All I'm saying is The Sims series core demographic is/has been women. If you were to draw a bell curve of the audience of Sims players you'd find the largest part of the curve would consist of women.
In other words if you asked a few hundred John and Jane Does on the street if they played The Sims, you'd find the majority of the people who said "yes" would be Jane Does. In fact, the game even has a reputation for being a "girly or women's game."
The modding community is a subset of the Sims community in general, so the percentages of male vs female could break down differently, but it doesn't change the prime demographic.
This is not to say men and teens of both genders don't play the game. Knowing your core demographic is what helps companies sell their products. This is the reason The Sims was/is the greatest selling franchise of all time, Maxis/EA figured out how to capture a mostly untapped market with The Sims.
I'm sorry, but you're mistaken, The Sims core audience has always been women. The only reason The Sims ever became a success was because women embraced the game with a passion. Teens don't have the money to spend 100s of dollars a year on EPs, SPs and GPs.
I disagree. Claiming that a specific gender is responsible for the success of a game is a mistake.
Especially since in the last interview I saw regarding this, Rachel Franklin said the Sims players were pretty much evenly split in gender.
Take a look at well known modders and such and you will see this reflected as well. Lots of men play the Sims. From hard core to casual gamers, Sims players are a diverse bunch. Focus exclusively on one demographic for whatever reason, you stand to lose a lot of your audience.
Edit: Focusing on the part of your demographic which has the least disposable income seems a bit counter intuitive.
My husband accuses me of being a walking encyclopedia - as at least 80 percent of every thing I have in my head so it takes me seconds to find the link. I seem to store keywords in my head or something. LOL.
LOL it's great and google makes it so easy to find anything. This is pretty interesting too how it takes an average of two hours to understand basics of a game. I guess that helps with the Game Time trials.
Huh this was interesting too: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2014-releases
"The latter group was highlighted both by a strong new Dragon Age installment and the brand-new IP Titanfall, though the latter scored a lot better with critics than with Metacritic's users, and it is unclear whether it was the huge financial hit EA was hoping for. One definite disappointment—at least from a quality standpoint—was The Sims 4, which turned out to be the lowest-scoring major game in The Sims series to date (scoring 16 points lower than The Sims 3)."
Ok I must stop. I could talk about business things all night if I wanted. XD
It is very understandable that simmers who have been used to fantastic improvements for each version of the Sims game were disappointed because their expectations were rocket high. In the same way Apple's customers have been disappointed with the most recent models of iPhones and iPads because they didn't get the same fantastic new progress as earlier.
But I doubt that EA and Apple also were disappointed because people were less exited than earlier because the companies of course knew that they hadn't been able to make the same fantastic progress as earlier. EA know that it isn't easy to find ways to make such fantastic progress until the general technological progress makes it possible.
The new emotions, the multitasking and the new build mode weren't ideal. But they were still the best progress which the current technology allowed.
Removing the open world can't have been an easy decision. But if it wasn't done then all the problems from TS3 would also have been in TS4 and the options for making TS4 different would be limited. But EA knew that this would have given lower sales numbers for TS4 too. So they chose to remove the open world to have a chance that other things (especially in the expansions) would give the game acceptable sales numbers anyway.
An alternative probably was to turn TS4 into a 64 bit game because this would allow TS4 to both have an open world and connected worlds with many Sims in them. But I am sure that EA also knows that a lot of Sims games are bought as presents for very young teens who don't really play many other games. Such young teens usually only have cheap computers which they use for their schoolwork. Therefore it was important to allow the game to still run on such computers.
EA evaluated that the new multitasking and the new build mode were necessary improvements even though they weren't ideal. But the time they demanded obviously proved to be exceeding all expectations. Therefore EA just had to simplify other things to keep expenses low enough to give the game a chance to make profit because EA just couldn't raise the price for the game instead for obvious reasons.
I agree that EA probably should have done something different. I just don't know what it should have been. Maybe just postponed the game a few years until all people (even schoolchildren) had powerful 64 bit computers?
Open world was gone the moment the started on Olympus.
