Don't miss the For Rent Developer Deep Dive Stream this Friday, December 1st! We've got a watch along thread here, so come on over, neighbor!
12 + rating Game needs a Woohoo Scenario
motdk
Posts: 208 Member
This game is rated 12+ teens why is the focus so young adult and the scenario that’s new today on 02/22/22 is nothing but Woohoo as a goal. I’m adult I don’t know why the Focus for the game is for 12-year-olds and encouraging them to get a goal for having sex as a scenario. It would be nice to cater for the adults with more meaningful gameplay than sex as a end result for a scenario. I think EA needs to change that rating because it’s too young and that’s why this game is so boring. And the only way for you to spice it up is just to put woo hoo and bars Instead. I didn’t pay money for a 12-year-old sex crazed game. Get your priorities straight EA are you for adults, young adults or children pretending to be adults. The sims are like toddlers who can have sex and are learning motor skills. You said smarter Sims. I’m not seeing it. And I’m tired of the bars and I’m tried of woo hoo being your escape goat. The scenarios are not meaningful gameplay. You shot yourself in the foot when you made this 12+ teens instead of 18+ maybe we would have more gameplay that was meaningful. You need to fix this game EA! It’s so boring and it sucks bad!
Post edited by EA_Cade on
7
Comments
But alas, your words shall go unheeded. After all, this is a business....and they will gather far more revenue by including as many age groups as they can.
I do. How about getting berated by your boss at work, or even fired? How about finding out about an accidental pregnancy? How about being broke and struggling to pay the bills? What are your adult decisions, ones that you have to make?
I'm sorry you don't feel like the gameplay is meaningful, but the game is what you make out of it. Maybe a couple goes on their honeymoon, woohoo (to meet the goal), but have an accidental pregnancy occur; and to make things more difficult, maybe they have no household funds since they spent their last 1,000 simoleons on their wedding?
I understand your point, but I highly doubt EA/Maxis will change the rating of their game. Hopefully, there are enough aspects of the game that you enjoy in order to keep playing and keep telling stories that are meaningful!
No, they will not change their rating--there is money to be made. But I have found ways to make the game meaningful without telling stories--it's all about comedy
Thank you @jpajari I'm going to add this to a story. I love the idea of the wedding couple spending all their money on the wedding and also having an accidental pregnancy while on the honeymoon lol. Lots of interesting story drama to start a family with there.
Not really. Where is the discussion on how they will cope with these things? That's how things work in the real world
Honestly, I’m happy the game doesn’t implement a bunch of “real world” issues, because for me at least, it wouldn’t be that fun of a game!
But I think the OP was saying this scenario isn't appropriate for 12 years old's and also wants an 18+ adults only rating. In Canada, the game is 13+, but many younger do play it. I'm not a parent, so in terms of what's age appropriate, I think that is really up to the parent. It's not really an explicit animation, it's just that it's the sole task to complete so it seems too weird if the player is 12 but too silly if the player is older just by itself. They should have added some more tasks to the honeymoon, like dance, drink at a bar, have a meal, I don't know, stargaze maybe. This is not a scenario I would have created lol.
I don't want to lose the game's fun and silliness, so I don't think we need an 18+ Adults only rating. I would be open to a M rating, which is mature teen 17+ and many teens play that with parent's permission so I don't think they would lose a lot of customers. I feel like because parent's ignore ratings, a T rating is really trying to remove anything a parent of a child would complain about, since they are playing T games, and so it's a children's rating now basically. And an M rating is whatever a teen's parents would complain about in a T rating, like violence or mature subjects. And 18+ is really more explicit and with a lot of graphic violence, which I think is too drastic a change for the company with 40% or something of the players being under 18 and I wouldn't want that.
Most of the tv shows and games I enjoy are rated M like Dragon Age, Skyrim, Spartacus, GoT, Witcher, Walking Dead, Tudors, Rome. The games wouldn't need to be as serious, but the stories would probably become more sophisticated with better dialogue and consequences if they created them under the M rating. The occult game packs would probably become more interesting to me with more dangerous vampires or Strangerville plagues. But I don't think that will happen though. I think they seem to be moving in the opposite direction towards E 10+ rating.
