No, I didn’t miss it. But where does it say that those are EPs for TS4? Maybe only one of them will ever be released and then it could be a GP for TS4 or maybe even some pack for TS5?
Grant specifically clarified later that the poll is for TS4 and not TS5.
I notice two things:
1. He said pack and not expansion pack. So we don’t know what kind of pack it will be.
2. “After some normal stuff” likely means after the packs they make in the rest of 2018 or just after one of those packs. So it could be some extra pack they will make while we wait for TS5 to be released.
I thought TS 4 was supposed to last for several more years. Have they said anything about TS5 yet?
Yes, TS4 will apparently last for several more years.
No, they have refused to say anything about TS5. This tells me two things: 1. TS5 has almost certainly been in development for some years. (Otherwise they would have told us.) 2. TS5 will likely very soon be announced which was the likely reason why a lot of gurus suddenly went on twitter about a month ago to guarantee that TS4 still will get a lot of packs (even after TS5 has been released).
But I feel that I am repeating myself way too much and we will likely very soon know much more anyway. So I am out of this discussion for now.
The thing is, they can't talk about future content. Whether it exists or not. So we can never be 'certain' about the Sims 5 development.
I partly agree. But I think that Grant could have answered the question about the packs maybe being for TS5 by saying something like: “No, TS4 will still be our main Sims game for a few more years.” Instead he avoided this by saying just: ”No, the packs are for TS4” and I feel quite sure that the reason was that he knows that TS5 is about to be announced (which also was the most likely reason why he came back to Twitter a month ago just to quite unusually guarantee that TS4 still will get a lot of new content for a few more years). The most surprising thing until now actually was that he was able to talk about unannounced future packs for TS4 in this way. But I guess that he somehow had got a special permission from EA’s top to do this - and for the mentioned reason.
He came back on Twitter a couple of weeks before seasons was announced and has said they want to focus more on open communication and getting feedback from people. I don't see why him going on Twitter means TS5 is about to be announced. They've clearly been given permission to talk more openly than they could in the past, most likely the success of Laundry day has made EA realise the financial benefits of involving the community. I say that because Grant said the pack was a huge success and they want to do more things like that, while talking a lot about how they're trying to work on improving communication with us. The reason he spoke about the future of TS4 specifically is because he gets a lot of people asking him about whether TS4 is ending. He didn't just decide to talk about it randomly, he was getting frustrated with constantly being asked about it. And as for the exact wording, every time they have brought a new version out, they have ended the previous version, therefore from his point of view, saying they are working on TS4 for years is the same as saying there's no TS5 about to be announced. Grant isn't someone to over-analyse every way his tweet can be interpreted, therefore it doesn't make sense to read so much into what he doesn't say. Not to mention it sounds better to say they're still working on it for years, rather than it's their main one for a few more years, the latter is highlighting the fact that they're going to drop it and move on. I mean they obviously will drop it at some point but still a poor idea to highlight that to the customers.
Then why did he go on twitter just now? He hasn’t been active on twitter since he talked about the basegame in 2014 and you can be quite sure that both he and most of the other gurus will disappear again within the next couple of months. So there are for me to see only two possible reasons:
1. The gurus became active to prepare people for EA Play, E3 and Gamescom.
2. The gurus became active to make people ready for an announcement of TS5 without simmers going into panic because they (incorrectly) would think that TS4 wouldn’t get more new content.
I think it was a combination of those two points. But I don’t believe that the gurus would have become that active and even suddenly completely unexpected guarantee that TS4 would get new content “for years to come” unless TS5 is about to be announced.
Because this is EA's new marketing strategy for Sims 4. Seriously, it's all about marketing. The new fiscal quarter started in April, and with it, there are a lot of new changes. We did not get a quarterly teaser. A new community manager came in who seems to post mostly on Twitter instead of the forums. An expansion pack was announced only a month before its release, when in the past they have always announced them at least two months in advance. Suddenly the developers, including the lead producer, are appearing on Twitter and answering questions and communicating more. Things are different, and we were even forewarned by the Gurus/EA that they would be changing how they do things from here on. The question is, why?
I completely agree with your statement that it is all about marketing because that it was I have been trying to say for years!
But I don’t believe that it was just about the new community manager. Way too much happened for that to be true and I am quite sure that most of the gurus will disappear from twitter again within one to two months. Seasons was suddenly announced and months before expected. It seems that they had decided to make Seasons ready before the likely SP and GP which were expected before the EP. Why? According to my theory it likely was about two things:
1. TS5 needed to be announced now and a GP or SP for TS4 wasn’t likely enough to make TS4 simmers believe that TS4 wouldn’t become a dead game after this announcement. But Seasons would likely be just what was needed for this.