Maybe. But we don't really have any information on Olympus from EA. Therefore I think that we can believe almost anything - and half of it may not be true.
EA doesn't talk to the customers, but people who worked for them are more than willing to spill. I'd be willing to bet the main elements are truthful.The fact that the game was online tells me all I need to know. There are very few, true, open world online games, most are carved into tiny bits to improve performance on computers that should be gracing the landfill.
So true. No one should be using 32 bit pcs anymore - they are beyond over the hill, and game makers need to step up to just 64 bit. What sense is it we are running 64 bit systems on 64 bit OS for years now, my pc handle 32 gigs of ram, but right now with just half that ram 16 bits is still overkill - and it is ridiculous a studio comes out with a new game just 32 bit.
Believe me I am very excited by the new Fall out 4 - it even recommends 16 gigs of ram and is a 64 bit game with the biggest world around just about. It is 3 and a half times bigger than Skyrim and all open world. It is funny as technically I am not a war games kind of player - but after Sims 4 experience - I am looking forward to it.
EA itself has the same requirements for several of their games. They need to make a rule at EA - no more 32 bits period for pc games anyway.
Darley - what is that picture from that is in your signature? Just curious.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
I'm sorry, but you're mistaken, The Sims core audience has always been women. The only reason The Sims ever became a success was because women embraced the game with a passion. Teens don't have the money to spend 100s of dollars a year on EPs, SPs and GPs.
If you look at who is invited to EA sponsored Sims events, you'll see the majority are women in their 20s and older with a few men in the same age groups sprinkled in.
This is why TS1, TS2, and TS3 were marketed the way they were in order to appeal to women. Somewhere down the line EA/Maxis decided to branch out to a different demographic, and that's part of the reason TS4 is in the mess it is in right now. You can't neglect your core audience as badly as EA has and expect everything to be ok.
Last thought, the T rating is probably more to avoid negative press than anything. An M rated Sims game would be fine with me, and my guess is there may be other simmers who agree.
The best choice I can see right now is to make TS5 into a 64 bit only game and let the open world return. But this will only result in the game being very similar to TS3 - and I don't think that TS5 will sell very well if it only is announced as a "64 bit version of TS3".
I'd buy it!
Me too. The big mistake Maxis made to start with is staying 32 bit. 32 bit is not the way new games are going. If people are still running a 32 bit pc - they have no business playing PC games. That is a lame excuse. I have been running 64 bit computers since right before Sims 2 BV came out. This is a totally lame choice seeing EA has 64 bit games - and is an example of another lame decision out of Maxis. Shoot my 5 year old grandson has a 64 bit computer and 64 bit operating system for a kids learning center game. I mean if kindergarteners are using 64 bits and Maxis still enforces 32 bit - it is beyond lame.
Those games are probably M rated games?
I agree completely that if we only look around in this forum then TS4 should be a 64 bit game and EA shouldn't care if the ESRB decided to change the game's rating from T to M or not. But the problem is that there are a huge number of young teens who also buy the game. Most of those young teens only play the game shortly and many of them only have cheap computers. This is EA's reason for caring so much about the T rating and I am sure that it is also the reason why EA still released the game as a 32 bit game.
I don't know if there is a difference between the countries. But here in Denmark even 11 years old pre-teens play the game. This probably isn't the case in Australia.
But I know that TS1 and TS2 were primarily played by teens and pre-teens in Denmark. There is also a little difference in the ratings because our rating is 12+ from PEGI and earlier TS1 and the TS2 were actually 7+ games. The 7+ rating was changed to 12+ after an EP for TS2 and my question about it was answered by our local people associated with PEGI who said that the chance from 7+ to 12+ was wanted by the UK members of PEGI. But in the US the rating was T and in Australia it was M.
I know that very young teen girls (and a few pre-teens too) dominated our Danish Sims 2 forum and also our Sims 1 sub-forum. I could also see that this age group bought a lot of the games when I visited our game stores shortly after a new TS2 EP had been released. In the Danish Sims 2 forum I could see that they didn't always have the money though. But then they planned to get the new EP for their birthday or Christmas. If those events were too far away then they considered other ways to make their parents pay for their game and they asked each other for advice about the best way to do it
It actually IS the case in Australia. I personally know a 9 yr old that plays the Sims 3 in Australia as does his 11 yr old sister.
