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How Many Invisible Sims 4 Players Exist?
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Right! I That's why I think the term 'invisible' is a little bit misleading. It kind of works if we refer to the official forum. And that's the point: As somebody who is still a new member it seems that the sims community is divided in half. 50% like Sims 4, 50% don't. But IMO it does not by any means reflect the 'reality' if you take into consideration that the social media (twitter, reaction to the trailers on youtube) conveys a different image of the situation.
Even though I am on the forums now, I am really not vocal in what I "expect". Nor do I have any "demands". I have wishes and hopes. If they aren't implemented then fine. I will not be a bitter simmer. As has been stated, I am just here because I love playing The Sims.
I'm here because I want to know about new content and when we get it. That's pretty much it.
I DO voice my opinion when people want SP back, or other things that ruined my game.
As a hobbyist game developer myself I know how it is when there's time restrictions, budget droughts, pesky bugs and engine troubles.......all kinds of things.
TS3 reused a bit of TS2 things. TS4 was mostly from scratch.......there's just so many things to consider before jumping into the "uncaring developer" pool...........and sadly many of those things the developers themselves aren't even allowed to comment about (generally speaking, not TS4 development) in the world of game dev.
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Lol! Now you're putting words in my mouth.
I'm not the one who says they care but to make sure people do not see them as caring about them as was stated. I think they're people- Nothing more, nothing less.
I don't know if I'm invisible. I've always played with telemetry turned off, but I've always registered my games. I do the same with all software.
I may not always care to share my experiences, but lately, I have, and I believe it has a lot to do with disappointment. It's strange how some join together through shared joy. People like me though, stay silent until they're unhappy. Guess that's what makes me a grumpy player
Actually, I am a happy invisible player. As I'm not playing the game I'm discussing at all. It's been months since I've played S4. The game I'm enjoying is keeping me quiet. That is, until I'm not playing it, like now. Not near my computer.
Which makes the point of the article pointless. Why would anyone care about other players, except for click baiting them (like the article is doing)? The only entity who really cares about the "invisible" players is the company selling the game to them. And believe me, they know exactly what people are doing in their games. How else would they know the number of times sims have woohoo'd in the past year?
**Wasn't it Apple that had a privacy setting that Steve Jobs mentioned in an internal memo that it actually didn't do anything. They still collected the data anyway. I imagine most companies do something similar.
Yeah. Awards and plaques are big these days. Every game you play has some kind of achievement award system applied to it. No one cares in the broad sense though, which is why I feel it's not as strongly present as it was a few years ago.
I honestly don't care to share how many times I've woohood in my game, which is generally solely to procreate. Nor do I care about sharing anything else I've done. I honestly don't feel the need to share what I'm doing right now.
Never have; never will.
I also don't feel like anyone else really cares, which is the real crux.
I miss the days where fun won out over achievements that no one cares about.
They can be oblivious to opinions they don't take sides, it doesn't matter. They just spend on what they want and have or have not researched in their own way. I use to buy something if I liked the cover, or if I saw my kids playing something and I liked it or a relative (that got me into Tomb Raider and Oblivion). Even now I could basically care less about reviews because I like things that others often don't ...even movies ect that haven't gotten the best rating. I buy things that interest me and that still carries over even though I post now.
I don't see the article as pointless at all, it describes where I was not too long ago, and still am in relation to all the other games I play (I might look at those forums now and then to search for some answer or mod but I don't participate.)
I've see many threads where someone starts posting about the majority ... while they have no real way of knowing what that is. They seem to have tunnel vision because the threads and posts they read the most leads them to believe most think this or that way.
I think, as @Hermitgirl mentioned, this article was meant to remind the hard-core players that like to be involved in all aspects of their games, that they are in the minority. That the success or failure of a game isn't always based on the numbers of likes the video gets on Youtube, or its rating. He also seems to be writing this article - in my opinion - as a way to express his own fascination with the "invisible gamer". A few excerpts from the article:
"They fascinate me because I don't reach them, outside of my personal friends sometimes reading my columns to be polite."
