I think at most.. 6 or 7 EP's (7 is stretching it). However I would always love more, but i'm not sure if that's possible.
It is difficult to predict because EA suddenly broke the tradition about releasing 5 SPs but only 1 GP and 1 EP each year. Now EA has already released 2 GPs in 2017 with only 4 months between them.
Dreamers will of course interpret this as now EA suddenly will release about 4 GPs and 2 EPs each year. But I don't believe in this at all. Realistically it could more seem that EA maybe has decided to focus even more on GPs instead of EPs which could mean that EA will release at most one more EP for TS4 and compensate by releasing up to 3 GPs both in 2017 and in 2018. I don't know if this is true though. So I think that my guess still would be 2 more EPs but maybe a little more GPs than I earlier would have expected.
Where do you see this game as marketed at young adults who would want much more depth and mature stuff into a game about partying, dating and romance??
The romantic Options are only a few and the party-aspect of the game is even worse. So no, this game is everything but clearly not about partying, Dating (LoL, the Dates in TS4 are so bad gameplay-wise) or romance (although the romance Festival was a nice Addition). It's mainly about Family Play.
Where do you see it as marketed at adults that mostly are interested in building families with kids and want the game used to simulate the kids that they may not even have got yet or to replace the kids they don't have anymore because they were divorced or because their "kids" now have become too old to be seen as kids?
I've never said they address YA who want to create virtual families, raise virtual toddlers and pet virtual Dogs. The average western YA (19-25) is clearly not interested in those Things (if you look at college students it gets clear). EA wants to fetch new and Young(er) People who aren't simmers yet.
Look at the reveal Trailer (when TS4 was introduced to the public for the first time at gamescom):
See? They only use YA (PR strategy), although the Content is and has been lacking for YA+ only Players (YA sims in the Trailers are basically doing always the same Things because they lack activities/objects that are created only for them).
YA are the most important life stage in the sims Franchise, most People enjoy to Play them since their potential (when it Comes to gameplay) is huge and almost endless.
Yeah, you always Claim that Young [sic!] Teens Play with Young adults etc. but I simply don't care even if it was true. Many Big companies (mobile phone manufacturers, Internet-Providers, game Publishers etc.) have been Marketing their products especially towards YA lately (Nintendo proves my Point).
It's a nice Bonus that Teens often identify with YA, However, their buying power is insignificant compared to YA. Go watch a random Let's Player (eg. lifesimmer) or a simmer who creates building Videos (simfans.de --> every time he uses more than 3+ packs those Teenagers cry that they don't own a particular pack so he has to Limit himself mostly to basegame builds) with a ton of Young Teens as subscribers. (Young) Teens usually only own a hundful of packs and it Shows in the comments.
Edit: When I was a teen, I only had the TS1, later TS2 basegame and one (!) ep. When I got to college I was able to buy TS3 right on release and every dlc they released later on.
Post edited by HalloMolli on
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
@HalloMolli I don't disagree with you that older teens and young adults buy more game than the younger teens do because younger teens more often have to depend on their abilities to pursuade their parents to pay when they want something. This is also the reason why most big games are M rated.
But it has always been EA's most important wish to keep exactly the Sims games T rated because EA likely know that most of the customers are young teens. Otherwise you can be sure that EA would have made the game M rated because that would allow EA to put much more mature content into the game and thereby make it much more attractive for older teens and young adults!
EA knows much more about this than we do. Both from market investigations and from the fact that EA knows the sales numbers (also the sold number of copies per million inhabitants) in different countries where the game has been given different ratings.
T(13+) is the rating in the US and in Canada.
12+ is the rating in Europe except in Germany and in Russia.
7+ is the rating in Germany.
18+ is the rating in Russia.
15+ is the rating in Australia and New Zealand.
How have those different ratings had effect on the number of sold copies per million inhabitants in the countries? EA knows the answer while we don't. But you can be very sure that EA would have dropped the T rating (ESRB) unless EA had proof that the youngest teens are the most important customers because EA could easily make the game much better for older teens and adults if only EA allowed the game to be M rated everywhere. So was it worth to fight so extremely hard for the T rating (especially when the ESRB threatened EA with a M rating when EA had a cheat code that could remove the blur in the bathroom)? If the youngest teens hadn't been more important as customers for exactly the Sims games than older teens and young adults were - then it sure wouldn't have been!
There have btw been a few attempt from other game companies to make similar M rated games (especially Singles and Singles 2). But they weren't successful because they couldn't be played by the youngest teens because of the M rating and older teens and YA didn't buy enough copies of the games anyway. So you can be sure that EA know what they are doing
Another reason that I am sure that the Sims games are mostly played by the youngest teens is btw that I remember visiting game stores weekly in the Sims 1 days and in the Sims 2 days. Especially in the first couple of weeks after a release of a new Sims EP I saw all those young teen girls looking exited on the EPs and often they were followed by their mum who also was curious to see what her daughter was so exited about. Very often I then saw them take the EP and the mum paying for it in the stores.
And I could go on: Why do you think that EP now makes a huge number of SPs and more GPs than EPs? Well one way to see it is to imagine a very young teen asking her mum and dad for permission to buy and download an EP. Then the parents probably will object - especially over the price. Then she will beg a little more. But if it doesn't work she will instead mention a GP which only cost half as much. Maybe she will be allowed to buy that? But if not she will finally mention a SP which she maybe also would like. At that time the parents will be quite tired of saying no to everything - so she will likely be allowed to at least buy the SP
The problem about the sales numbers for especially EPs most likely is that they have been disappointing because the EPs aren't sold in physical stores anymore. Earlier the young teens were told by their parents to wish the EPs as presents for their birthday or for Christmas. But even that usually doesn't work anymore because parents don't like to give digital downloads for such presents. They want instead to give something physical which they can wrap nice paper around. So it is now almost impossible for young teens to get the EPs. So instead they likely just use the EPs in negoations with their parent to persuade them to give permission to download a GP or a SP. Sales numbers for EPs are therefore likely much lower than earlier. So EA doesn't for those reasons want to make very many EPs anymore.