My husband accuses me of being a walking encyclopedia - as at least 80 percent of every thing I have in my head so it takes me seconds to find the link. I seem to store keywords in my head or something. LOL.
LOL it's great and google makes it so easy to find anything. This is pretty interesting too how it takes an average of two hours to understand basics of a game. I guess that helps with the Game Time trials.
Huh this was interesting too: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2014-releases
"The latter group was highlighted both by a strong new Dragon Age installment and the brand-new IP Titanfall, though the latter scored a lot better with critics than with Metacritic's users, and it is unclear whether it was the huge financial hit EA was hoping for. One definite disappointment—at least from a quality standpoint—was The Sims 4, which turned out to be the lowest-scoring major game in The Sims series to date (scoring 16 points lower than The Sims 3)."
Ok I must stop. I could talk about business things all night if I wanted. XD
It is very understandable that simmers who have been used to fantastic improvements for each version of the Sims game were disappointed because their expectations were rocket high. In the same way Apple's customers have been disappointed with the most recent models of iPhones and iPads because they didn't get the same fantastic new progress as earlier.
But I doubt that EA and Apple also were disappointed because people were less exited than earlier because the companies of course knew that they hadn't been able to make the same fantastic progress as earlier. EA know that it isn't easy to find ways to make such fantastic progress until the general technological progress makes it possible.
The new emotions, the multitasking and the new build mode weren't ideal. But they were still the best progress which the current technology allowed.
Removing the open world can't have been an easy decision. But if it wasn't done then all the problems from TS3 would also have been in TS4 and the options for making TS4 different would be limited. But EA knew that this would have given lower sales numbers for TS4 too. So they chose to remove the open world to have a chance that other things (especially in the expansions) would give the game acceptable sales numbers anyway.
An alternative probably was to turn TS4 into a 64 bit game because this would allow TS4 to both have an open world and connected worlds with many Sims in them. But I am sure that EA also knows that a lot of Sims games are bought as presents for very young teens who don't really play many other games. Such young teens usually only have cheap computers which they use for their schoolwork. Therefore it was important to allow the game to still run on such computers.
EA evaluated that the new multitasking and the new build mode were necessary improvements even though they weren't ideal. But the time they demanded obviously proved to be exceeding all expectations. Therefore EA just had to simplify other things to keep expenses low enough to give the game a chance to make profit because EA just couldn't raise the price for the game instead for obvious reasons.
I agree that EA probably should have done something different. I just don't know what it should have been. Maybe just postponed the game a few years until all people (even schoolchildren) had powerful 64 bit computers?
Open world was gone the moment the started on Olympus.
Maybe. But we don't really have any information on Olympus from EA. Therefore I think that we can believe almost anything - and half of it may not be true.
EA doesn't talk to the customers, but people who worked for them are more than willing to spill. I'd be willing to bet the main elements are truthful.The fact that the game was online tells me all I need to know. There are very few, true, open world online games, most are carved into tiny bits to improve performance on computers that should be gracing the landfill.
So true. No one should be using 32 bit pcs anymore - they are beyond over the hill, and game makers need to step up to just 64 bit. What sense is it we are running 64 bit systems on 64 bit OS for years now, my pc handle 32 gigs of ram, but right now with just half that ram 16 bits is still overkill - and it is ridiculous a studio comes out with a new game just 32 bit.
Believe me I am very excited by the new Fall out 4 - it even recommends 16 gigs of ram and is a 64 bit game with the biggest world around just about. It is 3 and a half times bigger than Skyrim and all open world. It is funny as technically I am not a war games kind of player - but after Sims 4 experience - I am looking forward to it.
EA itself has the same requirements for several of their games. They need to make a rule at EA - no more 32 bits period for pc games anyway.
Darley - what is that picture from that is in your signature? Just curious.
I am excited about Fallout 4 as well. According to the sites, I should be able to run it on high, which is fair as I have a higher mid-range system. I am so happy it's going to take advantage of my system memory. My husband is going to have to make a choice, new PC which can run it or a PS4 with the game for less than half what the PC would cost.
