I also would have no problem paying 100 or even 200 for an outstanding 64byte game. It would be totally worth it for a rich base game.
I'd have to disagree with these sentiments. Games are plenty expensive these days. If I recall correctly EA's revenue for 2014 was something like 1.5 billion dollars. The idea that these companies just aren't bringing in enough money to justify making quality games is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
EA's financial year starts April 1 and ends March 31. We are now in EA's financial year 2016 which began April 1 2015.
So financial year 2015 covered most of 2014 and the start of 2015. EA's revenue was $4.319 billion. But with 8400 employees to pay EA's income of course was much lower. So EA's net income was only $806 million.
But the idea that EA could just use all this money on our favorite games and not care about profit isn't realistic at all because if this was EA's attitude then EA wouldn't exist for very long time. Instead EA would just go bankruptcy or be bought by somebody else just as most other game companies have been.
EA also lost a lot of money under the financial crisis and therefore now only have 8400 employees while they earlier had about 10,500 employees. So about 2000 employees have lost their jobs because EA's economy was in crisis.
If we really could get bigger games by paying a little more then I wouldn't mind doing it. But we can't because game prices depend on the customers' economy. If EA made their games bigger and more expensive then a lot of EA's customers would decide that the games now had become too expensive for them to buy. So sales number would go drastically down. The current prices are calculated to be the optimal for the game companies if they want their income to be maximal. Lower prices wouldn't increase the sales numbers enough to be profitable and higher prices would decrease sales numbers too much to be profitable too.
In the USA, companies charge what ever the market will bare. If we pay $80, gaming companies will charge that much. If sales drop, then the amount the gaming company charges will drop. Most companies have a set profit margin for pricing of products and services. That margin will only go down if the number of sales goes down (that is the company will only reduce their margin requirements.)
Downsizing is not necessarily a financial crisis. Markets change from year to year. Some companies become more efficient and do not need as many employees; others change the business model and release those employees who had jobs in places that are no longer needed.
Along with employees to pay, and the usually debt, EA must also pay out dividends. Stockholders enjoy increases in market values, but they want to see dividends paid out to them when the business is doing well.
We taught the business students about the difference between total elasticity and no elasticity at all. For some kinds of goods you can raise the price without any significant drop in demands. For other kinds of goods the demands will drop about 100% even if you raise the price by the smallest amount because then people will be able to buy the same product cheaper at a nearby competitor.
So companies should make as precise market investigations as possible to be able to decide the optimal prices for their products. Very small businesses don't always do that. But big companies like EA know how important such market investigations are. So they always do them.
I disagree. No amount of market research can prepare a producer for the actual response of the consumer. In most parts of the USA, an increase in price of an item does not always equal a reduction in demand. The cost of smart phones is very high even though there are lower-cost options.
Marketing strategy is dependent on economy and culture. Most USA companies know what the base market value of a product is and adjusts it for their region. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is used in the USA as a base margin of profit; however, because income changes from state-to-state or even amongst communities, the MSRP changes. The price is also changed by cost of warehousing. A company with more traffic can charge a lower price because they can purchase or produce in bulk and turn over that bulk rather quickly. A smaller company with less traffic will have to purchase or produce a smaller number or face warehousing costs. EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4 game because one does not need to warehouse digital copies. However, digital copies comes with the costs of maintaining servers which is the virtual version of warehousing.
"EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4"
Maybe. But why should they?
Goods from big professional manufacturers are never priced as low as they theoretical could be unless the company has hard competition from other manufacturers! If you have something you want to sell then maybe you could just give it away for nothing. Or you could sell it for the lowest price people would buy it for. But would you really do that instead of just selling it for the highest price that somebody would pay?
Marketing investigations are done all the time. I am very often contacted by phone from a market investigation company who just want to ask me a few questions about my job, age and which products I use. The types of products they ask about differ depending on which company they are doing the investigation for. There are also all kinds of spying software on webpages who also collect statistics. I am sure that EA uses such things too.
Why you ask?
Because according to themselves They released the game unfinished. They encouraged people to buy by making all sorts of promises they are yet to deliver. They acknowledged this game had issues and they encouraged people to buy by asking for goodwill. They then turned round once people bought to try to make out the people who gave them the benefit of the doubt were unreasonable to expect those improvements they promised.
If they didn't want their long term customers why on earth would they do such a thing to retain them?! Why would they promise things they had no intention of delivering? I think because they expected goodwill to keep coming. They kept hanging hope out-when bad news emerged they would release something, anything, to try to retain that goodwill. They thought we would all continue buying against hope. They thought they could use some funding from the new content to make small improvements to claim they were listening. Then when simmers started saying hang on a minute, where are the improvements before I hand over more money that compromised that plan. So the improvements started to become smaller in scope and took longer. And why 'big jobs' like the toddlers they promised to keep preorders have slipped into excuses why they aren't forthcoming.
Bottom line-TS4 was acknowledged as unfinished. They said so themselves. Going against what Andrew Wilson promised-when he said EA would absolutely not be releasing unfinished games. And despite all the excuses people know the base was unfinished because those in charge admitted it pre release.
You and others have had to explain this over and over to same person about charging a AAA price for an unfinished game that does not deserve an AAA title which EA promised to complete. Unfortunately I think is a lost cause trying to explain
Yes games should be free to play or even better: We should be paid for playing them
And how do you think anyone could afford to produce games for people to play if they had to pay people to play them?
I also would have no problem paying 100 or even 200 for an outstanding 64byte game. It would be totally worth it for a rich base game.
I'd have to disagree with these sentiments. Games are plenty expensive these days. If I recall correctly EA's revenue for 2014 was something like 1.5 billion dollars. The idea that these companies just aren't bringing in enough money to justify making quality games is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
EA's financial year starts April 1 and ends March 31. We are now in EA's financial year 2016 which began April 1 2015.
So financial year 2015 covered most of 2014 and the start of 2015. EA's revenue was $4.319 billion. But with 8400 employees to pay EA's income of course was much lower. So EA's net income was only $806 million.
But the idea that EA could just use all this money on our favorite games and not care about profit isn't realistic at all because if this was EA's attitude then EA wouldn't exist for very long time. Instead EA would just go bankruptcy or be bought by somebody else just as most other game companies have been.
EA also lost a lot of money under the financial crisis and therefore now only have 8400 employees while they earlier had about 10,500 employees. So about 2000 employees have lost their jobs because EA's economy was in crisis.
If we really could get bigger games by paying a little more then I wouldn't mind doing it. But we can't because game prices depend on the customers' economy. If EA made their games bigger and more expensive then a lot of EA's customers would decide that the games now had become too expensive for them to buy. So sales number would go drastically down. The current prices are calculated to be the optimal for the game companies if they want their income to be maximal. Lower prices wouldn't increase the sales numbers enough to be profitable and higher prices would decrease sales numbers too much to be profitable too.
In the USA, companies charge what ever the market will bare. If we pay $80, gaming companies will charge that much. If sales drop, then the amount the gaming company charges will drop. Most companies have a set profit margin for pricing of products and services. That margin will only go down if the number of sales goes down (that is the company will only reduce their margin requirements.)
Downsizing is not necessarily a financial crisis. Markets change from year to year. Some companies become more efficient and do not need as many employees; others change the business model and release those employees who had jobs in places that are no longer needed.
Along with employees to pay, and the usually debt, EA must also pay out dividends. Stockholders enjoy increases in market values, but they want to see dividends paid out to them when the business is doing well.
We taught the business students about the difference between total elasticity and no elasticity at all. For some kinds of goods you can raise the price without any significant drop in demands. For other kinds of goods the demands will drop about 100% even if you raise the price by the smallest amount because then people will be able to buy the same product cheaper at a nearby competitor.
So companies should make as precise market investigations as possible to be able to decide the optimal prices for their products. Very small businesses don't always do that. But big companies like EA know how important such market investigations are. So they always do them.
I disagree. No amount of market research can prepare a producer for the actual response of the consumer. In most parts of the USA, an increase in price of an item does not always equal a reduction in demand. The cost of smart phones is very high even though there are lower-cost options.
Marketing strategy is dependent on economy and culture. Most USA companies know what the base market value of a product is and adjusts it for their region. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is used in the USA as a base margin of profit; however, because income changes from state-to-state or even amongst communities, the MSRP changes. The price is also changed by cost of warehousing. A company with more traffic can charge a lower price because they can purchase or produce in bulk and turn over that bulk rather quickly. A smaller company with less traffic will have to purchase or produce a smaller number or face warehousing costs. EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4 game because one does not need to warehouse digital copies. However, digital copies comes with the costs of maintaining servers which is the virtual version of warehousing.
"EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4"
Maybe. But why should they?
Goods from big professional manufacturers are never priced as low as they theoretical could be unless the company has hard competition from other manufacturers! If you have something you want to sell then maybe you could just give it away for nothing. Or you could sell it for the lowest price people would buy it for. But would you really do that instead of just selling it for the highest price that somebody would pay?
Marketing investigations are done all the time. I am very often contacted by phone from a market investigation company who just want to ask me a few questions about my job, age and which products I use. The types of products they ask about differ depending on which company they are doing the investigation for. There are also all kinds of spying software on webpages who also collect statistics. I am sure that EA uses such things too.
Why you ask?
Because according to themselves They released the game unfinished. They encouraged people to buy by making all sorts of promises they are yet to deliver. They acknowledged this game had issues and they encouraged people to buy by asking for goodwill. They then turned round once people bought to try to make out the people who gave them the benefit of the doubt were unreasonable to expect those improvements they promised.
If they didn't want their long term customers why on earth would they do such a thing to retain them?! Why would they promise things they had no intention of delivering? I think because they expected goodwill to keep coming. They kept hanging hope out-when bad news emerged they would release something, anything, to try to retain that goodwill. They thought we would all continue buying against hope. They thought they could use some funding from the new content to make small improvements to claim they were listening. Then when simmers started saying hang on a minute, where are the improvements before I hand over more money that compromised that plan. So the improvements started to become smaller in scope and took longer. And why 'big jobs' like the toddlers they promised to keep preorders have slipped into excuses why they aren't forthcoming.
Bottom line-TS4 was acknowledged as unfinished. They said so themselves. Going against what Andrew Wilson promised-when he said EA would absolutely not be releasing unfinished games. And despite all the excuses people know the base was unfinished because those in charge admitted it pre release.
You and others have had to explain this over and over to same person about charging a AAA price for an unfinished game that does not deserve an AAA title which EA promised to complete. Unfortunately I think is a lost cause trying to explain
Yes games should be free to play or even better: We should be paid for playing them
And how do you think anyone could afford to produce games for people to play if they had to pay people to play them?
We can all dream about free and perfect games
My point was that people think that games which aren't perfect should be sold for half price. But do such people also think that EA should pay their employees at most half of the employees' normal wages if the employees don't make perfect games?
I feel like I have entered into the Twilight Zone. You are right kremesch. Pointless to make sense of backwards logic. I have never felt so offended as with this thread in countless ways. Makes me glad I got taught better businesses practices in school.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Let's use the words quoted in context, please. "EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4 game because one does not need to warehouse digital copies. However, digital copies comes with the costs of maintaining servers which is the virtual version of warehousing."
What you are calling marketing investigations is called surveys in the USA. Everyone does them. The information is used for more than marketing; it creates what is called a demographic database which is sold to other companies for the purpose of marketing a product to the target audience. Could the 'spying software' you are referring to be 'cookies?' or are you considering 'Malware' or 'Spyware' both of which are stopped fast by a good security software.
I think that is what annoys me most about the Sims 4 is how tied it is to online servers and Origin. I don't like having the game feel like it is spying on me tracking how many times I woohoo or kill my Sims. I felt like the game was spying on me too much with the Sims 3 and the telemetry is even worst in the Sims 4.
Plus it is like what happens when those servers shut down and Origin is gone? Will Simmers still be able to play the Sims 4? I'm not sure, but the game does feel like it is going to be very short-term at the rate it is going. Basically what we got told is that the Sims 4 will continue to be develop until it doesn't make sense anymore, so the project can be pulled at any time. It seems like a very rocky and unsteady game to me.
I don't see any reason to fear that TS4 can't be played anymore when the servers shut down because TS4 can already be played offline.
But more and more games become real online games and such games usually don't have an offline mode. So they can't be played anymore when the servers are shut down because the game doesn't give the company enough income anymore to maintain the servers. I don't like that very much either. But there is nothing we can do about it if people prefer online social games and won't pay enough for single player offline games anymore.
I don't see any reason to fear that TS4 can't be played anymore when the servers shut down because TS4 can already be played offline.
But more and more games become real online games and such games usually don't have an offline mode. So they can't be played anymore when the servers are shut down because the game doesn't give the company enough income anymore to maintain the servers. I don't like that very much either. But there is nothing we can do about it if people prefer online social games and won't pay enough for single player offline games anymore.
Only partially. Gallery is tied to it and the telemetry relies on it. Plus you can't install patches without going online. It isn't a truly an offline game. It depends on the Origin launcher to run it. So it might have to be ported to a different launcher if Origin goes away kind of what happened with the Sims 2 UC and SecuRom. I did ask SimGuruDaniel about it. He said game would still be ok with the engine but yes the Sims 4 does require being online to install it. I think that aspect alone alienates a huge portion of Simmers that don't have steady internet connections. It has been kind of annoying the modding community with the monthly patches too. Basically the Sims 4 can't run without Origin and Simmers have found that data sharing goes on even with offline mode. So is offline truly offline? I guess only sure thing to do is to play with the wifi off.
The digital only is actually alienating some international Simmers right now. I feel bad because one Simmer can't buy the digital packs in their country. There really needs to be a gifting option like the Sims 3 for the Sims 4. Of course there wouldn't be that problem if the packs were tangible instead too. The games would actually be sold in stores in their countries.
I did buy the Sims 4 half off and digital and I regret it. I wish I had bought the disk instead, but I heard it isn't much different.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
@Scobre If EA should stop the server I am sure that they will make a patch which removes the need to be online just to install the game because I have seen other companies do this. It is so easy and fast to do that I am sure that even EA will do it.
Edit: The reason why companies do this is that it doesn't cost them anything. But it motivates a few more customers to also buy their next game. So why shouldn't they do it?
My point was that people think that games which aren't perfect should be sold for half price. But do such people also think that EA should pay their employees at most half of the employees' normal wages if the employees don't make perfect games?
But Sims 4 has been sold at half price or less EVERY SINGLE MONTH since it was released. So they are doing that anyway.
And why do they need so many employee's anyway, when they produce a sub-par game with so much missing. Prison Architect has released and is selling and I think it only took 2 people and was completed in 4 years. City Skylines was made and created by 18 and it's sales are doing well.
I'm a female gamer that owned a Commodore 64, and my family was poor. My mother was a person who worked full time in the 1960's and started working at 12. I know no women who could afford to stay at home, but knew several kids who had computers and gaming systems at home.
I can remember when EA was created - Electronics Artists - mission statement - to put developers and game creators in the front seat. When did the mission statement change to shareholders and making profits, or to putting out rushed, half-finished broken games and trying to rip off consumers? Originally EA was well regarded by many, now their a joke on the internet and holder of the worst company award. The original EA saved Maxis who was in trouble, they took the time to put their trust in strange game (sims 1) that nobody could understand. Now EA is famous for holding back content, over-expensive games, overprice expansions and a shedload of DLC.
PS - For a really good understanding about why Simcity has changed (and failed) and how this relates to the sims, see the video from Erant Signal who has a 2 part over the issue. He has some intresting things to say about goals, assets and mobile based play. Reminds me a lot of why I'm alergic to Sims 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUhuCMw7nnk
SIMS 3:YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THE SIMS LIKE THIS BEFORE! This #1 bestselling award-winner* is better than ever on iPhone and iPod. Contains direct links to the Internet; Collects data though third party ad serving analytics technology. EA may retire online features and services after 30 days’ notice.
I also would have no problem paying 100 or even 200 for an outstanding 64byte game. It would be totally worth it for a rich base game.
I'd have to disagree with these sentiments. Games are plenty expensive these days. If I recall correctly EA's revenue for 2014 was something like 1.5 billion dollars. The idea that these companies just aren't bringing in enough money to justify making quality games is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
EA's financial year starts April 1 and ends March 31. We are now in EA's financial year 2016 which began April 1 2015.
So financial year 2015 covered most of 2014 and the start of 2015. EA's revenue was $4.319 billion. But with 8400 employees to pay EA's income of course was much lower. So EA's net income was only $806 million.
But the idea that EA could just use all this money on our favorite games and not care about profit isn't realistic at all because if this was EA's attitude then EA wouldn't exist for very long time. Instead EA would just go bankruptcy or be bought by somebody else just as most other game companies have been.