My thing with the sims 4 is, there's not alot of features compared to the sims 3. The sims 3 has open world, the custom design tool, and many more options. You'd think being how lacking and well optimized the Sims 4 is, they'd be pumping out new EPs every other month. Therefore, I don't get the excuse that things take time. Sims 4 does not have alot of content that would hinder them.
Lets be real here; there are no cars, open world does not exist, and they don't have to consider what items can be colored/patterned. It shouldn't take them a whole year just to make one EP that has little to no new gameplay. Sometimes I just wish there was a competitor that would keep EA on their feet because it's just gotten sad. Sims was my favorite franchise, but now not so much. There's alot of potential in the game if they'd just get their shxt together and listen to the community.
I think if they grabbed a handful of simmers, such as the Youtube community (since they spoil them so much), to get their opinions on what should be added to the game their might be a chance. I personally feel like the producers don't even play their own game, otherwise they'd know what's missing and wouldn't be putting out such trash SPs to hold people off for an EP that isn't even deserving of $40USD. Ehh... I totally went off-topic, but by the way things are going I'd say 6 EPs and probably 40 SPs...
1 EP = 2 GPs. Basically nothing has changed in this regard. The store became obsolete so we got SPs instead etc. . I am sorry @Erpe but I have no idea what you are talking about. I simply disagree with you that 1) (Young) Teens in General own the same amount of packs like YA+, 2) that EA focuses on (Young) Teens when Advertising their packs or bg (a YA+ Focus has also Teens in mind) and 3) the game is mainly played by (Young) Teens since I am almost 100% that the average simmer is at least 23~ years old.
"[...] and everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."
1 EP = 2 GPs. Basically nothing has changed in this regard. The store became obsolete so we got SPs instead etc. . I am sorry @Erpe but I have no idea what you are talking about. I simply disagree with you that 1) (Young) Teens in General own the same amount of packs like YA+, 2) that EA focuses on (Young) Teens when Advertising their packs or bg (a YA+ Focus has also Teens in mind) and 3) the game is mainly played by (Young) Teens since I am almost 100% that the average simmer is at least 23~ years old.
I don't talk about average. But if you mean that two 13-yrs old and a 43-yrs old are 23 yrs old in average then you maybe could be right
I have been teaching at highschool level for many years and you should just know how many times I have heard highschool students discuss Sims games as something they played when they were a few years younger.
I don't know if young teens own the same amount of packs as adult simmers. But I agree that this likely isn't the case and especially now when they can't get the EPs anymore just by wishing those packs for birthdays and Christmas. So I agree that young teens likely have to very often buy only the SPs and maybe just a few of the GPs. My point still is that this doesn't matter if there are 10 to 50 times as many young teen simmers as there are adult simmers and I wouldn't be surprised if it should be the case because I can find teens or young adults in probably almost all my classes who can tell me that they earlier played Sims games even though they usually also will tell me that they don't play such games anymore. Compare this to the fact that it is extremely difficult to find adult simmers anywhere (except in this forum and on Facebook or twitter).
@LiELF@HalloMolli
The "young teen" target is a myth that Erpe like to throw around in seemingly half the thread he's posting in. He's basing this half on backward logic (he sees young teens in high school (duh!) and concludes that's what most simmers look like, he saw young teens post in the danish forum that has around 50 members posting, and concludes that's what most simmers look like), and half on totally wrong facts (like how he says they are no longer selling EP in physical store, or that they are focusing more on SPs). I've yet to see him post any evidence that isn't factually wrong or biased anecdotes, and he just brushed off any evidence that don't fit his myth (like SimGuruGraham's quote below) and ignore all the simmers that say they are or know young adults and older simmers (He claims 'It is actually hard to find another adult simmer living near you and almost no adult simmers know any other adults from their hometown or even in their own family who also play the game". Last time he asked, they were lots of people who answered that says, they knew adult simmers and he kept moving goalposts, like it had to be outside the forum to count, or outside the family )
SimGuruGraham said the game is built to appeal to players of nearly any age range, and not for children and teens.
"We're not making a game for children and teens. The Sims is for teens and up, and it'd be presumptuous to assume that the game is targeted just at teens due to specific pieces of content. More than nearly any other game I can think of, Sims is a AAA video game franchise that is built to appeal to players of nearly any age range."
@LiELF@HalloMolli
The "young teen" target is a myth that Erpe like to throw around in seemingly half the thread he's posting in. He's basing this half on backward logic (he sees young teens in high school (duh!) and concludes that's what most simmers look like, he saw young teens post in the danish forum that has around 50 members posting, and concludes that's what most simmers look like), and half on totally wrong facts (like how he says they are no longer selling EP in physical store, or that they are focusing more on SPs). I've yet to see him post any evidence that isn't factually wrong or biased anecdotes, and he just brushed off any evidence that don't fit his myth (like SimGuruGraham's quote below) and ignore all the simmers that say they are or know young adults and older simmers (He claims 'It is actually hard to find another adult simmer living near you and almost no adult simmers know any other adults from their hometown or even in their own family who also play the game". Last time he asked, they were lots of people who answered that says, they knew adult simmers and he kept moving goalposts, like it had to be outside the forum to count, or outside the family )
You just keep lying hoping to win the discussion this way. But you can't.
1. No I don't see young teens in highschool because the pupils in highschool are all older teens and young adults. They tell me them that they don't play Sims games anymore even though some of them did before they started in highschool.
2. The Danish Sims 2 forum didn't just have 50 members but several hundreds. It likely had about as many young teens as this forum has members. (But the Danish Sims 3 forum had very few teens and the Danish Sims 4 forum is almost completely dead.)
3. I know that about 80 to 90 pct of the active members in the Danish Sims 2 forum were young teens because they discussed their school and homework in our offtopic forum which was so big that I didn't even understand how the 5 moderators could manage to read and modify it.
4. I know that you will just keep lying and deny that there ever have been teens playing the game although EA went into huge panic when the ESRB threatened to change the rating from T to M. (You are excused for not remembering in because you apparently was too young to play the game at all in the Sims 2 days.)