Or he can wait a year or two and upgrade then when it's cheaper and buy the GOTY edition. But I far prefer higher system specs which gives the potential for a better game (hopefully it's well optimized but this is Bethesda).
There is nothing wrong with a game being made for modern machines. Why wouldn't a developer want to take advantage of the technology?
All I'm saying is The Sims series core demographic is/has been women. If you were to draw a bell curve of the audience of Sims players you'd find the largest part of the curve would consist of women.
"U.S. game publisher Electronics Arts Inc., rolls out in the coming weeks its "The Sims 4" game—a life-simulation game in the publisher's widely popular Sims series for PCs. Rachel Franklin, the game's executive producer and a games industry veteran, said approximately half of The Sims' player-base are women."
Edit: I read an article in a german videogame magazine I used to buy a couple of years ago. It was about The Sims 1 and tries to explain why it became this successful (one reason was - of course - that it got many women into gaming) . The author claims that ~20% of those who play the game are women (which was huge back then). If you'd like me to scan the article I can do this for you (but since it is in german I don't know if you will read it).
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
And that's why the game is a success, the majority of games don't have a base consisting of 50% females (which isn't an exact figure given in the article ). In earlier iterations the numbers were around 65% in favor of women, so the demographic seems to have shifted a bit. But this shift still doesn't negate that women are play a very significant role in the series' success. When you start alienating or minimizing the significance of a large portion your demographic you start running into problems as evidenced with TS4.
All I'm saying is The Sims series core demographic is/has been women. If you were to draw a bell curve of the audience of Sims players you'd find the largest part of the curve would consist of women.
"U.S. game publisher Electronics Arts Inc., rolls out in the coming weeks it's "The Sims 4" game—a life-simulation game in the publisher's widely popular Sims series for PCs. Rachel Franklin, the game's executive producer and a games industry veteran, said approximately half of The Sims' player-base are women."
And that's why the game is a success, the majority of games don't have a 50% female base. In earlier iterations the numbers were around 65% in favor of women, so the demographic seems to have shifted a bit. But this shift still doesn't negate that women are play a very significant role in the series' success. When you start alienating or minimizing the significance of a large portion your demographic you start running into problems as evidenced with TS4.
All I'm saying is The Sims series core demographic is/has been women. If you were to draw a bell curve of the audience of Sims players you'd find the largest part of the curve would consist of women.
"U.S. game publisher Electronics Arts Inc., rolls out in the coming weeks it's "The Sims 4" game—a life-simulation game in the publisher's widely popular Sims series for PCs. Rachel Franklin, the game's executive producer and a games industry veteran, said approximately half of The Sims' player-base are women."
The Sims has always been successful and attractive for both genders. Yes, this is a strong point of this game. And it was successful because of it's monopoly status and different approach on gaming in general (remember Will Wright: Designing games to tell stories).
However the demographic change is something you can determine in almost all videogame genres. It's nice that gaming today is a genuine part (mobile games helped with that) of our society and everyday life. I remember 20-25 years ago it was different. Yes, when I was still a student (and playing Sims 1) most of the girls didn't even have a computer.
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
It really wasn't at the beginning of the series and up until very recently it seems. The "street" perception of The Sims is that it is a "girl game" even if that wasn't it intended design. Just like the "street perception" of COD or GTA is that is a game for guys or mostly played by guys. This doesn't mean that the opposite gender does not play the game in question.
The idea that a game could have a 50%- 65% base in favor of females was and is a novel concept. I'm looking at the game and its demographics from the perspective of a person who has studied advertising and has worked at a couple ad firms. So my views may differ from yours
And that's why the game is a success, the majority of games don't have a 50% female base. In earlier iterations the numbers were around 65% in favor of women, so the demographic seems to have shifted a bit. But this shift still doesn't negate that women are play a very significant role in the series' success. When you start alienating or minimizing the significance of a large portion your demographic you start running into problems as evidenced with TS4.