EA also lost a lot of money under the financial crisis and therefore now only have 8400 employees while they earlier had about 10,500 employees. So about 2000 employees have lost their jobs because EA's economy was in crisis.
If we really could get bigger games by paying a little more then I wouldn't mind doing it. But we can't because game prices depend on the customers' economy. If EA made their games bigger and more expensive then a lot of EA's customers would decide that the games now had become too expensive for them to buy. So sales number would go drastically down. The current prices are calculated to be the optimal for the game companies if they want their income to be maximal. Lower prices wouldn't increase the sales numbers enough to be profitable and higher prices would decrease sales numbers too much to be profitable too.
In the USA, companies charge what ever the market will bare. If we pay $80, gaming companies will charge that much. If sales drop, then the amount the gaming company charges will drop. Most companies have a set profit margin for pricing of products and services. That margin will only go down if the number of sales goes down (that is the company will only reduce their margin requirements.)
Downsizing is not necessarily a financial crisis. Markets change from year to year. Some companies become more efficient and do not need as many employees; others change the business model and release those employees who had jobs in places that are no longer needed.
Along with employees to pay, and the usually debt, EA must also pay out dividends. Stockholders enjoy increases in market values, but they want to see dividends paid out to them when the business is doing well.
We taught the business students about the difference between total elasticity and no elasticity at all. For some kinds of goods you can raise the price without any significant drop in demands. For other kinds of goods the demands will drop about 100% even if you raise the price by the smallest amount because then people will be able to buy the same product cheaper at a nearby competitor.
So companies should make as precise market investigations as possible to be able to decide the optimal prices for their products. Very small businesses don't always do that. But big companies like EA know how important such market investigations are. So they always do them.
I disagree. No amount of market research can prepare a producer for the actual response of the consumer. In most parts of the USA, an increase in price of an item does not always equal a reduction in demand. The cost of smart phones is very high even though there are lower-cost options.
Marketing strategy is dependent on economy and culture. Most USA companies know what the base market value of a product is and adjusts it for their region. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is used in the USA as a base margin of profit; however, because income changes from state-to-state or even amongst communities, the MSRP changes. The price is also changed by cost of warehousing. A company with more traffic can charge a lower price because they can purchase or produce in bulk and turn over that bulk rather quickly. A smaller company with less traffic will have to purchase or produce a smaller number or face warehousing costs. EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4 game because one does not need to warehouse digital copies. However, digital copies comes with the costs of maintaining servers which is the virtual version of warehousing.
"EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4"
Maybe. But why should they?
Goods from big professional manufacturers are never priced as low as they theoretical could be unless the company has hard competition from other manufacturers! If you have something you want to sell then maybe you could just give it away for nothing. Or you could sell it for the lowest price people would buy it for. But would you really do that instead of just selling it for the highest price that somebody would pay?
Marketing investigations are done all the time. I am very often contacted by phone from a market investigation company who just want to ask me a few questions about my job, age and which products I use. The types of products they ask about differ depending on which company they are doing the investigation for. There are also all kinds of spying software on webpages who also collect statistics. I am sure that EA uses such things too.
Why you ask?
Because according to themselves They released the game unfinished. They encouraged people to buy by making all sorts of promises they are yet to deliver. They acknowledged this game had issues and they encouraged people to buy by asking for goodwill. They then turned round once people bought to try to make out the people who gave them the benefit of the doubt were unreasonable to expect those improvements they promised.
If they didn't want their long term customers why on earth would they do such a thing to retain them?! Why would they promise things they had no intention of delivering? I think because they expected goodwill to keep coming. They kept hanging hope out-when bad news emerged they would release something, anything, to try to retain that goodwill. They thought we would all continue buying against hope. They thought they could use some funding from the new content to make small improvements to claim they were listening. Then when simmers started saying hang on a minute, where are the improvements before I hand over more money that compromised that plan. So the improvements started to become smaller in scope and took longer. And why 'big jobs' like the toddlers they promised to keep preorders have slipped into excuses why they aren't forthcoming.
Bottom line-TS4 was acknowledged as unfinished. They said so themselves. Going against what Andrew Wilson promised-when he said EA would absolutely not be releasing unfinished games. And despite all the excuses people know the base was unfinished because those in charge admitted it pre release.
You and others have had to explain this over and over to same person about charging a AAA price for an unfinished game that does not deserve an AAA title which EA promised to complete. Unfortunately I think is a lost cause trying to explain
I only gave you an awesome because I know screams can fall on deaf ears.
I gave you an awesome back. The screams will and are continuing to fall on deaf ears as I see more responses of the same thing over and over again. Defending a company who did not deliver a complete product worth the price they charged even though the company promised to complete it just to keep sales and game pre-orders from cancelling
I also would have no problem paying 100 or even 200 for an outstanding 64byte game. It would be totally worth it for a rich base game.
I'd have to disagree with these sentiments. Games are plenty expensive these days. If I recall correctly EA's revenue for 2014 was something like 1.5 billion dollars. The idea that these companies just aren't bringing in enough money to justify making quality games is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
EA's financial year starts April 1 and ends March 31. We are now in EA's financial year 2016 which began April 1 2015.
So financial year 2015 covered most of 2014 and the start of 2015. EA's revenue was $4.319 billion. But with 8400 employees to pay EA's income of course was much lower. So EA's net income was only $806 million.
But the idea that EA could just use all this money on our favorite games and not care about profit isn't realistic at all because if this was EA's attitude then EA wouldn't exist for very long time. Instead EA would just go bankruptcy or be bought by somebody else just as most other game companies have been.
EA also lost a lot of money under the financial crisis and therefore now only have 8400 employees while they earlier had about 10,500 employees. So about 2000 employees have lost their jobs because EA's economy was in crisis.
If we really could get bigger games by paying a little more then I wouldn't mind doing it. But we can't because game prices depend on the customers' economy. If EA made their games bigger and more expensive then a lot of EA's customers would decide that the games now had become too expensive for them to buy. So sales number would go drastically down. The current prices are calculated to be the optimal for the game companies if they want their income to be maximal. Lower prices wouldn't increase the sales numbers enough to be profitable and higher prices would decrease sales numbers too much to be profitable too.
In the USA, companies charge what ever the market will bare. If we pay $80, gaming companies will charge that much. If sales drop, then the amount the gaming company charges will drop. Most companies have a set profit margin for pricing of products and services. That margin will only go down if the number of sales goes down (that is the company will only reduce their margin requirements.)
Downsizing is not necessarily a financial crisis. Markets change from year to year. Some companies become more efficient and do not need as many employees; others change the business model and release those employees who had jobs in places that are no longer needed.
Along with employees to pay, and the usually debt, EA must also pay out dividends. Stockholders enjoy increases in market values, but they want to see dividends paid out to them when the business is doing well.
We taught the business students about the difference between total elasticity and no elasticity at all. For some kinds of goods you can raise the price without any significant drop in demands. For other kinds of goods the demands will drop about 100% even if you raise the price by the smallest amount because then people will be able to buy the same product cheaper at a nearby competitor.
So companies should make as precise market investigations as possible to be able to decide the optimal prices for their products. Very small businesses don't always do that. But big companies like EA know how important such market investigations are. So they always do them.
I disagree. No amount of market research can prepare a producer for the actual response of the consumer. In most parts of the USA, an increase in price of an item does not always equal a reduction in demand. The cost of smart phones is very high even though there are lower-cost options.
Marketing strategy is dependent on economy and culture. Most USA companies know what the base market value of a product is and adjusts it for their region. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is used in the USA as a base margin of profit; however, because income changes from state-to-state or even amongst communities, the MSRP changes. The price is also changed by cost of warehousing. A company with more traffic can charge a lower price because they can purchase or produce in bulk and turn over that bulk rather quickly. A smaller company with less traffic will have to purchase or produce a smaller number or face warehousing costs. EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4 game because one does not need to warehouse digital copies. However, digital copies comes with the costs of maintaining servers which is the virtual version of warehousing.
"EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4"
Maybe. But why should they?
Goods from big professional manufacturers are never priced as low as they theoretical could be unless the company has hard competition from other manufacturers! If you have something you want to sell then maybe you could just give it away for nothing. Or you could sell it for the lowest price people would buy it for. But would you really do that instead of just selling it for the highest price that somebody would pay?
