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Maxis EA facts and misconceptions - when it all happened
ShadoShyrke
Posts: 57 Member
I noticed a number of posts with some incorrect information dealing with EA acquiring the Sims and Maxis titles.
Most people do not seem to realize the facts.
EA acquired Maxis in 1997. This was back when SimLife, SimCity 2000, and SimEarth and other games were the only titles under Maxis belt.
In 2000, as a division of EA, Maxis released The Sims. So, The Sims has ALWAYS been under EA.
So, hopefully this will help stop the misinformation some people are spreading by saying "EA ruined the Sims when they bought Maxis". When in fact, Maxis was under EA back when The Sims was first developed.
Most people do not seem to realize the facts.
EA acquired Maxis in 1997. This was back when SimLife, SimCity 2000, and SimEarth and other games were the only titles under Maxis belt.
In 2000, as a division of EA, Maxis released The Sims. So, The Sims has ALWAYS been under EA.
So, hopefully this will help stop the misinformation some people are spreading by saying "EA ruined the Sims when they bought Maxis". When in fact, Maxis was under EA back when The Sims was first developed.
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Comments
I agree that it wasn't EA buying out Maxis/Will Wright that was the downfall of TS franchise. It was when EA took over making TS from Maxis in 2006, giving it to The Sims /Division Studio. I believe Maxis finished out TS2 then The Sims Studio took over of TS3. Maxis didn't have anything to do with TS3 and it shows greatly. Maxis was brought back and added to The Sims Studio to produce TS4.
All found here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_Studio
Wikipedia is not a reliable source though, any Joe Shmoe can edit a wiki post.
It was just renaming. Same people at the same locations.
There are a number of old Maxis employees that not only returned, some never left. Lucy Bradshaw has been with TS since TS1 , so has SGLyndsay. Others I can't think of at the moment. Lucy Bradshaw is a lead producer of TS4. What didn't return was the original concept of TS IMHO.
Regardless whether it showed in 3, 4 wasn't an improvement anyways ...
I think the 'downfall' of TS lies with the Executive Producer ... They fired the guy in charge of TSO though.
While I will agree there were issues with some content in SimCity when it first came out, I have yet to buy an EA/Maxis title game that was "unplayable" or had more than minor annoyance issues in some content.
When companies like Apple (which was known for problem free releases much more than any other software company) can't even release an OS update without breaking things in notable ways in the modern world, I can't judge a company like EA so harshly.
I remember some of the issues that plagued earlier Maxis games (SimEarth, SimAnt and others) and waiting months to see a patch that you had to order by disk from the company, so I can't agree with the perspective that they are ruining things.
Not when you consider the technological and program logic needed to create the specifics of the emotional interactions and features of Sims 4.
But that is just my opinion as a 40+ year old IT/IS guy who plays games like this for enjoyment when he is not playing with other hobbies like a real life Renaissance Sim.
This notion has been proved since Sims 2, they take what was sold in EPs in the original Sims and resell that same ideas in EPs, this was done to a worst extant in Sims 3 and is at its worse in Sims 4.
I do so agree! Rachel Franklin vision is nothing like the original vision of TS nor my personal vision of where I had thought TS would be like!
All that said, yes, Sims has always been EA. EA has killed a lot of companies, but if Maxis fails, it won't be because they were taken over by EA and bled.
Things like this attempted to make changes to the ideas, but the Sims originally never planned for things like Supernatural or Seasons expansions. Then, they happened.
So, it amuses me that so many people (some of who sat in the Sims 2 and Sims 3 forums and complained about the content being the same with nothing more than better graphics) seem to hate the fact that they did what so many people were asking for.
- No limitations on Love interest
- More dynamic emotional triggers
- Content that you earn and rewards for jobs and skills (not just getting better at skills)
- Not the same old content packs
Personally, I think they have managed to do this with very few issues in comparison to the overall complexity of the emotional interaction factors. I am also amazed that taking all that into account hasn't created a larger "footprint" on our overall system environments (memory, RAM, diskspace) than it has.
That and the fact that they told us from the beginning that they would respect allow for the overall communities like thesimsresource to help provide other clothing and mod options, that other companies are trying to drive out of their games. There are always growth pains in any realistic scenario, and I think this one allows for a LOT of future development that would not have happened if they had just "refaced" the game.
Also, on a dynamic programming level, it is ALWAYS easier and more stable to build a new program than to continue "refacing" an older development. Just as it is better, when you get to refacing a building in real life too many times, to just knock it down and start over.
Of course, as I have said before, that is just my analysis and perception - i.e. IMHO.
I'm not sure what she's doing, but I really don't like her vision either. If we had a different executive producer, maybe things wouldn't be so bad ..