All I'm saying is The Sims series core demographic is/has been women. If you were to draw a bell curve of the audience of Sims players you'd find the largest part of the curve would consist of women.
"U.S. game publisher Electronics Arts Inc., rolls out in the coming weeks it's "The Sims 4" game—a life-simulation game in the publisher's widely popular Sims series for PCs. Rachel Franklin, the game's executive producer and a games industry veteran, said approximately half of The Sims' player-base are women."
The Sims has always been successful and attractive for both genders. Yes, this is a strong point of this game. However the demographic change is something you can determine in almost all videogame genres. It's nice that gaming today is a genuine part (mobile games helped with that) of our society and everyday life. I remember 20-25 years ago it was different.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls. I don't think, in a market where more and more women are joining, that their percentage shrank as sims players (going from 65% to 50%). If the game was really just seen as a girls game, then that percentage would have grown as the demographic of female gamers grew (and in fact, it most likely has, from ~20% female in Sims 1 to 50% female in Sims 3 IF those numbers are accurate).
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim gamers would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
But again, the main reason I doubt that female simmers ever actually outnumbered male simmers is the 50/50 ratio now. It just is completely counter intuitive that if a game is played by a majority of female games, and that market has grown, and an disproportionate number of those new gamers are women, that male gamers would overtake them.
But I have a feeling much of the demographics are just guessed at anyway.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
Great, so what?! I have a degree in economics as well (marketing was a big part of it) but this does not change the fact that your comments here are nothing more than just some assumptions you made. For the first time women as consuments became somewhat important for EA (earlier not so, today very). That's it.
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
I'm not making assumptions (I don't make assumptions then then post them on forums, not my style), look at the figures quoted in the articles I posted earlier praising the series for selling 100 million copies. In the articles EA employees state the base majority at that time was female. They credit the series' success to the fact women really embraced The Sims. That is a fact not an assumption.
When you try to shift or widen your demographic without proper advertising and PR bad things happen. We can agree to disagree though. I speak on my ad degree because it t vastly differs from marketing or economics. Advertising is what gives people those warm, tingly thoughts and feelings about a brand. Poor ads or ad plans can do the opposite (the Quiznos SpongMonkey ads are a prime example), it's not just hard numbers, it's about seducing a prime demographic.
Edited Added thoughts.
="MolliMontana;14198788"]Great, so what?! I have a degree in economics as well (marketing was a big part of it) but this does not change the fact that your comments here are nothing more than just some assumptions you made. For the first time women as consuments became somewhat important for EA (earlier not so, today very). That's it.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Hahaha, yes, insultingly so. I know I spent entirely too much of my teenage life in arcades -- my NES and Sega saved me a fortune
I'm not making assumptions, look at the figures quoted in the articles I posted earlier praising the series for selling 100 million copies. In the articles EA employees state the base majority at that time was female. They credit the series' success to the fact women really embraced The Sims. That is a fact not an assumption.
The author of the article (written 2008) claims that 60% of the players are female. However when The Sims was introduced to the public it was heavily dominated by men. It took some time for women to jump on the (hype-)train.
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
I know right? Here's a quote from Electronic Arts vice president of Europe Online, Sharon Knight, in 2007 about the female majority and The Sims. It's absolutely crazy that the female portion of the market was neglected for so long, that people were surprised in the early 2000s that girls will embrace games too.
EA's The Sims, one of the most popular franchises of all time, has a 65 percent female audience, said Knight. However, she admitted the series' success was more of a happy accident. "No, Will [Wright, the creator of the game] was definitely not targeting the game at women," she said, laughing. "It just resonated. I think it was at the brink of the whole 'who do you want to be?' trend. You can make an avatar that you play as yourself, as a character that looks a lot like you, or you can be somebody wildly different. Now you're seeing that everywhere."
I agree that the market was recovering from the mishaps of the 90's when the Sims debuted.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
No, males were never majority in the beginning. Its killing me that I can't find the articles I read back in 2001-2004, I remember it so well because I was still in college getting my degree (and doing case studies for my classes) when I read them.
