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  • HalloMolliHalloMolli Posts: 2,720 Member
    edited October 2015
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.

    Nah, the point is, male gamers have always had a much wider variety of potential games to play. Today it's harder to specifically tell what is a typicial girls/boys game and how it should be (design-wise or gameplay for example) but 8-10 years ago it was much easier (at that time it was clear: Sims for girls, fps games for boys). This is also why I think it's absolutly possible that 2005-2009 more females played TS than males. But today the scenery changed. Luckily.

    TS 1 : <20~ % females
    TS2: <50-60~ % females
    TS3: ~50-55%
    TS4: ~50%
    TS5: ~50%

    "[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."


  • ArubianaCalienteArubianaCaliente Posts: 448 Member
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.
    Please check out my Youtube channel, thanks! https://youtube.com/user/RubySimsFatale
  • FelicityFelicity Posts: 4,979 Member
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.

    Nah, the point is, male gamers have always had a much wider variety of potential games to play. Today it's hard to specifically say what is a typicial girls/boys game but 8-10 years ago it was much easier (then it was clear: Sims for girls, fps games for boys). This is also why I think it's absolutly possible that 2005-2009 more females played TS than males. But today the scenery changed. Luckily.

    TS 1 : <20~ % females
    TS2: <50-60~ % females
    TS3: ~50-55%
    TS4: ~50%
    TS5: ~50%

    The reason a drop in the female to male ratio would be weird is the increase of women gamers into the market. Especially going from 65%/35% to 50/50 with women gamers overall increasing but proportionately fewer women to men playing the Sims. It doesn't really make sense, especially since RF said they are reaching out to women gamers. If that drop is correct, then they are having the opposite effect than what they're trying for.
  • HalloMolliHalloMolli Posts: 2,720 Member
    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.

    Yeah, until you find them I can' believe you because it does not make any sense. I am sorry + I have an old gamestar magazin from 2002 (it states that those who bought TS1 were up to (!) 20% females)
    "[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."


  • ScobreScobre Posts: 20,665 Member
    edited October 2015
    Honestly I have no problem having male Simmers around. I've met quite a lot actually since I joined forums. It is really cool. Some of my favorite modders are actually male like DrChillGood and Zerbu and scumbumbo and simmythesim and TwistedMexi and Dark Gaia. Twallan was a great male modder for the Sims 3 too.
    “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
  • ArubianaCalienteArubianaCaliente Posts: 448 Member
    I love male simmers too :)
    Scobre wrote: »
    Honestly I have no problem having male Simmers around. I've met quite a lot actually since I joined forums. It is really cool. Some of my favorite modders are actually male like DrChillGood and Zerbu and scumbumbo and simmythesim and TwistedMexi and Dark Gaia.

    Please check out my Youtube channel, thanks! https://youtube.com/user/RubySimsFatale
  • ArubianaCalienteArubianaCaliente Posts: 448 Member
    edited October 2015
    I'm sorry you don't believe me, but that's well within your rights. Truce?

    Edited here's an article that states in March 2002 over 50% of new Sims players are female, was revolutionary. It's not one of the gushy articles I remember though. But it does show how women were the majority for years.

    Quote:"Reaction to The Sims by both customers and critics have exceeded our most ambitious expectations," said EA president John Riccitiello. "The Sims has become a cultural phenomenon. Its worldwide appeal spans hard-core gamers, casual computer users, and even gaming's most elusive group of consumers, women. Over 50 percent of new Sims players are female."

    Link: gamespot.com/articles/the-sims-overtakes-myst/1100-2857556/
    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.

    Yeah, until you find them I can' believe you because it does not make any sense. I am sorry + I have an old gamestar magazin from 2002 (it states that those who bought TS1 were up to (!) 20% females)
    Post edited by ArubianaCaliente on
    Please check out my Youtube channel, thanks! https://youtube.com/user/RubySimsFatale
  • FelicityFelicity Posts: 4,979 Member
    Scobre wrote: »
    Honestly I have no problem having male Simmers around. I've met quite a lot actually since I joined forums. It is really cool. Some of my favorite modders are actually male like DrChillGood and Zerbu and scumbumbo and simmythesim and TwistedMexi and Dark Gaia. Twallan was a great male modder for the Sims 3 too.