SimGuruGraham said the game is built to appeal to players of nearly any age range, and not for children and teens.
"We're not making a game for children and teens. The Sims is for teens and up, and it'd be presumptuous to assume that the game is targeted just at teens due to specific pieces of content. More than nearly any other game I can think of, Sims is a AAA video game franchise that is built to appeal to players of nearly any age range."
Is SimGuruGraham the CEO of EA?
Or is he just a producer (not even the executive producer) whos job it just is to make sure that the games develops quick enough to be released at the time which he has been told that EA wants them released - and with the content that EA has told him that EA wants the game to have?
Would SimGuruGraham be allowed by EA to tell us if he didn't agree with EA's requests for the game? Would he then be able to keep his job?
Would EA like it if he told us that the game is targeted mainly at the youngest teens and not at adults even if the producers were told to make the game this way by EA? (I don't think so because EA sure doesn't mind it at all if other gamers but the intended target group buy the game too.)
I can understand that you just want to win every discussion by being stubborn. But I am not interested in discussing with people who just go on lying to "win" discussions when they run out of arguments and you have for a very long time seemed to not have any knowledge to bring to this topic. So EOD.
@Erpe
If you have a statement from EA CEO that says they are targetting mainly young teens, by all means, give us the link. Until then, I'll consider SimGuruGraham's statement to be accurate, and far more reliable than yours.
As we all know, TS1 has 7 EPs, TS2 has 8 EPs, and TS3 has 11 EPs. How many EPs do you think TS4 will have by the end of its life span?
The lowest voting option is 4 EPs because we have indirect confirmation that at least one EP is in the works (due to Gurus who say they work on EPs after the release of City Living).
I'll post a new thread here when we have the confirmation of TS4's final EP with a link to this thread to see who got it right
I don't use off site links but I will say 4 or 5 at the most. With only one a year I'm guessing one this year and one next year sometime before TS4 ends..and that is being generous.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
@Erpe
If you have a statement from EA CEO that says they are targetting mainly young teens, by all means, give us the link. Until then, I'll consider SimGuruGraham's statement to be accurate, and far more reliable than yours.
Come with your documentation about this game mainly being targeted at adults (and therefore not for you) or stop your undocumented lying about things you just don't understand. Hint: You can begin by looking at http://www.esrb.org to find out what the difference between a T rating and a M rating is. After that you can seek further information elsewhere about what the job for a game producer is about.
@Erpe
If you have a statement from EA CEO that says they are targetting mainly young teens, by all means, give us the link. Until then, I'll consider SimGuruGraham's statement to be accurate, and far more reliable than yours.
Come with your documentation about this game mainly being targeted at adults (and therefore not for you) or stop your undocumented lying about things you just don't understand. Hint: You can begin by looking at http://www.esrb.org to find out what the difference between a T rating and a M rating is. After that you can seek further information elsewhere about what the job for a game producer is about.
I'm not sure what's more amusing : the fact that you can't read what I'm posting or what SimGuruGraham had posted (it never was about the game being mainly targeted at adults), the fact that you try to put personal attacks about my supposed age each time (which is hilarious considering you're basing part of your deduction on forum posters' age), or the fact that you're calling my posts "undocumented lying" while having provided no evidence whatsoever so far
@Erpe
If you have a statement from EA CEO that says they are targetting mainly young teens, by all means, give us the link. Until then, I'll consider SimGuruGraham's statement to be accurate, and far more reliable than yours.
Come with your documentation about this game mainly being targeted at adults (and therefore not for you) or stop your undocumented lying about things you just don't understand. Hint: You can begin by looking at http://www.esrb.org to find out what the difference between a T rating and a M rating is. After that you can seek further information elsewhere about what the job for a game producer is about.
I'm not sure what's more amusing : the fact that you can't read what I'm posting or what SimGuruGraham had posted (it never was about the game being mainly targeted at adults), the fact that you try to put personal attacks about my supposed age each time (which is hilarious considering you're basing part of your deduction on forum posters' age), or the fact that you're calling my posts "undocumented lying" while having provided no evidence whatsoever so far
You seem to me to be one of the youngest member of this forum for two reasons:
1. You apparently didn't play the previous Sims games and don't know anything about their forums.
2. You seem ready to do anything to stubbornly be able to claim that TS4 isn't mainly a game for young teens but for adults. This points in the direction that it is extremely important for you that people don't see you as playing a game which is targeted at an age group that is just a couple of years younger than you are. (Adults usually don't care at all about such things.)
@Neia and @Erpe I see you guys fight a lot on different threads. I don't want this thread to be closed, because I am actually interested what other simmers think about this. Maybe, agree to disagree?
Are you insulted too because I wrote that the Sims games mainly are targeted at young teens?
Not at all. I willingly play kids games if they strike my fancy, lol, so that wouldn't bother me. But I've made my statement, and it's clear to me that you just don't have a very good understanding of American culture and the structures and reasons behind our ratings systems. And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. I also think that your opinion is possibly based from your own experience and your own culture (assuming that you are not American) so that in your region, there may be some truth to your perceptions. Nothing wrong with that either.
But it's apparent to me that you want your opinions and perspective to be seen as factual, yet, when asked to provide a link or even an official reference, you haven't offered any proof, instead falling back on your age as some kind of weird attempt to gain leverage (??) and resolving to condescension under the assumption that those who oppose you are "young". When someone has to fall back on ageist pettiness, it's a sign that they are avoiding the topic, most likely due to lack of substance for backing up their argument. You also seem to get really defensive when someone can supply proof that opposes your opinion.
I'm not trying to pick a fight. You have your opinions and I have mine. I just don't see why it's so hard for you to admit that your statements are, in fact, just opinions, which you are absolutely entitled to, but also means that maybe sometimes you're not always right. I don't think people would be questioning your theories so much if you actually could admit when your statements are just that: theories.
Edit: @LenaDieters11 My apologies for contributing to further derailment. I was replying to my "summons".