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
That's what makes the number of women and its historic majority surprising. Will Wright didn't design the game as a female game. It was a very welcome surprise that women embraced the game so well. That passion for the game from women is what launched the game into the best selling franchise of all time. Acknowledging that doesn't mean that it's girl game or that men don't play. It's just a happy fact in the history of the series.
Sims actually, at least on gaming boards, has always been considered a game for everyone. One of my favorite threads on a "hard core" board was people making Sims of their favorite videogame characters. I first asked about the Sims on a "hard core" gaming board and every guy there played, and all had strong opinions about Sims 2 and Sims 3 (and their preferences were STRONG).
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls.
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim games would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Hahaha, yes, insultingly so. I know I spent entirely too much of my teenage life in arcades -- my NES and Sega saved me a fortune
Yeah, I don't know, just the trend doesn't make sense, so either Franklin is off, or Knight is off, or there's just a seriously weird trend going on of more and more males being drawn to the game.
There are articles that I unfortunately can't find online from much earlier than 2008 that show women as prime force in The Sims success. I wish that I could so you could see how novel the idea was back then and all the gushing that was done over this concept.
I'm not making assumptions, look at the figures quoted in the articles I posted earlier praising the series for selling 100 million copies. In the articles EA employees state the base majority at that time was female. They credit the series' success to the fact women really embraced The Sims. That is a fact not an assumption.
The author of the article (written 2008) claims that 60% of the players are female. However when The Sims was introduced to the public it was heavily dominated by men. It took some time for women to jump on the (hype-)train.
Comments
In other words if you asked a few hundred John and Jane Does on the street if they played The Sims, you'd find the majority of the people who said "yes" would be Jane Does. In fact, the game even has a reputation for being a "girly or women's game."
The modding community is a subset of the Sims community in general, so the percentages of male vs female could break down differently, but it doesn't change the prime demographic.
This is not to say men and teens of both genders don't play the game. Knowing your core demographic is what helps companies sell their products. This is the reason The Sims was/is the greatest selling franchise of all time, Maxis/EA figured out how to capture a mostly untapped market with The Sims.
Edited added thoughts
So true. No one should be using 32 bit pcs anymore - they are beyond over the hill, and game makers need to step up to just 64 bit. What sense is it we are running 64 bit systems on 64 bit OS for years now, my pc handle 32 gigs of ram, but right now with just half that ram 16 bits is still overkill - and it is ridiculous a studio comes out with a new game just 32 bit.
Believe me I am very excited by the new Fall out 4 - it even recommends 16 gigs of ram and is a 64 bit game with the biggest world around just about. It is 3 and a half times bigger than Skyrim and all open world. It is funny as technically I am not a war games kind of player - but after Sims 4 experience - I am looking forward to it.
EA itself has the same requirements for several of their games. They need to make a rule at EA - no more 32 bits period for pc games anyway.
Darley - what is that picture from that is in your signature? Just curious.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
It actually IS the case in Australia. I personally know a 9 yr old that plays the Sims 3 in Australia as does his 11 yr old sister.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
I am excited about Fallout 4 as well. According to the sites, I should be able to run it on high, which is fair as I have a higher mid-range system. I am so happy it's going to take advantage of my system memory. My husband is going to have to make a choice, new PC which can run it or a PS4 with the game for less than half what the PC would cost.
Or he can wait a year or two and upgrade then when it's cheaper and buy the GOTY edition. But I far prefer higher system specs which gives the potential for a better game (hopefully it's well optimized but this is Bethesda).
There is nothing wrong with a game being made for modern machines. Why wouldn't a developer want to take advantage of the technology?
"U.S. game publisher Electronics Arts Inc., rolls out in the coming weeks its "The Sims 4" game—a life-simulation game in the publisher's widely popular Sims series for PCs. Rachel Franklin, the game's executive producer and a games industry veteran, said approximately half of The Sims' player-base are women."
http://www.wsj.com/articles/gaming-no-longer-a-mans-world-1408464249
Edit: I read an article in a german videogame magazine I used to buy a couple of years ago. It was about The Sims 1 and tries to explain why it became this successful (one reason was - of course - that it got many women into gaming) . The author claims that ~20% of those who play the game are women (which was huge back then). If you'd like me to scan the article I can do this for you (but since it is in german I don't know if you will read it).