A 16+ rating would actually allow for a bit more mature aspects, it would allow Sims to have actual flaws and hit rock bottom. Its too easy in sims 4. In 3 it was as well and 4 even removed burglars it seems.
Sims 4 is just a boring utopia.
A 16+ rating could allow things to be more on par with sims medieval and would also allow them to bring back things from Sims 1 which did have more mature content so I am not even suggesting for anything to be added that has not been in a sims game before so it can't be called unfitting for a sims game.
Alcohol should be a thing, not some lame fruit juice replacement. And Sims should be able to get drunk.
More fight interactions should be brought back too, and sims should be capable of murder. They are in Sims Medieval.
Sims could also go to jail for crimes, the number of days increasing with how bad the crime is but bail could always be paid to free them. Especially in the criminal career there would be a risk to end up there, but some fraud options in other careers could have the risk too.
Or starting fights in public and other stuff that would plausibly lead to jail time. Or fines.
Sims in the army could also have a chance to be send on a mission, they'd be gone for some days and depending on how their skills are and how you choose their actions, they could end up dead, however battlefield heroics could also allow them to return with a medal so there's risk/reward involved.
Gambling should also be possible for sims, in poker games and other stuff.
Smoking could also be added, in fact I think they should implement some variation of the "fatal flaw"system that Sims Medieval has. Where each Sim must have a flaw, but there's possibilities to overcome it. Should be a challenge though, and when they overcome it they could get to pick a new trait. Not from a unique trait list like in Sims medieval, but from the basic list.
And the basic list could still contain plenty of traits that can have downsides, but the ones listed as flaws would all really be something that's more bad than good but might still have some benefits.
Smoker could be a flaw, and Sims could overcome it by not smoking for a certain number of days. But it would come with a negative moodlet that increases every day until it peaks and then tapers off again. When a Sim smokes it could help reduce stress so that would be a small positive, but with the smoker trait they'd want to keep smoking. Sims without that flaw could gain it if they smoke a few times.
When they have the smoker flaw, they'd struggle with exercise, cough at times and could age faster.
Only adults could be able to smoke though. I think stuff like this could actually inspire real life smokers to help quit after guiding their sim through it.
I've already added some of those things to my game, and it's definitely a lot more entertaining
Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)
I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.
But whatever, this game was not and is not a game for little children, even though it is far tamer than almost any other game with the T for Teen rating. Did you know that T for teen allows even "moderate blood"? So this game drops significantly under the bar for the T rating.
If we have to stop making movies, games, and shows for anyone but little children because SOME parents are asleep at the wheel letting their 8 year old play GTA, or letting under-13 kids play over-13 accounts in VR, they are bad parents, but the rest of the world shouldn't have to be stripped of anything that isn't appropriate for little kids just because of that. There is such a thing as demanding so much safety, that everything that isn't mandatory, is now forbidden.
```
Personality,depth,humor,consequences,lore,customization.
Repose en paix mamie tu va me manquer :
1923-2016 mamie
Yes, but I think they are also asking for things like drinking alcohol and smoking too and more mature storylines, not just a silly honeymoon scenario with a woohoo goal, and in other topics people are always asking for like the dancing cake and tabletop strippers from earlier series to come back, which isn't allowed under the ESRB Teen rating. Every game that has that is rated M in Canada at least. The T rating allows for only Minimal blood, a little blood is in the game already, like plasma packs, drinking blood for the vampires, but like a new werewolf pack for example is probably going to have cute, fluffy werewolves with some harmless bites, I don't think they're gonna eat the Sims. Only simulated gambling is allowed, so they can have like the sabaac table in Batuu with fake chips and not real money, I believe the poker game is now called "Cards", but who knows how long because there is a huge lobby trying to remove any simulated gambling from teen and children's games. The T rating is 13 years old and up to 16. So I think Sims 4 is technically made for 13 year olds actually, assuming they using ESRB as their ratings guideline when making the game, which I think they do, but I'm not sure. I certainly don't think they would suddenly want to make a pack that got a different rating than all the others. Movies and shows are rated differently and by a different organization.