Marketing investigations are done all the time. I am very often contacted by phone from a market investigation company who just want to ask me a few questions about my job, age and which products I use. The types of products they ask about differ depending on which company they are doing the investigation for. There are also all kinds of spying software on webpages who also collect statistics. I am sure that EA uses such things too.
Why you ask?
Because according to themselves They released the game unfinished. They encouraged people to buy by making all sorts of promises they are yet to deliver. They acknowledged this game had issues and they encouraged people to buy by asking for goodwill. They then turned round once people bought to try to make out the people who gave them the benefit of the doubt were unreasonable to expect those improvements they promised.
If they didn't want their long term customers why on earth would they do such a thing to retain them?! Why would they promise things they had no intention of delivering? I think because they expected goodwill to keep coming. They kept hanging hope out-when bad news emerged they would release something, anything, to try to retain that goodwill. They thought we would all continue buying against hope. They thought they could use some funding from the new content to make small improvements to claim they were listening. Then when simmers started saying hang on a minute, where are the improvements before I hand over more money that compromised that plan. So the improvements started to become smaller in scope and took longer. And why 'big jobs' like the toddlers they promised to keep preorders have slipped into excuses why they aren't forthcoming.
Bottom line-TS4 was acknowledged as unfinished. They said so themselves. Going against what Andrew Wilson promised-when he said EA would absolutely not be releasing unfinished games. And despite all the excuses people know the base was unfinished because those in charge admitted it pre release.
You and others have had to explain this over and over to same person about charging a AAA price for an unfinished game that does not deserve an AAA title which EA promised to complete. Unfortunately I think is a lost cause trying to explain
Yes games should be free to play or even better: We should be paid for playing them
And how do you think anyone could afford to produce games for people to play if they had to pay people to play them?
We can all dream about free and perfect games
My point was that people think that games which aren't perfect should be sold for half price. But do such people also think that EA should pay their employees at most half of the employees' normal wages if the employees don't make perfect games?
My point is that nobody knows what others are thinking.
As far as I'm concerned games that aren't finished should not be sold at any price - not even if they are free.
I also would have no problem paying 100 or even 200 for an outstanding 64byte game. It would be totally worth it for a rich base game.
I'd have to disagree with these sentiments. Games are plenty expensive these days. If I recall correctly EA's revenue for 2014 was something like 1.5 billion dollars. The idea that these companies just aren't bringing in enough money to justify making quality games is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
EA's financial year starts April 1 and ends March 31. We are now in EA's financial year 2016 which began April 1 2015.
So financial year 2015 covered most of 2014 and the start of 2015. EA's revenue was $4.319 billion. But with 8400 employees to pay EA's income of course was much lower. So EA's net income was only $806 million.
But the idea that EA could just use all this money on our favorite games and not care about profit isn't realistic at all because if this was EA's attitude then EA wouldn't exist for very long time. Instead EA would just go bankruptcy or be bought by somebody else just as most other game companies have been.
EA also lost a lot of money under the financial crisis and therefore now only have 8400 employees while they earlier had about 10,500 employees. So about 2000 employees have lost their jobs because EA's economy was in crisis.
If we really could get bigger games by paying a little more then I wouldn't mind doing it. But we can't because game prices depend on the customers' economy. If EA made their games bigger and more expensive then a lot of EA's customers would decide that the games now had become too expensive for them to buy. So sales number would go drastically down. The current prices are calculated to be the optimal for the game companies if they want their income to be maximal. Lower prices wouldn't increase the sales numbers enough to be profitable and higher prices would decrease sales numbers too much to be profitable too.
In the USA, companies charge what ever the market will bare. If we pay $80, gaming companies will charge that much. If sales drop, then the amount the gaming company charges will drop. Most companies have a set profit margin for pricing of products and services. That margin will only go down if the number of sales goes down (that is the company will only reduce their margin requirements.)
Downsizing is not necessarily a financial crisis. Markets change from year to year. Some companies become more efficient and do not need as many employees; others change the business model and release those employees who had jobs in places that are no longer needed.
Along with employees to pay, and the usually debt, EA must also pay out dividends. Stockholders enjoy increases in market values, but they want to see dividends paid out to them when the business is doing well.
We taught the business students about the difference between total elasticity and no elasticity at all. For some kinds of goods you can raise the price without any significant drop in demands. For other kinds of goods the demands will drop about 100% even if you raise the price by the smallest amount because then people will be able to buy the same product cheaper at a nearby competitor.
So companies should make as precise market investigations as possible to be able to decide the optimal prices for their products. Very small businesses don't always do that. But big companies like EA know how important such market investigations are. So they always do them.
I disagree. No amount of market research can prepare a producer for the actual response of the consumer. In most parts of the USA, an increase in price of an item does not always equal a reduction in demand. The cost of smart phones is very high even though there are lower-cost options.
Marketing strategy is dependent on economy and culture. Most USA companies know what the base market value of a product is and adjusts it for their region. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is used in the USA as a base margin of profit; however, because income changes from state-to-state or even amongst communities, the MSRP changes. The price is also changed by cost of warehousing. A company with more traffic can charge a lower price because they can purchase or produce in bulk and turn over that bulk rather quickly. A smaller company with less traffic will have to purchase or produce a smaller number or face warehousing costs. EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4 game because one does not need to warehouse digital copies. However, digital copies comes with the costs of maintaining servers which is the virtual version of warehousing.
"EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4"
Maybe. But why should they?
Goods from big professional manufacturers are never priced as low as they theoretical could be unless the company has hard competition from other manufacturers! If you have something you want to sell then maybe you could just give it away for nothing. Or you could sell it for the lowest price people would buy it for. But would you really do that instead of just selling it for the highest price that somebody would pay?
Marketing investigations are done all the time. I am very often contacted by phone from a market investigation company who just want to ask me a few questions about my job, age and which products I use. The types of products they ask about differ depending on which company they are doing the investigation for. There are also all kinds of spying software on webpages who also collect statistics. I am sure that EA uses such things too.
Why you ask?
Because according to themselves They released the game unfinished. They encouraged people to buy by making all sorts of promises they are yet to deliver. They acknowledged this game had issues and they encouraged people to buy by asking for goodwill. They then turned round once people bought to try to make out the people who gave them the benefit of the doubt were unreasonable to expect those improvements they promised.
If they didn't want their long term customers why on earth would they do such a thing to retain them?! Why would they promise things they had no intention of delivering? I think because they expected goodwill to keep coming. They kept hanging hope out-when bad news emerged they would release something, anything, to try to retain that goodwill. They thought we would all continue buying against hope. They thought they could use some funding from the new content to make small improvements to claim they were listening. Then when simmers started saying hang on a minute, where are the improvements before I hand over more money that compromised that plan. So the improvements started to become smaller in scope and took longer. And why 'big jobs' like the toddlers they promised to keep preorders have slipped into excuses why they aren't forthcoming.
Bottom line-TS4 was acknowledged as unfinished. They said so themselves. Going against what Andrew Wilson promised-when he said EA would absolutely not be releasing unfinished games. And despite all the excuses people know the base was unfinished because those in charge admitted it pre release.
You and others have had to explain this over and over to same person about charging a AAA price for an unfinished game that does not deserve an AAA title which EA promised to complete. Unfortunately I think is a lost cause trying to explain
Yes games should be free to play or even better: We should be paid for playing them
The irony of your comment being that you play Sims:Freeplay
I also would have no problem paying 100 or even 200 for an outstanding 64byte game. It would be totally worth it for a rich base game.
I'd have to disagree with these sentiments. Games are plenty expensive these days. If I recall correctly EA's revenue for 2014 was something like 1.5 billion dollars. The idea that these companies just aren't bringing in enough money to justify making quality games is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
EA's financial year starts April 1 and ends March 31. We are now in EA's financial year 2016 which began April 1 2015.
So financial year 2015 covered most of 2014 and the start of 2015. EA's revenue was $4.319 billion. But with 8400 employees to pay EA's income of course was much lower. So EA's net income was only $806 million.
But the idea that EA could just use all this money on our favorite games and not care about profit isn't realistic at all because if this was EA's attitude then EA wouldn't exist for very long time. Instead EA would just go bankruptcy or be bought by somebody else just as most other game companies have been.
EA also lost a lot of money under the financial crisis and therefore now only have 8400 employees while they earlier had about 10,500 employees. So about 2000 employees have lost their jobs because EA's economy was in crisis.