Are you insulted too because I wrote that the Sims games mainly are targeted at young teens?
Not at all. I willingly play kids games if they strike my fancy, lol, so that wouldn't bother me. But I've made my statement, and it's clear to me that you just don't have a very good understanding of American culture and the structures and reasons behind our ratings systems. And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. I also think that your opinion is possibly based from your own experience and your own culture (assuming that you are not American) so that in your region, there may be some truth to your perceptions. Nothing wrong with that either.
You haven't understood anything
1. I completely agree with about kids games because I don't at all mind them either if I like them.
2. I understand the ESRB ratings very well and also the differences between Australian ratings, ESRB ratings and our own PEGI ratings. But it isn't about ratings. EA has just fought so extremely hard about keeping the Sims games T rated while pushing the Sims games to the limits for nakedness and romantic relationships without getting the games M rated by the ESRB too like they are in Australia and New Zealand. PEGI cares less about such things than the ESRB does. But EA knows that it would be a disaster for the sales numbers if the ESRB changed the T rating to a M rating anyway because Northamerican young teens then would be allowed to play the games for their parents.
But it's apparent to me that you want your opinions and perspective to be seen as factual, yet, when asked to provide a link or even an official reference, you haven't offered any proof, instead falling back on your age as some kind of weird attempt to gain leverage (??) and resolving to condescension under the assumption that those who oppose you are "young". When someone has to fall back on ageist pettiness, it's a sign that they are avoiding the topic, most likely due to lack of substance for backing up their argument. You also seem to get really defensive when someone can supply proof that opposes your opinion.
I have given a lot of reasons while nobody have given reasons for the opposite viewpoint. Besides that you can be sure that if I had been wrong then one of the SimGurus would have corrected me a long time ago. But their problem is that while they know that the games are targeted at young teens they also know that this forum is dominated and mostly used only by the minority of adult simmers. Therefore they don't want to confirm here that the games are targeted at young teens even though they can't deny it either because they know that it is true.
I'm not trying to pick a fight. You have your opinions and I have mine. I just don't see why it's so hard for you to admit that your statements are, in fact, just opinions, which you are absolutely entitled to, but also means that maybe sometimes you're not always right. I don't think people would be questioning your theories so much if you actually could admit when your statements are just that: theories.
They are more than that even though EA doesn't want to confirm they because EA wants adults to not be ashamed to play this game either. This I understand. But it wonders me more why it is so extremely important for adult simmers to deny that they are playing a game which mainly is targeted at 13 yrs olds? Is that thought really that awful?
Anyway this isn't the reason why I don't play TS4 myself anymore. I still play the Sims Freeplay. But I just can't play TS4 because it doesn't have similar (or preferably even bigger) challenges and it would be a completely waste of money for me to buy more expansions for this game because I know that I wouldn't play it for more than a few minutes each time I bought a new expansion and then most likely never again.
Just because they dont want to exclude a massive market from being able to throw their money at it doesnt mean its targeted towards them in particular lmao Seems to me like they do a pretty good job of trying to target everybody. They want to push the envelope and not make it too safe so adults will play it while not making it so adult oriented kids cant get in to it. Its The Sims not Grand Theft Auto. I'd be concerned about that rating screwing up sales too just from a straight business perspective.
My speculations on hints for future content:
-Cars Update
-Spiral/Diagonal Stairs Update
-Hotel Pack
-Romance Pack (possibly combined with Hotel Pack)
-Bands Pack
-Royalty Pack
-Fashion Design Pack
-Fairies Pack
-Werewolf Pack
-France-inspired World
That one change in one letter in ratings makes a huge difference. Hundreds of millions of dollars in difference. And i wouldnt want it to be put on the same level as Grand Theft Auto when all it would take to prevent that is some minor tweaks.
My speculations on hints for future content:
-Cars Update
-Spiral/Diagonal Stairs Update
-Hotel Pack
-Romance Pack (possibly combined with Hotel Pack)
-Bands Pack
-Royalty Pack
-Fashion Design Pack
-Fairies Pack
-Werewolf Pack
-France-inspired World
I'm kind of amazed at the reluctance to believe teens and young adults are the target demographic, or how few people seem to realize those two are often considered one in the same and often not distinguished from each other from a marketing perspective. It's true there's no definitive proof that Sims 4 is marketed towards that age range, but the overwhelming majority of games are. It's pretty much the rule of the video game world to market towards teens and young adults, and given EA's size and experience in the gaming industry, I highly doubt they'd neglect that age range.
It's true Sims has an unorthodox audience in terms of the game community, but this doesn't mean teens and young adults are not the primary target. Sims enjoys a much higher population of middle-aged women than most games, and likewise...Another lesser-acknowledged group that I know it'd never be viewed as an "official" part of the target demographic, but anyone ever youtube searched Sims 3 or Sims 4? There's a handful of youtubers that have adult mods and focus their gameplay efforts almost entirely on woohoo. I clicked one because I thought that was odd to basically announce "hey guys when I play sims I just use adult mods and have my simself woohoo everything that moves, wanna watch?" and the episode I did see happened to have the guy talking about his own youtube channel's demographics report. He was shocked because the average viewer age came back at like 12. He asked people to confirm it in the comments and sure enough a bunch of 9-12 year olds all happily spoke up and said "but don't worry I'm mature for my age." It may sound strange or unbelievable, but the Sims seems to be where a good portion of kids go to learn about...erm, "woohoo," when they start reaching that age. Likewise, I don't think kids playing the Sims is unusual because parents may indeed deem this game acceptable. The big "danger" with the Sims is not gratuitous violence that can be damaging for a kid's psyche, but rather that it'll make it clear the stork is a myth, and some parents may not have an issue with that. But I digress...that's not the biggest audience; merely acknowledging that just because the rating says kids shouldn't play this, doesn't mean they absolutely don't.