    Oh, don't forget pescado and buzzler and (I believe) shimrod. I think male simmers have played a much larger role than what was believed by the devs in the early-to-mid 2000s. Heh, it wouldn't be the first time they got all that wrong.
  • ScobreScobre Posts: 20,665 Member
    ejoslin wrote: »
    Scobre wrote: »
    Honestly I have no problem having male Simmers around. I've met quite a lot actually since I joined forums. It is really cool. Some of my favorite modders are actually male like DrChillGood and Zerbu and scumbumbo and simmythesim and TwistedMexi and Dark Gaia. Twallan was a great male modder for the Sims 3 too.

    Oh, don't forget pescado and buzzler and (I believe) shimrod. I think male simmers have played a much larger role than what was believed by the devs in the early-to-mid 2000s. Heh, it wouldn't be the first time they got all that wrong.
    Yep they are great modders too. I think so too. I mean honestly where would the Sims games be without all these great male Simmers? It is very important having them around. lumialoversims is actually one of my favorite CC artists for the Sims 4 and he's male too. He's made so many great male hairstyles.
    “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
  • GoldmoldarGoldmoldar Posts: 11,966 Member
    edited October 2015
    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.


    Edited: added thoughts
    Erpe wrote: »
    Writin_Reg wrote: »
    NZsimm3r wrote: »
    Erpe wrote: »
    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 am starting to agree with your analysis because sitting back and looking at the Sims series as a whole even in the early days it did initially appeal to more females than males because males was more into fighting, strategy and hardcore gaming and if you was into hardcore gaming they hardly looked at Sims as hardcore gaming and also it had no end goal. However, over time more males got into it especially those that are not into gaming. I played Sims 1 and Sims 2 for the first time in 2007 and I was hooked couldn't put the game down and even though I thought Sims 2 had too many loading screens I still loved it and think very fondly of Sims 2. Sims 1 was great back in it's time but it had it's drawbacks but the EPs was outstanding.
    Omen by HP Intel®️ Core™️ i9- 12900K W/ RGB Liquid Cooler 32GB Nvidia RTX 3080 10Gb ASUS Ultra-Wide 34" Curved Monitor. Omen By HP Intel® Core™ i7-12800HX 32 GB Nvidia 3070 Ti 8 GB 17.3 Screen
  • ArubianaCalienteArubianaCaliente Posts: 448 Member
    edited October 2015
    Thanks for considering seeing my viewpoint. I'm not trying to deny that guys enjoy the game. I was just trying to say that The Sims is a bit of an anomaly because for the most part, the majority of players have been female, particularly adult females. :)

    Typo

    Goldmoldar wrote: »
    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.


    Edited: added thoughts
    Erpe wrote: »
    Writin_Reg wrote: »
    NZsimm3r wrote: »
    Erpe wrote: »
    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 am starting to agree with your analysis because sitting back and looking at the Sims series as a whole even in the early days it did initially appeal to more females than males because males was more into fighting, strategy and hardcore gaming and if you was into hardcore gaming they hardly looked at Sims as hardcore gaming and also it had no end goal. However, over time more males got into it especially those that are not into gaming. I played Sims 1 and Sims 2 for the first time in 2007 and I was hooked couldn't put the game down and even though I thought Sims 2 had too many loading screens I still loved it and think very fondly of Sims 2. Sims 1 was great back it's time but it had it's drawbacks but the EPs was outstanding.
    Please check out my Youtube channel, thanks! https://youtube.com/user/RubySimsFatale
  • HappySimmer3HappySimmer3 Posts: 6,699 Member
    edited October 2015
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).
    The Sims 30695923002_cffaca4078_t.jpg

    Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
  • ArubianaCalienteArubianaCaliente Posts: 448 Member
    edited October 2015
    Thank you! :) I kinda think EA/Maxis tried to force a demographic expansion too quickly. My guess is had they been more gradual it wouldn't have been so jarring to players who have supported the series for years.

    Edited: Typos
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).
    Please check out my Youtube channel, thanks! https://youtube.com/user/RubySimsFatale
  • TheSingingSimmerTheSingingSimmer Posts: 3,348 Member
    edited October 2015
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).

    If that's true that they are marketing to that male age group then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.
    Post edited by TheSingingSimmer on
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    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.

    Edited added thoughts
    ejoslin wrote: »
    Shadoza2 wrote: »
    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.
    I think that the Sims 1 was the game that caught the interest from girls and women for PC games. Before that gamers were nearly all males. But as time goes gaming is less and less dominates by males - even though I still think that many games are - especially games like the shooters from Valve - but probably also still many hardcore sports games (like boxing simulators).

