 5 coming out anytime soon than there is to justify it's existence. It would be a bad business move by EA and they wouldn't compete with their own game in its prime, no matter how different the "new" model is. If anything, that is wishful thinking.
@Erpe "Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs."
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
The Reddit message was obviously from a simmer and not from a former guru! That was easy to see by the way it was written. So I doubt that this false message really created much panic.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
So basically what you’ve been doing here? I mean, you sure like to talk a lot about EA’s future plans for The Sims like you were in the room and know what’s going on behind the scenes.
So you too think that EA just makes decisions at random and plans to just throw hundreds of millions of dollars away by switching it’s very profitable PC Sims games out with the much less profitable mobile Sims games
EA has made many mobile Sims games earlier and also some Sims games for consoles. But before the Sims Freeplay and TS4 those Sims games for other platforms earned so little money that EA soon withdraw them from the market while all the PC Sims games earned huge profit to EA (and especially from all the extra packs that EA released).
Mobile games similar to the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile are made by many other game companies too. But those game companies usually also release them in version for PCs because this is very cheap to do and increases their income. But EA only release the Sims Freeplay for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, WebOS, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone. That is a lot of platforms. But where are the versions for Mac and Windows PC? Those PC versions would cost almost nothing to make. But EA wouldn’t make them because EA feared that they then would steal customers from the many times more profitable Sims 3 and Sims 4 games and packs!
So no. You can’t convince me that EA cares so little about losing hundreds of millions of dollars by switching from the many times more profitable PC platforms to the many times less profitable mobile platforms (even though EA now finally have found a way to earn just a little profit from mobile Sims games too)! The PC platform is still the most profitable platform ever even though EA now has found a way to make packs too for a console port of the PC game and thus earn money that way too.
I’ve actually never said that.
I’m kind of going to gloss over most of this post, because you have made a huge error in your second paragraph. More specifically in your statement regarding the mobile games; there were a total of 5 Sims titles developed and released for iOS (TS3, TS3:World Adventures, TS3:Ambitions, TS: Medieval, and TS: Freeplay) between 2009 and 2011. The paid apps were not removed from the iOS AppStore until 2015, a year after The Sims 4 released on PC. I don’t know what you consider to be “soon”, but 4-6 years is a significant chunk of time to bring in money. Because, again, 4 of those 5 games cost money to even download and also featured micro transactions for additional in-game content. If those apps were not making enough money to be of any value to EA they would have pulled them, but instead they made more... because they were more profitable than you think. Do they make PC scale money? No, but no one has said they did. PC Sims makes nothing compared to other EA owned franchises, but that hasn’t stopped them from making more Sims games has it?
I bought those mobile games out of curiosity because I actually loved both the Sims 3 World Adventures and the Sims Medieval in the PC versions. So I also tried several times to get into the mobile versions of those games (and also the Sims 3 for iOS). But I never managed to. All those games were boring in the mobile versions and only sold a little because simmers loved the PC versions and therefore wanted to try the mobile versions too.
Paid mobile games don’t always have short lives. An example is Plague Inc which was released as a paid game for iOS 3 years ago but still is on the top 3 list for paid iOS games. But the problem with all the paid mobile Sims games has always been that they were just hugely simplified versions of the PC games and also very different even though they were given the same names to make simmers think that they maybe were worth buying - which they usually weren’t.
The Sims Medieval was actually also released for Windows Phone but as late as 2013. But both Medieval and the 3 mobile Sims 3 games sold so little that they soon were withdrawn from the app stores - and without EA ever releasing a mobile version of TS4 anyway!
I don’t know if EA really lost money on those mobile games. But EA surely didn’t earn much money on them either. So now EA doesn’t make paid games for mobile devices anymore.
The console games had about the same problem until EA found a way to port TS4 and its packs to consoles and not just make simplified Sims games without packs for consoles too.
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For the exact same reason that they cannot speak about unannounced content. Even if Sims 5 is/isn't in development, they are not allowed to speak about it.
So Grant broke the normal rules and talked first just about future packs for TS4. When that wasn’t enough for him he even talked about packs years out in the future. But he omitted the obvious thing which just was to say that ”We won’t switch to TS5 in the next couple of years.” This omission was clearly the reason why both Grant and other developers had to say so many times that ”TS4’s time isn’t over!”