If you do some googling you can find this and this. Both articles are VERY dated, but they're also the only articles on this subject matter since Sims news and earnings reports more or less went off the grid with Sims 4. The latter article is interviewing their senior marketing director who stayed with the company until ~2012, and he directly states they want the 16-24 demographic. The first article even acknowledges the a huge chunk of Sims users are adult women...but goes on to state a desire to expand and market to the younger audience. Yes, the adult demographic is there, no one's disputing that. The marketing efforts however seem clearly geared more towards the younger audiences; one of those demographics is welcome to play the game, but the other is actively sought out. The second article aligns with this and states that the 16-24 age represents the largest audience that plays the Sims. He also gives additional notes on why that 16-24 range is so valued within the industry as a whole, including that BOTH younger and older demographics often refer to this one to figure out what's hip and trendy, so targeting this one can indirectly benefit other age ranges too. (such as their older audience) Everything about that article makes it clear that at least 8 years ago, the target was 100% the 16-24 range, and while this is certainly dated, I struggle to see why it would take such a drastic change and where the evidence for such a change is.
It shouldn't be too surprising either. Does no one remember the interactive map for San Myshuno...? One look at that thing should make it painfully obvious the target demographic is teens-young adults. All the hashtags and internet jargon, not to mention the "protagonist" Sim from the trailers, Erin (?), had a comment on practically every venue shown and ALWAYS spoke like a bubbly teenage girl. That to me was a clear case of more or less using that character as a representation of the audience, as if to say "this is you" and trying to relate her back to the audience by having her act like them. I'm in my late 20s and I'm a dude, and she annoyed the crap out of me lololol. I sincerely doubt that was marketed towards me just because it FELT immature and geared towards teens. And let's not forget what type of media they've chosen to embrace: Let's players, streamers, twitter and all the common social media outlets used by young adults and teens. They alienated written articles and transitioned to mediums with a younger audience. All signs point to that demographic.
We have no direct evidence perhaps (as is often the case with Sims 4 and it's super top secret earnings reports and design documents, sadly), but you don't need to look far to see that the 16-24 demographic is indeed highly important to this game and much of the marketing we've seen thusfar has definitely seemed geared towards that audience.
@DeservedCriticism
But 16-24 aren't young teens which are the ones Erpe was talking about.
No they aren't. The problem is that people talk about games in general and not about just the Sims games. When they do that I agree that the 16-24 yrs old likely are the most active gamers and the group that generally buy most games.
But there are PC games for all ages. Examples are:
On http://www.gamestop.com/browse/pc?nav=138c-35 you can see more than 800 games for the group of 16-24 yrs olds who you are talking about. Those games are M rated because they aren't for neither kids nor younger teens.
But there are also games for the younger teens who are too old to play kids games and too young to play the games for 16-24 yrs olds. 500 such games can be seen on http://www.gamestop.com/browse/pc?nav=138c-34 and the Sims games sure are among them. You could almost say that the Sims games dominate the list
This just doesn't mean that adults can't play games for kids or young teens too because of course they can. Those games just aren't targeted at adults. But many adults enjoy such games anyway. This is also true for the Sims games as we can see in this forum
My experience is that young teens play Sims games mostly to train themselves in romance, flirting and partying. They admire older teens and young adults who do such things easily and without the shyness that young teens usually have to such things.
The older teens usually feel that they have become too old to play Sims games. They have romance and partying in their own lives and most of them feel that it is too childish to also simulate that in the Sims games.
But some adults play Sims games too. Such adults are mostly 25+ yrs olds and they play in a different way because most of them use the Sims games to simulate the task of raising a family. Many adults like woohoo too. So maybe they are just simulating things that they miss in their real lives
Why is it so hard to believe they dont have a target demographic outside of anyone with the ability to point and click? They sure spend an awful lot of time pleasing adults for people gearing their stuff toward a particular market. If it were targeted toward them specifically it sounds to me like they wouldnt be constantly having problems with crossing ratings lines. We would probably still be seeing them reproducing by making out lmao Like what teen honestly get excited over laundry of all things? I remember being a teen and i was more about escapism not realism and so were most of my friends. Thats why games like Call of Duty (which DOES specifically target them) do so well.
My speculations on hints for future content:
-Cars Update
-Spiral/Diagonal Stairs Update
-Hotel Pack
-Romance Pack (possibly combined with Hotel Pack)
-Bands Pack
-Royalty Pack
-Fashion Design Pack
-Fairies Pack
-Werewolf Pack
-France-inspired World
Comments
Dreamers will of course interpret this as now EA suddenly will release about 4 GPs and 2 EPs each year. But I don't believe in this at all. Realistically it could more seem that EA maybe has decided to focus even more on GPs instead of EPs which could mean that EA will release at most one more EP for TS4 and compensate by releasing up to 3 GPs both in 2017 and in 2018. I don't know if this is true though. So I think that my guess still would be 2 more EPs but maybe a little more GPs than I earlier would have expected.
The romantic Options are only a few and the party-aspect of the game is even worse. So no, this game is everything but clearly not about partying, Dating (LoL, the Dates in TS4 are so bad gameplay-wise) or romance (although the romance Festival was a nice Addition). It's mainly about Family Play.
I've never said they address YA who want to create virtual families, raise virtual toddlers and pet virtual Dogs. The average western YA (19-25) is clearly not interested in those Things (if you look at college students it gets clear). EA wants to fetch new and Young(er) People who aren't simmers yet.
Look at the reveal Trailer (when TS4 was introduced to the public for the first time at gamescom):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=pQjzyPYovdU
And here you have the official first Trailer with gameplay:
See? They only use YA (PR strategy), although the Content is and has been lacking for YA+ only Players (YA sims in the Trailers are basically doing always the same Things because they lack activities/objects that are created only for them).
YA are the most important life stage in the sims Franchise, most People enjoy to Play them since their potential (when it Comes to gameplay) is huge and almost endless.
Yeah, you always Claim that Young [sic!] Teens Play with Young adults etc. but I simply don't care even if it was true. Many Big companies (mobile phone manufacturers, Internet-Providers, game Publishers etc.) have been Marketing their products especially towards YA lately (Nintendo proves my Point).