If we really could get bigger games by paying a little more then I wouldn't mind doing it. But we can't because game prices depend on the customers' economy. If EA made their games bigger and more expensive then a lot of EA's customers would decide that the games now had become too expensive for them to buy. So sales number would go drastically down. The current prices are calculated to be the optimal for the game companies if they want their income to be maximal. Lower prices wouldn't increase the sales numbers enough to be profitable and higher prices would decrease sales numbers too much to be profitable too.
In the USA, companies charge what ever the market will bare. If we pay $80, gaming companies will charge that much. If sales drop, then the amount the gaming company charges will drop. Most companies have a set profit margin for pricing of products and services. That margin will only go down if the number of sales goes down (that is the company will only reduce their margin requirements.)
Downsizing is not necessarily a financial crisis. Markets change from year to year. Some companies become more efficient and do not need as many employees; others change the business model and release those employees who had jobs in places that are no longer needed.
Along with employees to pay, and the usually debt, EA must also pay out dividends. Stockholders enjoy increases in market values, but they want to see dividends paid out to them when the business is doing well.
We taught the business students about the difference between total elasticity and no elasticity at all. For some kinds of goods you can raise the price without any significant drop in demands. For other kinds of goods the demands will drop about 100% even if you raise the price by the smallest amount because then people will be able to buy the same product cheaper at a nearby competitor.
So companies should make as precise market investigations as possible to be able to decide the optimal prices for their products. Very small businesses don't always do that. But big companies like EA know how important such market investigations are. So they always do them.
I disagree. No amount of market research can prepare a producer for the actual response of the consumer. In most parts of the USA, an increase in price of an item does not always equal a reduction in demand. The cost of smart phones is very high even though there are lower-cost options.
Marketing strategy is dependent on economy and culture. Most USA companies know what the base market value of a product is and adjusts it for their region. Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is used in the USA as a base margin of profit; however, because income changes from state-to-state or even amongst communities, the MSRP changes. The price is also changed by cost of warehousing. A company with more traffic can charge a lower price because they can purchase or produce in bulk and turn over that bulk rather quickly. A smaller company with less traffic will have to purchase or produce a smaller number or face warehousing costs. EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4 game because one does not need to warehouse digital copies. However, digital copies comes with the costs of maintaining servers which is the virtual version of warehousing.
"EA should be able to charge a lower price for the TS4"
Maybe. But why should they?
Goods from big professional manufacturers are never priced as low as they theoretical could be unless the company has hard competition from other manufacturers! If you have something you want to sell then maybe you could just give it away for nothing. Or you could sell it for the lowest price people would buy it for. But would you really do that instead of just selling it for the highest price that somebody would pay?
Marketing investigations are done all the time. I am very often contacted by phone from a market investigation company who just want to ask me a few questions about my job, age and which products I use. The types of products they ask about differ depending on which company they are doing the investigation for. There are also all kinds of spying software on webpages who also collect statistics. I am sure that EA uses such things too.
Why you ask?
Because according to themselves They released the game unfinished. They encouraged people to buy by making all sorts of promises they are yet to deliver. They acknowledged this game had issues and they encouraged people to buy by asking for goodwill. They then turned round once people bought to try to make out the people who gave them the benefit of the doubt were unreasonable to expect those improvements they promised.
If they didn't want their long term customers why on earth would they do such a thing to retain them?! Why would they promise things they had no intention of delivering? I think because they expected goodwill to keep coming. They kept hanging hope out-when bad news emerged they would release something, anything, to try to retain that goodwill. They thought we would all continue buying against hope. They thought they could use some funding from the new content to make small improvements to claim they were listening. Then when simmers started saying hang on a minute, where are the improvements before I hand over more money that compromised that plan. So the improvements started to become smaller in scope and took longer. And why 'big jobs' like the toddlers they promised to keep preorders have slipped into excuses why they aren't forthcoming.
Bottom line-TS4 was acknowledged as unfinished. They said so themselves. Going against what Andrew Wilson promised-when he said EA would absolutely not be releasing unfinished games. And despite all the excuses people know the base was unfinished because those in charge admitted it pre release.
You and others have had to explain this over and over to same person about charging a AAA price for an unfinished game that does not deserve an AAA title which EA promised to complete. Unfortunately I think is a lost cause trying to explain
Yes games should be free to play or even better: We should be paid for playing them
And how do you think anyone could afford to produce games for people to play if they had to pay people to play them?
We can all dream about free and perfect games
My point was that people think that games which aren't perfect should be sold for half price. But do such people also think that EA should pay their employees at most half of the employees' normal wages if the employees don't make perfect games?
My point is that nobody knows what others are thinking.
As far as I'm concerned games that aren't finished should not be sold at any price - not even if they are free.
Agree. Release date should be postponed until the game is complete and fix as many bugs as they can before release . Other companies have postponed release of a game to make sure the game meets the AAA price they are charging. GTA V was postponed a few times. The game runs really well on PC. I haven't encountered any bugs either . If there are still some bugs I haven't noticed
My point was that people think that games which aren't perfect should be sold for half price. But do such people also think that EA should pay their employees at most half of the employees' normal wages if the employees don't make perfect games?
But Sims 4 has been sold at half price or less EVERY SINGLE MONTH since it was released. So they are doing that anyway.
And why do they need so many employee's anyway, when they produce a sub-par game with so much missing. Prison Architect has released and is selling and I think it only took 2 people and was completed in 4 years. City Skylines was made and created by 18 and it's sales are doing well.
I'm a female gamer that owned a Commodore 64, and my family was poor. My mother was a person who worked full time in the 1960's and started working at 12. I know no women who could afford to stay at home, but knew several kids who had computers and gaming systems at home.
I can remember when EA was created - Electronics Artists - mission statement - to put developers and game creators in the front seat. When did the mission statement change to shareholders and making profits, or to putting out rushed, half-finished broken games and trying to rip off consumers? Originally EA was well regarded by many, now their a joke on the internet and holder of the worst company award. The original EA saved Maxis who was in trouble, they took the time to put their trust in strange game (sims 1) that nobody could understand. Now EA is famous for holding back content, over-expensive games, overprice expansions and a shedload of DLC.
PS - For a really good understanding about why Simcity has changed (and failed) and how this relates to the sims, see the video from Erant Signal who has a 2 part over the issue. He has some intresting things to say about goals, assets and mobile based play. Reminds me a lot of why I'm alergic to Sims 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUhuCMw7nnk
EA has 8400 employees. But EA is also one of the largest third party publishers in the world with sales departments in a lot of countries.
If maybe each EA game is developed by about 200 employees in average then this doesn't explain even half of the number of employees. So most of those employees must probably be occupied in sales and marketing. But they need their wages anyway.
The Sims 4 basegame is very important for EA to sell because of course people won't buy the expansions if they don't own the basegame. Games are like newspapers and magazines: The first copy cost millions of dollars to make. But the following copies have extremely low production costs compared with the first one and are nearly free to make. Therefore companies will do almost anything to sell as many copies as possible.
I couldnt agree more with this. EA/Maxis have stripped back the sims games and then expect us to pay over the odds for what they left out.
Shame on them for trying to pull that off.
After buying the sims 3 I gave it a shot,but that didnt last long,same with the sims 4 I lost all intrest in it. Back to the sims 2 for me it is.
I know it's far from ideal but at least we have something to go back to! My disappointment with Sims 4 has actually given me a new appreciation for Sims 3 and 2 will always be a game I'm happy to go back to and replay.
You know, someone working at Maxis confirmed the on line component, but said they scrapped that because the game just was not shaping up the way they liked it -- and that happened before Sim City 2013.
I agree that what EA is doing makes no sense, btw. But it won't be the first time they did something that made no sense. I think it's a combination of things. They didn't complete scrap olympus (they couldn't do that). And in the leaked screenshots, you can see a lot of similarities. The way the game is set up would make sense for an on-line game as well, so they kept a lot of the game design choices.
What I think their biggest mistake is they're underestimating their audience. Also, the RF has expressed some thoughts about animations/abuse that lead to some things being removed/changed.
When DA2 was quasi-announced, most people on the forums didn't believe that that date released could actually be for the next game as everyone there knew that there wouldn't be nearly enough time for development for a complex game. Yet that was what it was (though it got delayed a couple of months). EA was so intent on capitalizing on the popularity of Dragon Age that they seemed to think no matter what crap they shoveled out, people would buy it. And they lost a lot of goodwill doing so. They did learn their lesson, at least in BW.