While I didn't have as much fun with TS3 as TS2 I did buy everything that was offered for it. My reference was the bugs that were never fixed. TS2 bugs were fixed before the next EP/SP was released, it also didn't have as many bugs. At that time they extensively play tested their games. A number of play tester post on the old BBs boards. In all actuality it is EA's fault that tS is sliding because of the amount of bugs that are allowed to continue to plague the game and not be fixed before another EP/SP/GP adds to it more bugs.
If it wasn't for Twallan fixing TS3 I would have quit playing it after Pets.
Just my honest opinion.
Yes and no, TS2 was very buggy in early days and some say some bugs where never fixed but if anything, it was a small issue.
In TS3, most bugs where fixed eventually and most bugs had easy work arounds. My only gripe being the notorious save errors which where memory related rather than just a bug and some mild routing. Mods fixed a few issues early on and it seemed the devs got comfortable with that and thus saw less need to fix their own bugs as someone was doing it for them for free.
As for TS4, I have never played so I don't know what the bugs are exactly but it seems a repeat of issues not being fixed and this time, some bugs seem more offensive such as the incest bugs ect
It's a shame that most of these were never addressed. The errors ranged from simple data entry errors that could have been easily and quickly fixed to problems with some scripts that needed a bit more work. I have no clue why most of the errors were left in with the final patch. IMO, EA could have and should have implemented a lot of bug fixes and it would have made their customers much happier. Plus, consoles would have also gotten the fixes.
Bug fixing is not only apparently not a huge priority, but will be outright ignored if they don't prevent the game from loading.
Another reason they don't release it all at once is to allow people to pick at chose based on their interests or systems. For instance, I didn't buy two DLC packs for Dragon Age. No interest in the overall content. A friend of mine did not buy 3 of the packs for Sims 3 because they did not want to put in the storage and video upgrades that their computer would have required. They play the packs that they have and still enjoy it without issues.
We all want options, but programmers and companies found since the 1980s that it is more reasonable to release things modularly. Almost every company does this, including Blizzard/Vivendi, NCSoft, Microsoft, Ubisoft and of course EA. This keeps them from having to deal with a major loss that breaks their company like so many late 90s companies experienced. Westwood, Interplay, etc.... dozens of companies that fell to financial issues or were scooped up by the ones that were succeeding. EA, Atari and Hasboro Interactive all became giants because of this.
Of course, that is just my perspective. Of course, if you know the history of Ultima and Origin, Origin was having issues before EA acquired it, and EA took over primarily as a funding and top end publisher.
That's the thing there is a difference between mild bugs such as 'invisible Sims' or even the so called 'useful bugs' such as Sims who are never tired and then you have unplayable bugs which are game breaking. From what I heard, the December patch' was not fixed for a while and many said they couldn't even play their games and such bugs need to be addressed ASAP
Not only that, when they try or do fix one bug they seem to make 4 more to take it's place.
My TS4 game ran great with no issues that I couldn't live with. Sure some minor bugs, fork stuck to hand etc.., that I could fix easily or ignore. But the forced patching made more and more bugs in my great game. I can't go back and play it like it was because everyone's game has o be the same with forced patching. If I could just get the patches I need I would be playing TS4 now. As it is I just gave up trying.
So, if we have 20 Devs, we have to try to fix old content, and create new content and get it out as quickly as the customers expect it. In the 90s, we knew that releases and patches would be years in the making. I have watched forums for the last 15 years and people in the last 10 years expect it "NOW" or abandon ship for another game that is hitting the shelves.
We also forget that the gaming communities, and games launched per year, back in the late 90s to early 2ks were about a third of what we see today. Companies are handling things for 3 or more major system producers, tablets and phones, as well as personal computers. With all these factors, I am surprised we don't see more issues with games like the ones that plagued games like UltimaIX, but at least now we can just log onto the site and download the patch the same day it is released. No waiting for a fixed install disk to be batch mailed out two weeks to two months later.
Actually you can by shutting off auto update. Then you update when you want to. But if you want to get a EP or GP you have to update first so again you will have to get the forced patch at some point. Once you have gotten it there is no going back. I have tried!
And don't kid yourself. With Dragon Age Origins, again, there were a lot of people who could not access their DLC for quite a long period of time. It was intermittent with me, but some people had it permanent. Why shouldn't those people who bought a product have their fix ASAP? That some games were even worse about this and longer to get out fixes in the past is not a good reason at all for gamers to deal with that kind of thing.
I've been gaming since the 70s, btw. Ultima IX was a travesty, and again, it was due to EA pushing Origin to release a game that was not ready to be released. But most games did not have issues anywhere near that severe.