It's a nice Bonus that Teens often identify with YA, However, their buying power is insignificant compared to YA. Go watch a random Let's Player (eg. lifesimmer) or a simmer who creates building Videos (simfans.de --> every time he uses more than 3+ packs those Teenagers cry that they don't own a particular pack so he has to Limit himself mostly to basegame builds) with a ton of Young Teens as subscribers. (Young) Teens usually only own a hundful of packs and it Shows in the comments.
Edit: When I was a teen, I only had the TS1, later TS2 basegame and one (!) ep. When I got to college I was able to buy TS3 right on release and every dlc they released later on.
But it has always been EA's most important wish to keep exactly the Sims games T rated because EA likely know that most of the customers are young teens. Otherwise you can be sure that EA would have made the game M rated because that would allow EA to put much more mature content into the game and thereby make it much more attractive for older teens and young adults!
EA knows much more about this than we do. Both from market investigations and from the fact that EA knows the sales numbers (also the sold number of copies per million inhabitants) in different countries where the game has been given different ratings.
T(13+) is the rating in the US and in Canada.
12+ is the rating in Europe except in Germany and in Russia.
7+ is the rating in Germany.
18+ is the rating in Russia.
15+ is the rating in Australia and New Zealand.
How have those different ratings had effect on the number of sold copies per million inhabitants in the countries? EA knows the answer while we don't. But you can be very sure that EA would have dropped the T rating (ESRB) unless EA had proof that the youngest teens are the most important customers because EA could easily make the game much better for older teens and adults if only EA allowed the game to be M rated everywhere. So was it worth to fight so extremely hard for the T rating (especially when the ESRB threatened EA with a M rating when EA had a cheat code that could remove the blur in the bathroom)? If the youngest teens hadn't been more important as customers for exactly the Sims games than older teens and young adults were - then it sure wouldn't have been!
There have btw been a few attempt from other game companies to make similar M rated games (especially Singles and Singles 2). But they weren't successful because they couldn't be played by the youngest teens because of the M rating and older teens and YA didn't buy enough copies of the games anyway. So you can be sure that EA know what they are doing
Another reason that I am sure that the Sims games are mostly played by the youngest teens is btw that I remember visiting game stores weekly in the Sims 1 days and in the Sims 2 days. Especially in the first couple of weeks after a release of a new Sims EP I saw all those young teen girls looking exited on the EPs and often they were followed by their mum who also was curious to see what her daughter was so exited about. Very often I then saw them take the EP and the mum paying for it in the stores.
And I could go on: Why do you think that EP now makes a huge number of SPs and more GPs than EPs? Well one way to see it is to imagine a very young teen asking her mum and dad for permission to buy and download an EP. Then the parents probably will object - especially over the price. Then she will beg a little more. But if it doesn't work she will instead mention a GP which only cost half as much. Maybe she will be allowed to buy that? But if not she will finally mention a SP which she maybe also would like. At that time the parents will be quite tired of saying no to everything - so she will likely be allowed to at least buy the SP
The problem about the sales numbers for especially EPs most likely is that they have been disappointing because the EPs aren't sold in physical stores anymore. Earlier the young teens were told by their parents to wish the EPs as presents for their birthday or for Christmas. But even that usually doesn't work anymore because parents don't like to give digital downloads for such presents. They want instead to give something physical which they can wrap nice paper around. So it is now almost impossible for young teens to get the EPs. So instead they likely just use the EPs in negoations with their parent to persuade them to give permission to download a GP or a SP. Sales numbers for EPs are therefore likely much lower than earlier. So EA doesn't for those reasons want to make very many EPs anymore.
Lets be real here; there are no cars, open world does not exist, and they don't have to consider what items can be colored/patterned. It shouldn't take them a whole year just to make one EP that has little to no new gameplay. Sometimes I just wish there was a competitor that would keep EA on their feet because it's just gotten sad. Sims was my favorite franchise, but now not so much. There's alot of potential in the game if they'd just get their shxt together and listen to the community.
I think if they grabbed a handful of simmers, such as the Youtube community (since they spoil them so much), to get their opinions on what should be added to the game their might be a chance. I personally feel like the producers don't even play their own game, otherwise they'd know what's missing and wouldn't be putting out such trash SPs to hold people off for an EP that isn't even deserving of $40USD. Ehh... I totally went off-topic, but by the way things are going I'd say 6 EPs and probably 40 SPs...
I have been teaching at highschool level for many years and you should just know how many times I have heard highschool students discuss Sims games as something they played when they were a few years younger.
I don't know if young teens own the same amount of packs as adult simmers. But I agree that this likely isn't the case and especially now when they can't get the EPs anymore just by wishing those packs for birthdays and Christmas. So I agree that young teens likely have to very often buy only the SPs and maybe just a few of the GPs. My point still is that this doesn't matter if there are 10 to 50 times as many young teen simmers as there are adult simmers and I wouldn't be surprised if it should be the case because I can find teens or young adults in probably almost all my classes who can tell me that they earlier played Sims games even though they usually also will tell me that they don't play such games anymore. Compare this to the fact that it is extremely difficult to find adult simmers anywhere (except in this forum and on Facebook or twitter).
The "young teen" target is a myth that Erpe like to throw around in seemingly half the thread he's posting in. He's basing this half on backward logic (he sees young teens in high school (duh!) and concludes that's what most simmers look like, he saw young teens post in the danish forum that has around 50 members posting, and concludes that's what most simmers look like), and half on totally wrong facts (like how he says they are no longer selling EP in physical store, or that they are focusing more on SPs). I've yet to see him post any evidence that isn't factually wrong or biased anecdotes, and he just brushed off any evidence that don't fit his myth (like SimGuruGraham's quote below) and ignore all the simmers that say they are or know young adults and older simmers (He claims 'It is actually hard to find another adult simmer living near you and almost no adult simmers know any other adults from their hometown or even in their own family who also play the game". Last time he asked, they were lots of people who answered that says, they knew adult simmers and he kept moving goalposts, like it had to be outside the forum to count, or outside the family
SimGuruGraham said the game is built to appeal to players of nearly any age range, and not for children and teens.