My point? It wouldn't be the first time that EA totally misunderstood their audience or what made a game successful and made really bad decisions based on that misunderstanding.
I agree that the design choices were made for an online social game. The tiny 'hoods, the loading screens, the UI that looks like it was designed for touch screens. Even their emphasis on the socialization system for adults/young adults (while practically ignoring everything else) is due to this, because that's what players would be doing in an online game with their friends.
As to the second paragraph I bolded, I have to point out that there obviously is a core audience who are interested in a simpler game. Maybe you could go so far as to say they prefer a simpler game that is more cartoon-like and primarily focuses on socialization. I know I've seen some comments about how some felt TS3 was 'too big, and too overwhelming' for them.
If anything, they overestimated the size of this audience while underestimating the number of their customers who want a more complete, in-depth game full of simulated details and...yes, that "c" word - the complexity that Sims games were previously known for.
The Sims
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
You know, someone working at Maxis confirmed the on line component, but said they scrapped that because the game just was not shaping up the way they liked it -- and that happened before Sim City 2013.
I agree that what EA is doing makes no sense, btw. But it won't be the first time they did something that made no sense. I think it's a combination of things. They didn't complete scrap olympus (they couldn't do that). And in the leaked screenshots, you can see a lot of similarities. The way the game is set up would make sense for an on-line game as well, so they kept a lot of the game design choices.
What I think their biggest mistake is they're underestimating their audience. Also, the RF has expressed some thoughts about animations/abuse that lead to some things being removed/changed.
When DA2 was quasi-announced, most people on the forums didn't believe that that date released could actually be for the next game as everyone there knew that there wouldn't be nearly enough time for development for a complex game. Yet that was what it was (though it got delayed a couple of months). EA was so intent on capitalizing on the popularity of Dragon Age that they seemed to think no matter what crap they shoveled out, people would buy it. And they lost a lot of goodwill doing so. They did learn their lesson, at least in BW.
My point? It wouldn't be the first time that EA totally misunderstood their audience or what made a game successful and made really bad decisions based on that misunderstanding.
I agree that the design choices were made for an online social game. The tiny 'hoods, the loading screens, the UI that looks like it was designed for touch screens. Even their emphasis on the socialization system for adults/young adults (while practically ignoring everything else) is due to this, because that's what players would be doing in an online game with their friends.
As to the second paragraph I bolded, I have to point out that there obviously is a core audience who are interested in a simpler game. Maybe you could go so far as to say they prefer a simpler game that is more cartoon-like and primarily focuses on socialization. I know I've seen some comments about how some felt TS3 was 'too big, and too overwhelming' for them.
If anything, they overestimated the size of this audience while underestimating the number of their customers who want a more complete, in-depth game full of simulated details and...yes, that "c" word - the complexity that Sims games were previously known for.
How many actives are there in this forum? A couple of thousands?
How many copies of the Sims games are usually sold? 1-3 millions I think.
So where are all those 99% of the customers who don't visit the forums and don't seem to active anywhere else either? They are of course the most important customers for EA because they seem to be such a huge majority. Are we sure that EA didn't succeed either in giving them just the game they wanted?
My point was that people think that games which aren't perfect should be sold for half price. But do such people also think that EA should pay their employees at most half of the employees' normal wages if the employees don't make perfect games?
But Sims 4 has been sold at half price or less EVERY SINGLE MONTH since it was released. So they are doing that anyway.
And why do they need so many employee's anyway, when they produce a sub-par game with so much missing. Prison Architect has released and is selling and I think it only took 2 people and was completed in 4 years. City Skylines was made and created by 18 and it's sales are doing well.
I'm a female gamer that owned a Commodore 64, and my family was poor. My mother was a person who worked full time in the 1960's and started working at 12. I know no women who could afford to stay at home, but knew several kids who had computers and gaming systems at home.
I can remember when EA was created - Electronics Artists - mission statement - to put developers and game creators in the front seat. When did the mission statement change to shareholders and making profits, or to putting out rushed, half-finished broken games and trying to rip off consumers? Originally EA was well regarded by many, now their a joke on the internet and holder of the worst company award. The original EA saved Maxis who was in trouble, they took the time to put their trust in strange game (sims 1) that nobody could understand. Now EA is famous for holding back content, over-expensive games, overprice expansions and a shedload of DLC.
PS - For a really good understanding about why Simcity has changed (and failed) and how this relates to the sims, see the video from Erant Signal who has a 2 part over the issue. He has some intresting things to say about goals, assets and mobile based play. Reminds me a lot of why I'm alergic to Sims 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUhuCMw7nnk
Ark Survival Revolved not even finished has half a year to a year (they say summer but if it isn't ready I know they will delay it, so put a year). 40 developers working on the game( I think it is 40 too early to search their forums without my first cup of coffee completed). Open world (has rain, snow area and it snows and if you chop down a tree in the snow biome snow falls of said tree), swamp area, beach area, jungle area, forest, and a huge open world sandbox game. You rule because you can host a server, rent a server from other places, change game.ini and etc..The breeding was asked by the customers/players...and we got it.. ..They will be adding 100 + creatures to the game when they started they said 70+, but the customers/players asked for many types of dinos and mammals, so they are putting them in..
Our newest dino..just hatched this am (an hatching an egg isn't easy and takes time)
And yes the grass sways..
And I paid 30.00 dollars for this game...o.o
Paying 80 bucks for a game I expect better quality (not realism graphics I am talking a real honest to good jam gameplay game)..I expect the developers to acknowledge and listen to their customers.. And if a game is sub par and I think they know that because it is on sale all the time to delay it..They had 15 years of actual data from their customers..If they have a large base (not saying majority)of simmers angry or even customers of other games they should listen to the outrage and figure out why and do something about it. If an indie game can do it, Rockstar, Assassin Creed..so can they for 80 bucks they charge for deluxe or just the original base.. and it should not be so barebone to begin with..
I love the previous version, this is the first time I can actually say this game (sims 4) is poop and show lack of love of the series..
You know, someone working at Maxis confirmed the on line component, but said they scrapped that because the game just was not shaping up the way they liked it -- and that happened before Sim City 2013.
I agree that what EA is doing makes no sense, btw. But it won't be the first time they did something that made no sense. I think it's a combination of things. They didn't complete scrap olympus (they couldn't do that). And in the leaked screenshots, you can see a lot of similarities. The way the game is set up would make sense for an on-line game as well, so they kept a lot of the game design choices.
What I think their biggest mistake is they're underestimating their audience. Also, the RF has expressed some thoughts about animations/abuse that lead to some things being removed/changed.
When DA2 was quasi-announced, most people on the forums didn't believe that that date released could actually be for the next game as everyone there knew that there wouldn't be nearly enough time for development for a complex game. Yet that was what it was (though it got delayed a couple of months). EA was so intent on capitalizing on the popularity of Dragon Age that they seemed to think no matter what crap they shoveled out, people would buy it. And they lost a lot of goodwill doing so. They did learn their lesson, at least in BW.
My point? It wouldn't be the first time that EA totally misunderstood their audience or what made a game successful and made really bad decisions based on that misunderstanding.
I agree that the design choices were made for an online social game. The tiny 'hoods, the loading screens, the UI that looks like it was designed for touch screens. Even their emphasis on the socialization system for adults/young adults (while practically ignoring everything else) is due to this, because that's what players would be doing in an online game with their friends.
As to the second paragraph I bolded, I have to point out that there obviously is a core audience who are interested in a simpler game. Maybe you could go so far as to say they prefer a simpler game that is more cartoon-like and primarily focuses on socialization. I know I've seen some comments about how some felt TS3 was 'too big, and too overwhelming' for them.
If anything, they overestimated the size of this audience while underestimating the number of their customers who want a more complete, in-depth game full of simulated details and...yes, that "c" word - the complexity that Sims games were previously known for.
How many actives are there in this forum? A couple of thousands?
How many copies of the Sims games are usually sold? 1-3 millions I think.
So where are all those 99% of the customers who don't visit the forums and don't seem to active anywhere else either? They are of course the most important customers for EA because they seem to be such a huge majority. Are we sure that EA didn't succeed either in giving them just the game they wanted?
Why, yes, Erpe. Yes, I am sure.
The Sims
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
You and others have had to explain this over and over to same person about charging a AAA price for an unfinished game that does not deserve an AAA title which EA promised to complete. Unfortunately I think is a lost cause trying to explain
As the old saying goes "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you".