But why couldn’t he tell us that the switch to TS5 won’t happen in he next couple of years even when he could tell us that TS4 still will get packs??
As I have written enough times already the most likely answer is that TS5 will be released anyway and before the packs for TS5 stops!
I don’t think that Sims 5 is the most likely name for the next game though under those circumstances. But the name Sims Online was used already in 2002 for another Sims game. Maybe a name like “World of Sims” could be used instead for such a big online multiplayer game
Probably because they have made concrete plans to continue making packs for TS4, while the future of TS5 is still being determined.
I'm waiting for the fascinating explanation when said announcement doesn't materialize before August 21.
Also the reason why people kept asking about TS4 being over was because they expected TS5 soon to be announced and therefore doubted that TS4 really would get many more packs. So the obvious thing to do to convince people was tto say that the switch from TS4 to TS5 won’t happen within the next couple of years. But Grant obviously couldn’t do that and therefore had to say that he expect to make more content for TS4 for years.
So why this mysterious silence about TS5 not being released next year when he can talk about packs for TS4 for even more years?
Simmers are dreamers who often just think that they can make the world change and TS5 not to be made just by not talking about TS5 and prolong TS4’s life that way. They are also not interested in the reason why EA always has released a new basegame after 5 years because they think that they can avoid it by denying it. But I know that EA always has done it because EA knows that an old basegame with too many already released packs can’t attract all the new simmers who are so extremely important for EA. Therefore I have never believed that EA doesn’t care about the millions of dollars that EA will lose if EA doesn’t again release a new basegame after 5 years.
But EA thinks that it is time to switch to subscriptions, online, multiplayer and live services for all EA games. Just read https://www.polygon.com/e3/2018/6/10/17445278/e3-ea-2018-conference-games
I don’t know when TS5 will be announced (under a different name). But my current guess is that it will be announced at Gamescom 2018 and released 15 months later in November 2019.
No, this wasn't the reason. It's because of the panic that ensued when a previous Guru on Reddit claimed that there was no development on The Sims 5 and that EA was shifting The Sims towards mobile. The natural assumption was that the game was ending. It didn't help that during that time, several gurus were fired, some were moved to mobile and EA wasn't communicating with us due to not having a community manager. That's when Graham stepped in to calm things down, and eventually Grant.
Also it would have been much easier for Grant and the gurus to just state that the reddit message was false instead of writing a huge number of messages on twitter about TS4 still getting a lot more new content (and even for years).
But the gurus had to make simmers believe that TS4 isn’t over when TS5 (or what it will be called) soon will be announced. The problem wasn’t mainly the hardcore simmers in this forum though but the millions of casual simmers elsewhere. Therefore the gurus went on twitter to prepare all those simmers for the announcement of a new big Sims game hoping that they then would spread the information that TS4 isn’t over anyway.
If you were online at all during that time, you would know that the message did create much panic. But it wasn't just the message alone, it was a combination of things.
Maybe they didn't state that it was false because it wasn't? If you check the Reddit user's history, you'll see that he had some inside knowledge about the game. I believe him.
All I can say is, start preparing those excuses you're going to need when The Sims 5 does not get announced.
It caused A LOT of panic. There were a lot of people saying the sims was going mobile for at least a year prior, so there were many people that found it easy to believe. Not to mention that a lot of people would have heard from someone else that a developer said that, rather than reading it for themselves. Of course it wasn't just about the reddit comment, as previously mentioned it was also people losing their jobs and the lack of any communication due to not having a community manager. The reason the Gurus didn't address the reddit comment directly, is because nobody asked about it directly, they asked whether TS4 was ending. There's nothing suspicious about someone just answering the question asked.
1. He didn’t ever tell anything about the development teams or critizised how they worked or were made.
2. He didn’t describe or critizise in any way the different stages in the game’s development.
3. He wrote that EA is stopping with PC games to concentrate on only mobile games even though that isn’t true at all! (But apparently he was angry because EA had made the Sims Mobile too when he wanted all the money used on TS4 instead because that was the game he played.)
He wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But not that he was a former employer or developer in EA which I don’t think that he ever was. Most like he just meant that he was one of the earlier tech experts who gave advice in this forum and knew more about the game than most simmers.