"It's important to know that they're out there, and that those of us who are loud about our habits and interact vocally with the industry may not match them in size or importance. We don't speak for what could be the silent majority of gamers, and likely never will. Marketing budgets in the millions are spent trying to reach them, and the vocal minority of gamers may understate their own importance simply due to the fact these silent folks don't exist in a meaningful way outside of our real-like social circles."
I bolded the phrases in the last paragraph because I believe that is his purpose. He seems to be directing this article at the involved gamers. Our own forums can be used as an example. Some people like to make blanket statements about how "everyone wants this feature" or "nobody wants this feature", when in reality, the vocal ones on this forum may be the minority. No one can really know what the majority wants.
Anyways, some people may care about this kind of information, and some may not. I find it interesting, but it won't be interesting to everyone.
Edit: I realize after re-reading the previous posts that I basically just repeated @Hermitgirl. Sorry.
Rather than invisible, I'm more or less a shy gamer. I tend to only go onto community sites when I have an issue, and my first posts are usually filled with "sorry if this was mentioned before" LOL
;_;
Besides issues, I'd join a community if there was a multiplayer aspect to it (like pokemon, for example) where I can get something beneficial to me if I ask and put myself out there. I do enjoy lurking forums most of the time, and I tend to write out posts I forget to send or end up erasing because I'm shy.
I enjoy the smaller community because I recognize usernames better, at least.
My buying habits are generally prioritized by necessity, so if I really like a game, I'll put money aside for it. I used to impulsively buy but that never got me anywhere but a huge steam library and not enough time to play them.
I know a lot of gamers that aren't very vocal, as well. The article (and this thread!) has been a very interesting read.
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I participate here on the forums, but frankly, I dislike software that 'phones home' to report on my habits. So I don't have that option turned on. (Nor did I in TS3.) Maybe that's why TS4 has so few of the things I love in TS3 . . . alas, it's too late now.
Sales will always be a big 'voice' in things though. And regardless of whether we post on a forum or send back telemetry, all the 'loud' and 'quiet' players have to put down their money to buy the game. A 'loud' person's money is just as good as an 'invisible' person's money in that respect, so we're all pretty equal when it comes to the real bottom line in a larger sense. (And with purchases, or at the very least 'activations' going through Origin, there's no question of 'registration.' You buy or activate the game, they know.)
There's a lot of chatter about how 'representative' the forums are (or are not) of players in general too. I can only give my own view, but I don't see why the forums aren't pretty 'representative.' Sure, not everyone comes to the forums. But forum-goers are just a 'sample' of the larger set of gamers. The whole basis of statistics is that, in general, if you have a large enough 'sample' of the main set, you can identify trends in the whole by seeing them in your sample. So . . . aren't we, the forum-goers, simply a sample of the overall gamers/simmers set? Are our desires really so eccentric and different from those of everyone else who plays The Sims? I don't see why it would be so. For myself, I expect the forums are a fairly decent cross-section of Simmers in general.
Interesting point. Telemetry aside. S2 gained 2 out of 3 players in my household alone. Eventually gaining 3 out of 3.
S2, in total, gained 3 out of 3 in in the end.
S3 gained 2 out of 3 in total at the beginning. it lost one before the first EP. Lost another after the first EP.
In total, gaining 0 out of 3 in the end. That changed recently. It now stands at 1 out of 3.
S4 gained 1 out of 3 players. There was a failed attempt to gain 2 out of 3. In the end, it lost all what it had due to forced patches. In the end, it gained 0 out of 3.
In total, it gained 0 out of 3.
This is a small sample. There are many new simmers and old simmer it has gained, but in my household alone, it has lost us all.
These numbers mean nothing in the grand scheme of things though. It's just perspective on a solitary household.
Phrase bolded for emphasis.
Makes sense...I never, ever went on the forums before TS4. I had my gripes, but no game is perfect and I really enjoyed the previous 3 sims games. I started going on the forums to see if everyone else was as 🐸🐸🐸🐸 off about TS4 as I was, when they announced there wasn't going to be pools, ghosts or toddlers.