You know, someone working at Maxis confirmed the on line component, but said they scrapped that because the game just was not shaping up the way they liked it -- and that happened before Sim City 2013.
I agree that what EA is doing makes no sense, btw. But it won't be the first time they did something that made no sense. I think it's a combination of things. They didn't complete scrap olympus (they couldn't do that). And in the leaked screenshots, you can see a lot of similarities. The way the game is set up would make sense for an on-line game as well, so they kept a lot of the game design choices.
What I think their biggest mistake is they're underestimating their audience. Also, the RF has expressed some thoughts about animations/abuse that lead to some things being removed/changed.
When DA2 was quasi-announced, most people on the forums didn't believe that that date released could actually be for the next game as everyone there knew that there wouldn't be nearly enough time for development for a complex game. Yet that was what it was (though it got delayed a couple of months). EA was so intent on capitalizing on the popularity of Dragon Age that they seemed to think no matter what crap they shoveled out, people would buy it. And they lost a lot of goodwill doing so. They did learn their lesson, at least in BW.
My point? It wouldn't be the first time that EA totally misunderstood their audience or what made a game successful and made really bad decisions based on that misunderstanding.
I agree that the design choices were made for an online social game. The tiny 'hoods, the loading screens, the UI that looks like it was designed for touch screens. Even their emphasis on the socialization system for adults/young adults (while practically ignoring everything else) is due to this, because that's what players would be doing in an online game with their friends.
As to the second paragraph I bolded, I have to point out that there obviously is a core audience who are interested in a simpler game. Maybe you could go so far as to say they prefer a simpler game that is more cartoon-like and primarily focuses on socialization. I know I've seen some comments about how some felt TS3 was 'too big, and too overwhelming' for them.
If anything, they overestimated the size of this audience while underestimating the number of their customers who want a more complete, in-depth game full of simulated details and...yes, that "c" word - the complexity that Sims games were previously known for.
How many actives are there in this forum? A couple of thousands?
How many copies of the Sims games are usually sold? 1-3 millions I think.
So where are all those 99% of the customers who don't visit the forums and don't seem to active anywhere else either? They are of course the most important customers for EA because they seem to be such a huge majority. Are we sure that EA didn't succeed either in giving them just the game they wanted?
There is an important point... it's factual... Sims 4 sold to somebody, and them somebodies continue to buy expansions. Them are FACTS.
Whether them somebodies or new otherbodies will continue to buy and continue to play we will only know in time
But for every unhappy customer who refuses to buy, or non-buying customer who isn't interested this franchise slips into danger
Unless EA are willing to take money from batterfield/titan/shooty gun games or from their sports titles (pay every year for exactly the same thing with only names changed) unhappy Sims 4 players (who may stop buying) will matter badly. Sims has always depended on expansions and return customers and from their meeting reports that's what EA is banking on.
We will see
SIMS 3:YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THE SIMS LIKE THIS BEFORE! This #1 bestselling award-winner* is better than ever on iPhone and iPod. Contains direct links to the Internet; Collects data though third party ad serving analytics technology. EA may retire online features and services after 30 days’ notice.
Ya know, it is kinda like talking with a brick wall. Some folks just argue for the sake of arguing and that is all I see with some posts and certain posters.
It really is a shame as I know that one particular person does not even like the game because they admitted they don't and don't play it. I don't understand the support for a company that does not deserve or need the support. Maybe they have shares and don't want the money to go down? They have enough of the kiss ups in the company that tell the PTB's what they want to hear, rather than the truth.
EA is a large company, they can spend their money on portajohns if they want to instead of fixing any of their games. But, as customers if we want changes with future games they need to hear our issues and complaints with the current game and that is what we are doing and that is what this person does not seem to understand or believe that it will do any good. I'm happy playing Sims3. I would like for Sims 5 to be better than Sims 3. I would like to know that my comments help, but, if it does not I can say I tried. I can say that I tried over and over again to get them to understand what we want in a game. I will continue to try over and over until I decided to give up. It is not that persons place to tell me to give it up. Anywhoo...they are on ignore now. My first ignore as I can't bear to read anymore of the drivel.
@bekkasan I don't play TS4 and I only bought the first GP and the first EP. It is unlikely that I will buy more of the coming expansions. But I can't say for sure.
So why do I care? The reason is that there are only 2 major possibilities (anything else is just unlikely to happen):
1. The Sims 4 expansions keep selling in a way which EA can accept and then it is most likely that EA will also release TS5 in a few years. I don't think that it is likely that I will like TS5 either. But I don't know yet. So maybe.
2. The Sims 4 expansions stop selling well enough for EA to make a profit. Then EA may attempt to make them smaller to counteract that. But EA will then probably make fewer expansions than EA originally had planned. It is then doubtful if EA will make TS5 at all. But maybe EA will then instead make a few smaller standalone games which won't get any big expansions at all. If they don't sell either then EA will just stop the series for good like EA already has done with other game series.
I strongly prefer the first of those possibilities instead of the second one.
People here are also fantasizing about other companies making games like the Sims games. But I am sure that this won't happen. Besides that it will also be even less likely if EA's Sims games stop selling because who would want to make a game of a type which people don't like or buy anymore? Nobody.
Ya know, it is kinda like talking with a brick wall. Some folks just argue for the sake of arguing and that is all I see with some posts and certain posters.
It really is a shame as I know that one particular person does not even like the game because they admitted they don't and don't play it. I don't understand the support for a company that does not deserve or need the support. Maybe they have shares and don't want the money to go down? They have enough of the kiss ups in the company that tell the PTB's what they want to hear, rather than the truth.
EA is a large company, they can spend their money on portajohns if they want to instead of fixing any of their games. But, as customers if we want changes with future games they need to hear our issues and complaints with the current game and that is what we are doing and that is what this person does not seem to understand or believe that it will do any good. I'm happy playing Sims3. I would like for Sims 5 to be better than Sims 3. I would like to know that my comments help, but, if it does not I can say I tried. I can say that I tried over and over again to get them to understand what we want in a game. I will continue to try over and over until I decided to give up. It is not that persons place to tell me to give it up. Anywhoo...they are on ignore now. My first ignore as I can't bear to read anymore of the drivel.
Agreed.
If no one complains or advises, we get more of the same.
@bekkasan I don't play TS4 and I only bought the first GP and the first EP. It is unlikely that I will buy more of the coming expansions. But I can't say for sure.
So why do I care? The reason is that there are only 2 major possibilities (anything else is just unlikely to happen):
1. The Sims 4 expansions keep selling in a way which EA can accept and then it is most likely that EA will also release TS5 in a few years. I don't think that it is likely that I will like TS5 either. But I don't know yet. So maybe.
2. The Sims 4 expansions stop selling well enough for EA to make a profit. Then EA may attempt to make them smaller to counteract that. But EA will then probably make fewer expansions than EA originally had planned. It is then doubtful if EA will make TS5 at all. But maybe EA will then instead make a few smaller standalone games which won't get any big expansions at all. If they don't sell either then EA will just stop the series for good like EA already has done with other game series.
I strongly prefer the first of those possibilities instead of the second one.
People here are also fantasizing about other companies making games like the Sims games. But I am sure that this won't happen. Besides that it will also be even less likely if EA's Sims games stop selling because who would want to make a game of a type which people don't like or buy anymore? Nobody.
'Fantasize' is all this sight allows. On other sites, which Maxis cannot control, there is much more going on to encourage other developers to give the genre consideration. Life simulation genre will not die simply because Maxis stops making them.
Comments
And how do you think anyone could afford to produce games for people to play if they had to pay people to play them?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
My point was that people think that games which aren't perfect should be sold for half price. But do such people also think that EA should pay their employees at most half of the employees' normal wages if the employees don't make perfect games?
But more and more games become real online games and such games usually don't have an offline mode. So they can't be played anymore when the servers are shut down because the game doesn't give the company enough income anymore to maintain the servers. I don't like that very much either. But there is nothing we can do about it if people prefer online social games and won't pay enough for single player offline games anymore.
The digital only is actually alienating some international Simmers right now. I feel bad because one Simmer can't buy the digital packs in their country. There really needs to be a gifting option like the Sims 3 for the Sims 4. Of course there wouldn't be that problem if the packs were tangible instead too. The games would actually be sold in stores in their countries.
I did buy the Sims 4 half off and digital and I regret it. I wish I had bought the disk instead, but I heard it isn't much different.