    I don't think that many boys would even admit it if they played a game like TS1 which other boys saw as a virtual dollhouse game only for girls. But things changes and the Sims games are probably today seen just as games for everybody.
  • Shadoza2Shadoza2 Posts: 1,579 Member
    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."

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/gaming-no-longer-a-mans-world-1408464249

    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.

    To say that a single gender caused a game to be successful is a mistake.
    I have played sims for over 15 years, no one asked my gender or my age.
  • Shadoza2Shadoza2 Posts: 1,579 Member
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.

    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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 have been playing video games since the late 80's. I do not believe that female gamers is new even in 2000. I think that people may have started looking at demographics a certain time.
  • ScobreScobre Posts: 20,665 Member
    I do know my brother loved the Sims 1 and 2. He doesn't care for the Sims 3 or 4. My sister loved the Sims 3 and doesn't care for the Sims 4. So it is interesting even my own household finding out we all have our own Sim preferences. But his favorite is still the first Sims game. So yes some guys did play and enjoy the first game. There are actually quite a lot of guys at MTS that have played the first game. I don't know I guess not being on the Sims forums for so many years I still managed to find quite a lot of male Sims players. I still count Gurus as players too so there seems to be quite a lot of them that enjoy playing the games too. Sadly a Maxoid friend said he stopped playing when he stopped working on the game. I tried to get him and his fiancée to play Game Time but nope. I do often wonder how many ex Maxis employees still play the Sims though. I did manage to get a friend to buy some Sims 3 packs though. She had no idea there were unicorns and fairies in a couple of the packs. So that was pretty exciting. It has been pretty cool having family and friends that have played the Sims though. It is generally hard to find games we all like sometimes.
    “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
  • HappySimmer3HappySimmer3 Posts: 6,699 Member
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).

    If that's true that they are marketing to that male then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.

    I totally understand. Everyone is different and different things appeal to different people. But when it comes to making and marketing a game, they usually have a target audience, who they believe are interested in specific things. There are always exceptions.

    I honestly believe that this game would not have become the best-selling game that it was (at least in the past) if it only had the traditional male gaming audience as fans. In that sense, it was women who made the game successful, and many of those women (including me) are not 'gamers' at all. (And of course I am sure there are men who never played a video game before the Sims either, but they are not a majority of the simmers that I am describing.) This is what I think @ArubianaCaliente is talking about, but obviously she's capable of speaking for herself, and as the links and quotes she provided show, there have also been many statements by EA and it's employees that the dominant audience for this game are women.

    It would be nice if we had exact numbers showing the gender breakdown of the series over time, but we don't. All we can see now is that EA are not catering to it's traditional fan base, and guess at who they are targeting by observing the game itself as well as their marketing for this game.
    The Sims 30695923002_cffaca4078_t.jpg

    Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
  • ArubianaCalienteArubianaCaliente Posts: 448 Member
    Thank you @HappySimmer3.

    All I'm trying to show is that traditionally, even as recently as TS3, the core audience for the series has been female. I think people are taking what I'm saying to mean that males don't play the game or enjoy it, or that The Sims is was/designed as a "girl" game which none of which is true. It is true that The Sims huge success is due to the fact the game captured the interest in women in a huge way which had really never been done until that point.


    I believe that EA in recent years probably noticed a shift in the gender split among their fans and wanted to bring even more males in, I suspect that is why TS4 is so different in some ways. I also think EA wanted to widen the TS4 demographic age-wise too. I feel that EA's ad and PR firms did a terrible job of preparing the fanbase for changes, and that EA's dev team did a subpar job implementing those changes.

    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).

    If that's true that they are marketing to that male then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.

    I totally understand. Everyone is different and different things appeal to different people. But when it comes to making and marketing a game, they usually have a target audience, who they believe are interested in specific things. There are always exceptions.

    I honestly believe that this game would not have become the best-selling game that it was (at least in the past) if it only had the traditional male gaming audience as fans. In that sense, it was women who made the game successful, and many of those women (including me) are not 'gamers' at all. (And of course I am sure there are men who never played a video game before the Sims either, but they are not a majority of the simmers that I am describing.) This is what I think @ArubianaCaliente is talking about, but obviously she's capable of speaking for herself, and as the links and quotes she provided show, there have also been many statements by EA and it's employees that the dominant audience for this game are women.

    It would be nice if we had exact numbers showing the gender breakdown of the series over time, but we don't. All we can see now is that EA are not catering to it's traditional fan base, and guess at who they are targeting by observing the game itself as well as their marketing for this game.
    Please check out my Youtube channel, thanks! https://youtube.com/user/RubySimsFatale
  • KarritzKarritz Posts: 21,908 Member
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).