The devs usually play other and very different games instead when they aren’t at work. Their education is general and they can make all kinds of games. So usually it was just some random things that caused them to become Sims game developers at all. (The devs who make the Sims Freeplay made almost only racing games until EA suddenly chose them to make the Sims Freeplay too. And the devs in Salt Lake City made a lot of Tiger Woods golf games until EA suddenly chose them to make EPs for TS3!) Therefore a real earlier SimGuru (who also was a developer) would be very unlikely to talk just like a disappointed Sims fan and not as a developer instead!
I don’t know exactly why he suddenly wrote that he was a former SimGuru. But it wasn’t true. He was just a long time fan of the Sims game instead (and maybe felt that he knew enough about the Sims games to see himself as some kind of guru).
I would say we're probably due for a non-mobile spin off sims game. They may even attempt to make it an online game again. But just because they release a game doesn't automatically make it Sims 5. Sims 5 is not coming out anytime soon.
Why always focus on what 'didn't' happen rather than what did? Did you see the part about him posting inside knowledge of the game? No? Speculating about what he didn't say makes no sense at all. Anyway, the point was that his statement plus the other things that were going on is what ultimately led to Gurus debunking the rumors.
But the online game is different because online multiplayer games (that act as live services and have subscriptions) are the games that EA wants to make in the future because they are easier to market and because they usually give bigger income and profit to the game companies. Just look at Steam which has quite many such games that each are played by many more gamers than even the big Sims games are.
EA knows that this kind of games are easier to sell to young gamers though and that especially a lot of simmers likely won’t switch to such a game. Therefore EA wants to keep TS4 for those simmers a few more years until sales numbers become too low to make that profitable anyway.
If you really want me to be positive then just maybe he could have had a job as a student for a few months in the former Sims 3 studio. (But I doubt it!)
Really? So you already knew that one of the offices in the GTW Science Lab was decorated as a homage to Mulder's office in The X Files? I sure didn't. And I doubt that the average simmer does, either.
He was responding to a thread about gurus being laid off. His work within the studio wasn't the topic of discussion. He might even be under an NDA that doesn't allow him to say much.
By the way, how do you know that EA won't eventually concentrate mostly on mobile? We don't know what their plans are for the future regarding PC games. We only have a bit of knowledge on TS4 and the next few years of its life.
So basically what you’ve been doing here? I mean, you sure like to talk a lot about EA’s future plans for The Sims like you were in the room and know what’s going on behind the scenes.
EA has made many mobile Sims games earlier and also some Sims games for consoles. But before the Sims Freeplay and TS4 those Sims games for other platforms earned so little money that EA soon withdraw them from the market while all the PC Sims games earned huge profit to EA (and especially from all the extra packs that EA released).
Mobile games similar to the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile are made by many other game companies too. But those game companies usually also release them in version for PCs because this is very cheap to do and increases their income. But EA only release the Sims Freeplay for Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, WebOS, BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone. That is a lot of platforms. But where are the versions for Mac and Windows PC? Those PC versions would cost almost nothing to make. But EA wouldn’t make them because EA feared that they then would steal customers from the many times more profitable Sims 3 and Sims 4 games and packs!
So no. You can’t convince me that EA cares so little about losing hundreds of millions of dollars by switching from the many times more profitable PC platforms to the many times less profitable mobile platforms (even though EA now finally have found a way to earn just a little profit from mobile Sims games too)! The PC platform is still the most profitable platform ever even though EA now has found a way to make packs too for a console port of the PC game and thus earn money that way too.
I'm really thinking about going too actually! It's not that far away from my where I live xD Feel like I consider this every year, and never end up going, but maybe this year will be different! Enjoy!!
I’ve actually never said that.
I’m kind of going to gloss over most of this post, because you have made a huge error in your second paragraph. More specifically in your statement regarding the mobile games; there were a total of 5 Sims titles developed and released for iOS (TS3, TS3:World Adventures, TS3:Ambitions, TS: Medieval, and TS: Freeplay) between 2009 and 2011. The paid apps were not removed from the iOS AppStore until 2015, a year after The Sims 4 released on PC. I don’t know what you consider to be “soon”, but 4-6 years is a significant chunk of time to bring in money. Because, again, 4 of those 5 games cost money to even download and also featured micro transactions for additional in-game content. If those apps were not making enough money to be of any value to EA they would have pulled them, but instead they made more... because they were more profitable than you think. Do they make PC scale money? No, but no one has said they did. PC Sims makes nothing compared to other EA owned franchises, but that hasn’t stopped them from making more Sims games has it?