I'm not a teen or parent of a teen, so there's no reason for me to want the games made under a T rating for me, but then sadly my teen nieces and nephews would not get to play it with me and it's a fun game and in Canada kids learn about sex as part of the elementary school system, so I never had a problem with my nieces playing it when they were 10-12 they had already learned in school anything in the game. Every teen I know started playing around 10-12, so this is why I think if anything they will choose to switch to a E10+ rating over an M rating. The statistic I read is 60% of players are over 18 and so 40% are teens and kids, but most start playing as teens or kids. I wouldn't mind real wine, bar drinks and ferocious werewolves, as long as it's just still fun for me to play, but smoking cigarettes in the game, I definitely don't want I hate cigarettes. I would be okay with a little old fashioned tobacco pipe for George Cahill in Strangerville lol, to add to his character. I imagine it's not easy to make a game for such a wide age group of players that has storytelling as such a strong component.
good points but there's still nothing intrinsically too mature about someone jumping out of a cake, wearing more coverage than a typical swimsuit provides, or people dancing atop a counter again, in clothes that give at least as much coverage as swimwear.
For truly adult content, there are very good mods for adding explicit sex, substance use and trade including the possibility of addiction and other harm, there are violence mods, mods for superheroes and villains. So we don't need it to be defaulted into the game, there's a smorgasbord of M for Mature material out there for the game.
My issue is the argument in favor of reducing this to a game for children, or expecting that T for Teen means Twee for Tween. And the cutesy euphemisms: why are they necessary or desireable? They certainly aren't required by the rating, which allows for moderate blood, even calling it blood. It's pusillanimous in the extreme to call it 'plasma' as if blood were a naughty word. To me it just keeps us reminded that we must pretend we're in preschool. But even preschoolers know a nosebleed isn't a noseplasmadrip. XD
So I do find the extreme timidity and cutesiness dancing around the obvious in the game tiresome and unnecessary. Even the teens who play the game would give that the jaundiced eyeroll it deserves.
```
At the last EA games con. I saw film of a child who was no older than eight testing a new pack with a parent's approval.
This is an ESRB Teen rated game. The 13 year old's determine this game's content. The ESRB may have a different idea of what's suitable for a 13 year old than you. The ESRB is also apparently the most important videogame rating organization in North America. I think any company wanting a Teen rating from them is pretty much making a game for what they think is suitable for a 13 year old. I don't think there is anything they are allowed to do more under this rating to make the game feel less childish, other than add a few curse words, but it won't matter because they swear in Simlish.
ESRB Rating: Teen. Content suitable for ages 13 and up. Can contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language. ie. Disney Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Ball z Fighter, The Sims, Legend of Zelda, Journey, etc.
ESRB Rating: Mature. Content suitable for 17 and up. Can contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language. ie. Dragon Age, Skyrim, Fable, Witcher, most fantasy RPG games, etc.
ESRB Rating: Adult. Content suitable for 18 and up. Can contain prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency. Like ie. Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Thrill Kill etc.
I do:
How about a Long-Distance Love Affair
One of your sims takes a "job transfer" to another city, but their girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other can't move with them due to other responsibilities in the city they live in.
So you move out your sim and have to try and maintain a good romantic relationship from afar, while still taking care of your career responsibilities.
This is the issue I have with something like sunbathing being in the game, but smoking isn't allowed (presumably because EA doesn't wish to inadvertently encourage negative or harmful behaviour). A late friend of mine died a horribly protracted death from malignant melanoma, so sun bathing/tanning not exactly in the category of not harmful behaviours, and yet in Island Living getting a tan is an option and the only consequence of doing so is potential sunburn. I don't want things like smoking and murder/violence in my game either, but if EA is going to include one potentially harmful behaviour (sun tanning) but exclude others (smoking) then I start to think it's more about what will sell in the game and less about protecting vulnerable kids from game influences.
tl;dr, if smoking is considered not appropriate for the game age range due to potential harm, then sunbathing/tanning should be removed as well, seeing as both are a cancer risk.
Female Simmer from Australia (she/her)
I had one of my Sims marry the Grim Reaper & now they have a lot of kids.