    If that's true that they are marketing to that male then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.

    I think they were of the opinion that most of the 'hard core' Sims fans would buy the game and everything they made for it regardless and therefore they could be ignored while EA tried to attract additional players.

    I got this impression at the beginning when Gurus were saying things like 'you have to learn to like the game the way we decided to make you play it'. A lot of the 'hard core' fans then tried the game, didn't like the way it was changed and responded with a very definite 'NO we don't'.
  • ErpeErpe Posts: 5,872 Member
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).

    If that's true that they are marketing to that male then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.
    If you are a male teen and have been in this forum a long time then you are not in the most likely target group. EA doesn't care too much about people in this forum because we are likely to buy the new Sims games no matter what.

    Therefore EA instead target the new Sims games to very young teens (and maybe even preteens too even though EA would never admit it) who haven't played the previous Sims games. If EA can get those young teens interested enough to buy the games then EA is surely very satisfied with their marketing campaign.
  • ArlettaArletta Posts: 8,444 Member
    edited October 2015
    Karritz wrote: »
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).

    If that's true that they are marketing to that male then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.

    I think they were of the opinion that most of the 'hard core' Sims fans would buy the game and everything they made for it regardless and therefore they could be ignored while EA tried to attract additional players.

    I got this impression at the beginning when Gurus were saying things like 'you have to learn to like the game the way we decided to make you play it'. A lot of the 'hard core' fans then tried the game, didn't like the way it was changed and responded with a very definite 'NO we don't'.

    There was a conference call of some description before the games release. The person said it was The Sims. It would sell. Though I have no evidence of this. Their target audience is anybody who hasn't played a Sims game before who will catch the 'addiction' of buying because it's The Sims. Top and bottom.
  • sparkfairy1sparkfairy1 Posts: 11,453 Member
    Arletta wrote: »
    Karritz wrote: »
    My guess on what has happened would be: More males have joined the demographic. EA wants to capture even more. Right now they are going about it all wrong. You really can't widen your demographic by alienating your core. It seems like they haven't found the sweet spot to woo more males while keeping the female sector that has been there for years happy. I can't wait to see when they get it right, it will be legendary, and I can't wait to witness it.
    ejoslin wrote: »
    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.


    Just wanted to tell you that I understand what you've been trying to explain, and I completely agree. Yes, many men play The Sims, but there are many who don't, and I believe that EAs marketing department has been attmepting to attract more pre/teen males to the game. That's also not to imply that there aren't females who want to play the way the males do, but neglecting a large customer base who always played the game differently is not going to make the game successful.

    For some reason that I can't fathom, other than maybe their marketing research department isn't very good at what they do, I think they felt like they figured out the essence of the game and were surprised that not everyone loved it. They really should have figured out who their core fans were and tried to please them first. Instead they have pleased a relatively small audience that perhaps is 50% male (although truthfully I find it difficult to believe much of anything they say).

    If that's true that they are marketing to that male then it's not working. At least for me it isn't. I'm a male teenager and I do not like the way they are currently treating this game at all.

    I think they were of the opinion that most of the 'hard core' Sims fans would buy the game and everything they made for it regardless and therefore they could be ignored while EA tried to attract additional players.

    I got this impression at the beginning when Gurus were saying things like 'you have to learn to like the game the way we decided to make you play it'. A lot of the 'hard core' fans then tried the game, didn't like the way it was changed and responded with a very definite 'NO we don't'.

    There was a conference call of some description before the games release. The person said it was The Sims. It would sell. Though I have no evidence of this. Their target audience is anybody who hasn't played a Sims game before who will catch the 'addiction' of buying because it's The Sims. Top and bottom.

    Yeah I saw that too. I'll try to seek out a source later.

    I think they've been surprised at the amount of customers who are holding them to their own standards. Being a sims fan doesn't mean we don't have standards for the sims products.
  • phoebebebe13phoebebebe13 Posts: 19,400 Member
    edited October 2015
    Writin_Reg wrote: »
    Erpe wrote: »
    Erpe wrote: »
    Scobre wrote: »
    Writin_Reg wrote: »
    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.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3InOsBaenA

    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.

    Not 16 gb the game recommends 8 gb ram for FO4 http://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-4-system-requirements-released/

    and agree about 32 bit and ts4. We see very very few people in the tech threads that have 32 bit.
    Post edited by phoebebebe13 on
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