I think one of the problems here is that you keep reading Grant's quote in the wrong context. Maybe it's a language barrier, maybe it's just errant reading comprehension, but to clarify:
A person on Twitter asked:
"When you say a potential future pack, do you mean like for The Sims 5?"
To which Grant replied:
"No. Focused on Sims 4."
I notice that when you repeat his answer, you put a comma between "no" and "focused", making his answer one sentence and assuming a deflected answer. This is incorrect. He first answered, "No." Period. As in, "No, I do NOT mean a potential future pack for Sims 5." Then he added, "Focused on Sims 4." As in, "Potential future pack ONLY for Sims 4." His sentence structure made his meaning perfectly clear. It has nothing to do with "wishful thinking" or interpretation.
Also, I don't understand why you expect him to say anything that implies "Sims 5 in a few years" because that was not the question asked, nor has there been any implication whatsoever of even a hint to Sims 5 existing at all. If anything, his firm answer regarding development focus on Sims 4 for years to come, does more to imply that Sims 5 is nowhere near completion, if it's even being developed at all.
Furthermore, it doesn't seem to occur to you that your theory about EA "needing a new Sims game every five years because new young simmers can't buy all of the packs to a full game and they are the most important customers" might be completely wrong. Especially when all evidence currently points to the fact that Sims 4 is doing extremely well with sales and is, in fact, growing its player base and new Simmers are joining in on Sims 4 just fine. Which is why EA has decided to have the devs be more active on Twitter, (a social media network popular to younger generations), to engage the new generation of Simmers and to promote The Sims 4 and the new Seasons expansion. Remember, Seasons was only announced one month before its release date, which is very different from how EPs were handled before. So EA has decided on a new strategy to use twitter to market the expansions in a shorter time period. EA is also now interested in what these new Simmers want for Sims 4, so Grant, the lead producer, is taking polls and suggestions in order to continue full speed ahead with years more of development. Grant even stated it himself that they are indeed planning Sims 4 content for years to come. This is not "wishful thinking", this is actual factual statements from the lead producer himself.
You ask why the devs have suddenly appeared on Twitter but you keep avoiding the most obvious answer: EA wants to continue to market Sims 4 to new Simmers because that's where the money is. Things are different for this era of The Sims. The game hasn't even reached its peak yet, but it is gaining momentum and more players join every day. There are brand new EA programs for Game Changers and there's Fan Kits now, and merchandise, and Sims 4 is more sensationalized than ever. This is Sims 4 in its heyday and there is no room for Sims 5 right now. It might be in development but it's very unlikely to be anywhere near ready to release. And if it were, It would only bring competition to its own profits, which is bad business. EA wouldn't risk releasing a competitor and dividing its own fanbase by making them choose which game to support. If you think parents have trouble buying their kids a Sims game with lots of extra packs, why in the world then, would they support two Sims games with lots of packs? By your own logic, the parents wouldn't support it. Especially if their young Simmer was already invested in the first game.
There is more evidence against Sims 5 coming out anytime soon than there is to justify it's existence. It would be a bad business move by EA and they wouldn't compete with their own game in its prime, no matter how different the "new" model is. If anything, that is wishful thinking.
Paid mobile games don’t always have short lives. An example is Plague Inc which was released as a paid game for iOS 3 years ago but still is on the top 3 list for paid iOS games. But the problem with all the paid mobile Sims games has always been that they were just hugely simplified versions of the PC games and also very different even though they were given the same names to make simmers think that they maybe were worth buying - which they usually weren’t.
The Sims Medieval was actually also released for Windows Phone but as late as 2013. But both Medieval and the 3 mobile Sims 3 games sold so little that they soon were withdrawn from the app stores - and without EA ever releasing a mobile version of TS4 anyway!
I don’t know if EA really lost money on those mobile games. But EA surely didn’t earn much money on them either. So now EA doesn’t make paid games for mobile devices anymore.
The console games had about the same problem until EA found a way to port TS4 and its packs to consoles and not just make simplified Sims games without packs for consoles too.