"We're not making a game for children and teens. The Sims is for teens and up, and it'd be presumptuous to assume that the game is targeted just at teens due to specific pieces of content. More than nearly any other game I can think of, Sims is a AAA video game franchise that is built to appeal to players of nearly any age range."
1. No I don't see young teens in highschool because the pupils in highschool are all older teens and young adults. They tell me them that they don't play Sims games anymore even though some of them did before they started in highschool.
2. The Danish Sims 2 forum didn't just have 50 members but several hundreds. It likely had about as many young teens as this forum has members. (But the Danish Sims 3 forum had very few teens and the Danish Sims 4 forum is almost completely dead.)
3. I know that about 80 to 90 pct of the active members in the Danish Sims 2 forum were young teens because they discussed their school and homework in our offtopic forum which was so big that I didn't even understand how the 5 moderators could manage to read and modify it.
4. I know that you will just keep lying and deny that there ever have been teens playing the game although EA went into huge panic when the ESRB threatened to change the rating from T to M. (You are excused for not remembering in because you apparently was too young to play the game at all in the Sims 2 days.)
Is SimGuruGraham the CEO of EA?
Or is he just a producer (not even the executive producer) whos job it just is to make sure that the games develops quick enough to be released at the time which he has been told that EA wants them released - and with the content that EA has told him that EA wants the game to have?
Would SimGuruGraham be allowed by EA to tell us if he didn't agree with EA's requests for the game? Would he then be able to keep his job?
Would EA like it if he told us that the game is targeted mainly at the youngest teens and not at adults even if the producers were told to make the game this way by EA? (I don't think so because EA sure doesn't mind it at all if other gamers but the intended target group buy the game too.)
I can understand that you just want to win every discussion by being stubborn. But I am not interested in discussing with people who just go on lying to "win" discussions when they run out of arguments and you have for a very long time seemed to not have any knowledge to bring to this topic. So EOD.
If you have a statement from EA CEO that says they are targetting mainly young teens, by all means, give us the link. Until then, I'll consider SimGuruGraham's statement to be accurate, and far more reliable than yours.
I don't use off site links but I will say 4 or 5 at the most. With only one a year I'm guessing one this year and one next year sometime before TS4 ends..and that is being generous.
I'm not sure what's more amusing : the fact that you can't read what I'm posting or what SimGuruGraham had posted (it never was about the game being mainly targeted at adults), the fact that you try to put personal attacks about my supposed age each time (which is hilarious considering you're basing part of your deduction on forum posters' age), or the fact that you're calling my posts "undocumented lying" while having provided no evidence whatsoever so far
1. You apparently didn't play the previous Sims games and don't know anything about their forums.
2. You seem ready to do anything to stubbornly be able to claim that TS4 isn't mainly a game for young teens but for adults. This points in the direction that it is extremely important for you that people don't see you as playing a game which is targeted at an age group that is just a couple of years younger than you are. (Adults usually don't care at all about such things.)
Not at all. I willingly play kids games if they strike my fancy, lol, so that wouldn't bother me. But I've made my statement, and it's clear to me that you just don't have a very good understanding of American culture and the structures and reasons behind our ratings systems. And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. I also think that your opinion is possibly based from your own experience and your own culture (assuming that you are not American) so that in your region, there may be some truth to your perceptions. Nothing wrong with that either.
But it's apparent to me that you want your opinions and perspective to be seen as factual, yet, when asked to provide a link or even an official reference, you haven't offered any proof, instead falling back on your age as some kind of weird attempt to gain leverage (??) and resolving to condescension under the assumption that those who oppose you are "young". When someone has to fall back on ageist pettiness, it's a sign that they are avoiding the topic, most likely due to lack of substance for backing up their argument. You also seem to get really defensive when someone can supply proof that opposes your opinion.
I'm not trying to pick a fight. You have your opinions and I have mine. I just don't see why it's so hard for you to admit that your statements are, in fact, just opinions, which you are absolutely entitled to, but also means that maybe sometimes you're not always right. I don't think people would be questioning your theories so much if you actually could admit when your statements are just that: theories.
Edit: @LenaDieters11 My apologies for contributing to further derailment. I was replying to my "summons".
1. I completely agree with about kids games because I don't at all mind them either if I like them.
2. I understand the ESRB ratings very well and also the differences between Australian ratings, ESRB ratings and our own PEGI ratings. But it isn't about ratings. EA has just fought so extremely hard about keeping the Sims games T rated while pushing the Sims games to the limits for nakedness and romantic relationships without getting the games M rated by the ESRB too like they are in Australia and New Zealand. PEGI cares less about such things than the ESRB does. But EA knows that it would be a disaster for the sales numbers if the ESRB changed the T rating to a M rating anyway because Northamerican young teens then would be allowed to play the games for their parents.
I have given a lot of reasons while nobody have given reasons for the opposite viewpoint. Besides that you can be sure that if I had been wrong then one of the SimGurus would have corrected me a long time ago. But their problem is that while they know that the games are targeted at young teens they also know that this forum is dominated and mostly used only by the minority of adult simmers. Therefore they don't want to confirm here that the games are targeted at young teens even though they can't deny it either because they know that it is true.
They are more than that even though EA doesn't want to confirm they because EA wants adults to not be ashamed to play this game either. This I understand. But it wonders me more why it is so extremely important for adult simmers to deny that they are playing a game which mainly is targeted at 13 yrs olds? Is that thought really that awful?
Anyway this isn't the reason why I don't play TS4 myself anymore. I still play the Sims Freeplay. But I just can't play TS4 because it doesn't have similar (or preferably even bigger) challenges and it would be a completely waste of money for me to buy more expansions for this game because I know that I wouldn't play it for more than a few minutes each time I bought a new expansion and then most likely never again.
Its The Sims not Grand Theft Auto. I'd be concerned about that rating screwing up sales too just from a straight business perspective.