Edit: The reason why companies do this is that it doesn't cost them anything. But it motivates a few more customers to also buy their next game. So why shouldn't they do it?
But Sims 4 has been sold at half price or less EVERY SINGLE MONTH since it was released. So they are doing that anyway.
And why do they need so many employee's anyway, when they produce a sub-par game with so much missing. Prison Architect has released and is selling and I think it only took 2 people and was completed in 4 years. City Skylines was made and created by 18 and it's sales are doing well.
I'm a female gamer that owned a Commodore 64, and my family was poor. My mother was a person who worked full time in the 1960's and started working at 12. I know no women who could afford to stay at home, but knew several kids who had computers and gaming systems at home.
I can remember when EA was created - Electronics Artists - mission statement - to put developers and game creators in the front seat. When did the mission statement change to shareholders and making profits, or to putting out rushed, half-finished broken games and trying to rip off consumers? Originally EA was well regarded by many, now their a joke on the internet and holder of the worst company award. The original EA saved Maxis who was in trouble, they took the time to put their trust in strange game (sims 1) that nobody could understand. Now EA is famous for holding back content, over-expensive games, overprice expansions and a shedload of DLC.
PS - For a really good understanding about why Simcity has changed (and failed) and how this relates to the sims, see the video from Erant Signal who has a 2 part over the issue. He has some intresting things to say about goals, assets and mobile based play. Reminds me a lot of why I'm alergic to Sims 4.
I gave you an awesome back. The screams will and are continuing to fall on deaf ears as I see more responses of the same thing over and over again. Defending a company who did not deliver a complete product worth the price they charged even though the company promised to complete it just to keep sales and game pre-orders from cancelling
My point is that nobody knows what others are thinking.
As far as I'm concerned games that aren't finished should not be sold at any price - not even if they are free.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuW44b3uCMtCSaq4gwC8EZg
The irony of your comment being that you play Sims:Freeplay
Agree. Release date should be postponed until the game is complete and fix as many bugs as they can before release . Other companies have postponed release of a game to make sure the game meets the AAA price they are charging. GTA V was postponed a few times. The game runs really well on PC. I haven't encountered any bugs either . If there are still some bugs I haven't noticed
If maybe each EA game is developed by about 200 employees in average then this doesn't explain even half of the number of employees. So most of those employees must probably be occupied in sales and marketing. But they need their wages anyway.
I can't find very much information about the numbers of different types of employees in EA. But there are some interesting information on http://www.managementparadise.com/forums/principles-management-p-o-m/208116-swot-analysis-electronic-arts.html where you also can see that EA had a loss of $1.08 billion in the financial year which ended in March 2008 and therefore had to fire a huge number of employees.
The Sims 4 basegame is very important for EA to sell because of course people won't buy the expansions if they don't own the basegame. Games are like newspapers and magazines: The first copy cost millions of dollars to make. But the following copies have extremely low production costs compared with the first one and are nearly free to make. Therefore companies will do almost anything to sell as many copies as possible.
Shame on them for trying to pull that off.
After buying the sims 3 I gave it a shot,but that didnt last long,same with the sims 4 I lost all intrest in it. Back to the sims 2 for me it is.
I know it's far from ideal but at least we have something to go back to! My disappointment with Sims 4 has actually given me a new appreciation for Sims 3 and 2 will always be a game I'm happy to go back to and replay.
I agree that the design choices were made for an online social game. The tiny 'hoods, the loading screens, the UI that looks like it was designed for touch screens. Even their emphasis on the socialization system for adults/young adults (while practically ignoring everything else) is due to this, because that's what players would be doing in an online game with their friends.
As to the second paragraph I bolded, I have to point out that there obviously is a core audience who are interested in a simpler game. Maybe you could go so far as to say they prefer a simpler game that is more cartoon-like and primarily focuses on socialization. I know I've seen some comments about how some felt TS3 was 'too big, and too overwhelming' for them.
If anything, they overestimated the size of this audience while underestimating the number of their customers who want a more complete, in-depth game full of simulated details and...yes, that "c" word - the complexity that Sims games were previously known for.
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
How many copies of the Sims games are usually sold? 1-3 millions I think.
So where are all those 99% of the customers who don't visit the forums and don't seem to active anywhere else either? They are of course the most important customers for EA because they seem to be such a huge majority. Are we sure that EA didn't succeed either in giving them just the game they wanted?
Ark Survival Revolved not even finished has half a year to a year (they say summer but if it isn't ready I know they will delay it, so put a year). 40 developers working on the game( I think it is 40 too early to search their forums without my first cup of coffee completed). Open world (has rain, snow area and it snows and if you chop down a tree in the snow biome snow falls of said tree), swamp area, beach area, jungle area, forest, and a huge open world sandbox game. You rule because you can host a server, rent a server from other places, change game.ini and etc..The breeding was asked by the customers/players...and we got it.. ..They will be adding 100 + creatures to the game when they started they said 70+, but the customers/players asked for many types of dinos and mammals, so they are putting them in..
Our newest dino..just hatched this am (an hatching an egg isn't easy and takes time)
And yes the grass sways..
And I paid 30.00 dollars for this game...o.o
Paying 80 bucks for a game I expect better quality (not realism graphics I am talking a real honest to good jam gameplay game)..I expect the developers to acknowledge and listen to their customers.. And if a game is sub par and I think they know that because it is on sale all the time to delay it..They had 15 years of actual data from their customers..If they have a large base (not saying majority)of simmers angry or even customers of other games they should listen to the outrage and figure out why and do something about it. If an indie game can do it, Rockstar, Assassin Creed..so can they for 80 bucks they charge for deluxe or just the original base.. and it should not be so barebone to begin with..
I love the previous version, this is the first time I can actually say this game (sims 4) is poop and show lack of love of the series..
Why, yes, Erpe. Yes, I am sure.
Where are we going, and why am I in this hand basket?!
As the old saying goes "I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you".
Whether them somebodies or new otherbodies will continue to buy and continue to play we will only know in time
But for every unhappy customer who refuses to buy, or non-buying customer who isn't interested this franchise slips into danger
Unless EA are willing to take money from batterfield/titan/shooty gun games or from their sports titles (pay every year for exactly the same thing with only names changed) unhappy Sims 4 players (who may stop buying) will matter badly. Sims has always depended on expansions and return customers and from their meeting reports that's what EA is banking on.
We will see
It really is a shame as I know that one particular person does not even like the game because they admitted they don't and don't play it. I don't understand the support for a company that does not deserve or need the support. Maybe they have shares and don't want the money to go down? They have enough of the kiss ups in the company that tell the PTB's what they want to hear, rather than the truth.
EA is a large company, they can spend their money on portajohns if they want to instead of fixing any of their games. But, as customers if we want changes with future games they need to hear our issues and complaints with the current game and that is what we are doing and that is what this person does not seem to understand or believe that it will do any good. I'm happy playing Sims3. I would like for Sims 5 to be better than Sims 3. I would like to know that my comments help, but, if it does not I can say I tried. I can say that I tried over and over again to get them to understand what we want in a game. I will continue to try over and over until I decided to give up. It is not that persons place to tell me to give it up. Anywhoo...they are on ignore now. My first ignore as I can't bear to read anymore of the drivel.
The Cowboy and the Mermaid
So why do I care? The reason is that there are only 2 major possibilities (anything else is just unlikely to happen):
1. The Sims 4 expansions keep selling in a way which EA can accept and then it is most likely that EA will also release TS5 in a few years. I don't think that it is likely that I will like TS5 either. But I don't know yet. So maybe.
2. The Sims 4 expansions stop selling well enough for EA to make a profit. Then EA may attempt to make them smaller to counteract that. But EA will then probably make fewer expansions than EA originally had planned. It is then doubtful if EA will make TS5 at all. But maybe EA will then instead make a few smaller standalone games which won't get any big expansions at all. If they don't sell either then EA will just stop the series for good like EA already has done with other game series.
I strongly prefer the first of those possibilities instead of the second one.
People here are also fantasizing about other companies making games like the Sims games. But I am sure that this won't happen. Besides that it will also be even less likely if EA's Sims games stop selling because who would want to make a game of a type which people don't like or buy anymore? Nobody.
Agreed.
If no one complains or advises, we get more of the same.
'Fantasize' is all this sight allows. On other sites, which Maxis cannot control, there is much more going on to encourage other developers to give the genre consideration. Life simulation genre will not die simply because Maxis stops making them.