Edited: typos
The Sims has always been successful and attractive for both genders. Yes, this is a strong point of this game. And it was successful because of it's monopoly status and different approach on gaming in general (remember Will Wright: Designing games to tell stories).
However the demographic change is something you can determine in almost all videogame genres. It's nice that gaming today is a genuine part (mobile games helped with that) of our society and everyday life. I remember 20-25 years ago it was different. Yes, when I was still a student (and playing Sims 1) most of the girls didn't even have a computer.
The idea that a game could have a 50%- 65% base in favor of females was and is a novel concept. I'm looking at the game and its demographics from the perspective of a person who has studied advertising and has worked at a couple ad firms. So my views may differ from yours
I think it's the devs who misunderstood the market and thought it was a game that appealed primarily to girls. I don't think, in a market where more and more women are joining, that their percentage shrank as sims players (going from 65% to 50%). If the game was really just seen as a girls game, then that percentage would have grown as the demographic of female gamers grew (and in fact, it most likely has, from ~20% female in Sims 1 to 50% female in Sims 3 IF those numbers are accurate).
I edited my message, but I'll repeat the edit here (in essence). As more and more women enter the gaming world, it doesn't make sense that their proportion of sim gamers would shrink, so if the numbers are 50/50 now, it's more likely that males have always been the majority of Sims players and females are a growing segment (from 20% to 50% just going from articles quoted here).
Everyone was shocked that the demographic majority was in favor of women from the beginning, because up until that point, aming was a male arena. The Sims really opened the eyes of devs, publishers, marketers, to the fact that women do in fact enjoy games, and will buy them. The current shift means that more males have entered into The Sims core demographic, not the other way around.
Even a 20% (that is the only figure backed up here, so that's the one I'm going with) would have been shocking in 2000. That's a lot of women gamers, far more than anyone thought would be interested in gamings due to the game devs screw ups of misunderstanding the market in the 1990s (I can get into that if no one knows what I'm talking about).
But I have a feeling much of the demographics are just guessed at anyway.
I know that the reason all the hoopla was made about The Sims and its success was made because EA had captured the magical unicorn, getting a majority of women to support a video game title. It was absolutely unheard of at that time, for a mainstream game to have a fan base whose majority was female. I really wish I'd saved those articles now.
When you try to shift or widen your demographic without proper advertising and PR bad things happen. We can agree to disagree though. I speak on my ad degree because it t vastly differs from marketing or economics. Advertising is what gives people those warm, tingly thoughts and feelings about a brand. Poor ads or ad plans can do the opposite (the Quiznos SpongMonkey ads are a prime example), it's not just hard numbers, it's about seducing a prime demographic.
Edited Added thoughts.
I wish you had those articles as well. The best I can find is Humble saying that the majority of their audience was teen girls, but I have a strong suspicion that he was going on his beliefs about the game instead of actual data, for the reasons I already stated -- the believed 50/50 male to female gamer ratio of Sims 3. Females are the growing market segment, not males, by a large amount. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Sims followed the trend of women gamers -- no clue what our numbers were in 2000, though.
Edit: But again, even 20% women gamers in 2000 would have been huge and considered the magic unicorn.
Hahaha, yes, insultingly so. I know I spent entirely too much of my teenage life in arcades -- my NES and Sega saved me a fortune
The author of the article (written 2008) claims that 60% of the players are female. However when The Sims was introduced to the public it was heavily dominated by men. It took some time for women to jump on the (hype-)train.
EA's The Sims, one of the most popular franchises of all time, has a 65 percent female audience, said Knight. However, she admitted the series' success was more of a happy accident. "No, Will [Wright, the creator of the game] was definitely not targeting the game at women," she said, laughing. "It just resonated. I think it was at the brink of the whole 'who do you want to be?' trend. You can make an avatar that you play as yourself, as a character that looks a lot like you, or you can be somebody wildly different. Now you're seeing that everywhere."
Link gamespot.com/articles/ea-women-too-big-an-audience-to-ignore/1100-6169357/