-Cars Update
-Spiral/Diagonal Stairs Update
-Hotel Pack
-Romance Pack (possibly combined with Hotel Pack)
-Bands Pack
-Royalty Pack
-Fashion Design Pack
-Fairies Pack
-Werewolf Pack
-France-inspired World
-Cars Update
-Spiral/Diagonal Stairs Update
-Hotel Pack
-Romance Pack (possibly combined with Hotel Pack)
-Bands Pack
-Royalty Pack
-Fashion Design Pack
-Fairies Pack
-Werewolf Pack
-France-inspired World
It's true Sims has an unorthodox audience in terms of the game community, but this doesn't mean teens and young adults are not the primary target. Sims enjoys a much higher population of middle-aged women than most games, and likewise...Another lesser-acknowledged group that I know it'd never be viewed as an "official" part of the target demographic, but anyone ever youtube searched Sims 3 or Sims 4? There's a handful of youtubers that have adult mods and focus their gameplay efforts almost entirely on woohoo. I clicked one because I thought that was odd to basically announce "hey guys when I play sims I just use adult mods and have my simself woohoo everything that moves, wanna watch?" and the episode I did see happened to have the guy talking about his own youtube channel's demographics report. He was shocked because the average viewer age came back at like 12. He asked people to confirm it in the comments and sure enough a bunch of 9-12 year olds all happily spoke up and said "but don't worry I'm mature for my age." It may sound strange or unbelievable, but the Sims seems to be where a good portion of kids go to learn about...erm, "woohoo," when they start reaching that age. Likewise, I don't think kids playing the Sims is unusual because parents may indeed deem this game acceptable. The big "danger" with the Sims is not gratuitous violence that can be damaging for a kid's psyche, but rather that it'll make it clear the stork is a myth, and some parents may not have an issue with that. But I digress...that's not the biggest audience; merely acknowledging that just because the rating says kids shouldn't play this, doesn't mean they absolutely don't.
If you do some googling you can find this and this. Both articles are VERY dated, but they're also the only articles on this subject matter since Sims news and earnings reports more or less went off the grid with Sims 4. The latter article is interviewing their senior marketing director who stayed with the company until ~2012, and he directly states they want the 16-24 demographic. The first article even acknowledges the a huge chunk of Sims users are adult women...but goes on to state a desire to expand and market to the younger audience. Yes, the adult demographic is there, no one's disputing that. The marketing efforts however seem clearly geared more towards the younger audiences; one of those demographics is welcome to play the game, but the other is actively sought out. The second article aligns with this and states that the 16-24 age represents the largest audience that plays the Sims. He also gives additional notes on why that 16-24 range is so valued within the industry as a whole, including that BOTH younger and older demographics often refer to this one to figure out what's hip and trendy, so targeting this one can indirectly benefit other age ranges too. (such as their older audience) Everything about that article makes it clear that at least 8 years ago, the target was 100% the 16-24 range, and while this is certainly dated, I struggle to see why it would take such a drastic change and where the evidence for such a change is.
It shouldn't be too surprising either. Does no one remember the interactive map for San Myshuno...? One look at that thing should make it painfully obvious the target demographic is teens-young adults. All the hashtags and internet jargon, not to mention the "protagonist" Sim from the trailers, Erin (?), had a comment on practically every venue shown and ALWAYS spoke like a bubbly teenage girl. That to me was a clear case of more or less using that character as a representation of the audience, as if to say "this is you" and trying to relate her back to the audience by having her act like them. I'm in my late 20s and I'm a dude, and she annoyed the crap out of me lololol. I sincerely doubt that was marketed towards me just because it FELT immature and geared towards teens. And let's not forget what type of media they've chosen to embrace: Let's players, streamers, twitter and all the common social media outlets used by young adults and teens. They alienated written articles and transitioned to mediums with a younger audience. All signs point to that demographic.
We have no direct evidence perhaps (as is often the case with Sims 4 and it's super top secret earnings reports and design documents, sadly), but you don't need to look far to see that the 16-24 demographic is indeed highly important to this game and much of the marketing we've seen thusfar has definitely seemed geared towards that audience.
But 16-24 aren't young teens which are the ones Erpe was talking about.
But there are PC games for all ages. Examples are:
On http://www.parenting.com/gallery/8-best-pc-videogames-for-your-kids you can see a list of 18 PC games which can be bought for your kids. Some of them are for younger kids and some of them are for older kids.
On http://www.gamestop.com/browse/pc?nav=138c-35 you can see more than 800 games for the group of 16-24 yrs olds who you are talking about. Those games are M rated because they aren't for neither kids nor younger teens.
But there are also games for the younger teens who are too old to play kids games and too young to play the games for 16-24 yrs olds. 500 such games can be seen on http://www.gamestop.com/browse/pc?nav=138c-34 and the Sims games sure are among them. You could almost say that the Sims games dominate the list
This just doesn't mean that adults can't play games for kids or young teens too because of course they can. Those games just aren't targeted at adults. But many adults enjoy such games anyway. This is also true for the Sims games as we can see in this forum
My experience is that young teens play Sims games mostly to train themselves in romance, flirting and partying. They admire older teens and young adults who do such things easily and without the shyness that young teens usually have to such things.
The older teens usually feel that they have become too old to play Sims games. They have romance and partying in their own lives and most of them feel that it is too childish to also simulate that in the Sims games.
But some adults play Sims games too. Such adults are mostly 25+ yrs olds and they play in a different way because most of them use the Sims games to simulate the task of raising a family. Many adults like woohoo too. So maybe they are just simulating things that they miss in their real lives
Like what teen honestly get excited over laundry of all things? I remember being a teen and i was more about escapism not realism and so were most of my friends. Thats why games like Call of Duty (which DOES specifically target them) do so well.
-Cars Update
-Spiral/Diagonal Stairs Update
-Hotel Pack
-Romance Pack (possibly combined with Hotel Pack)
-Bands Pack
-Royalty Pack
-Fashion Design Pack
-Fairies Pack
-Werewolf Pack
-France-inspired World