2. The problem then was to convince the Sims 4 simmers to believe in a future for TS4 anyway. This required the gurus to go on twitter in advance and guarantee this future. In the end they even had to let Grant talk about “new content for TS4 for years to come” even though the gurus never have been allowed to do something like this before.
But now they are ready to announce TS5 and explain why TS4 still will live even after the release of the Sims 5 basegame
I can tell you my theory, and it has to do with a lot more than just Sims 5:
I believe it goes all the way back to the fall of SimCity. Sims 4 was well into development at that time, and I think that the failure of SimCity spooked EA into reassessing their direction for Sims 4. Granted, no one actually knows for sure what the original plan was for Sims 4, but just judging from the way the game is built, it feels quite different and strange from the previous games. I think that it was intended to have an online feature to it, but not necessarily be anything like an MMO. I believe this because modders have now found a way to hack a multiplayer feature, and that tells me that it is entirely possible it was planned at the beginning of game development. And also, at that time during Sims 4 development, multiplayer online games were hugely trending and on the uprise, so of course EA would want to jump right onto that bandwagon. They follow the money.
But then SimCity burned to the ground and they hesitated. Not wanting to waste all of the development time and money that they had already invested in Sims 4, they changed direction and did what they could to turn it back into an exclusively single player game. This caused some setbacks to its completion before the release date, but since they already had it built to be a live service, they saw they could use that to their advantage. The live service would enable them to patch in anything that was missing and still be able to deliver promised base game features. So they went ahead and released it as planned, announcing ahead that toddlers would not be included, soon patching in pools, ghosts, dishwashers, etc. along the way as "free" content. A sneaky move, but effective. But I think this also explains why teens are the same height as adults (the game's deadline interfered with further development), and toddlers were already in the game code with a placeholder, probably already in a very early development stage.
I disagree with the general idea about what happened because EA usually never give up just because things don’t work out according to plans immediately! An example is the problems with the weather which EA had planned for the Sims 2 basegame but which proved to require much more work than EA had expected. EA disabled the weather for that reason to make TS2 ready to be released at the planned time anyway. Everybody then thought that TS2 would never have rain and snow because the weather made the whole game unstable and it rained inside the houses too if modders reenabled the weather. But to people’s huge surprise EA later released the weather anyway in the very first Seasons EP.
I agree that the problems with SimCity 2013 likely was the reason why EA dropped the multiplayer part for TS4 because there wasn’t time enough to make multiplayer work much better if TS4 should be released already in 2014 as planned. But EA doesn’t give up and I am convinced that EA just postponed the multiplayer part to TS5. Everything IMO point in the direction that TS5 is about to be announced and that EA will continue to make new content to TS4 for years anyway. This only makes sense if TS5 will become some kind of online multiplayer game.
No, I didn’t miss it. But where does it say that those are EPs for TS4? Maybe only one of them will ever be released and then it could be a GP for TS4 or maybe even some pack for TS5?
Grant specifically clarified later that the poll is for TS4 and not TS5.
I notice two things:
1. He said pack and not expansion pack. So we don’t know what kind of pack it will be.
2. “After some normal stuff” likely means after the packs they make in the rest of 2018 or just after one of those packs. So it could be some extra pack they will make while we wait for TS5 to be released.
I thought TS 4 was supposed to last for several more years. Have they said anything about TS5 yet?
Yes, TS4 will apparently last for several more years.
No, they have refused to say anything about TS5. This tells me two things: 1. TS5 has almost certainly been in development for some years. (Otherwise they would have told us.) 2. TS5 will likely very soon be announced which was the likely reason why a lot of gurus suddenly went on twitter about a month ago to guarantee that TS4 still will get a lot of packs (even after TS5 has been released).
But I feel that I am repeating myself way too much and we will likely very soon know much more anyway. So I am out of this discussion for now.
The thing is, they can't talk about future content. Whether it exists or not. So we can never be 'certain' about the Sims 5 development.
I partly agree. But I think that Grant could have answered the question about the packs maybe being for TS5 by saying something like: “No, TS4 will still be our main Sims game for a few more years.” Instead he avoided this by saying just: ”No, the packs are for TS4” and I feel quite sure that the reason was that he knows that TS5 is about to be announced (which also was the most likely reason why he came back to Twitter a month ago just to quite unusually guarantee that TS4 still will get a lot of new content for a few more years). The most surprising thing until now actually was that he was able to talk about unannounced future packs for TS4 in this way. But I guess that he somehow had got a special permission from EA’s top to do this - and for the mentioned reason.
He came back on Twitter a couple of weeks before seasons was announced and has said they want to focus more on open communication and getting feedback from people. I don't see why him going on Twitter means TS5 is about to be announced. They've clearly been given permission to talk more openly than they could in the past, most likely the success of Laundry day has made EA realise the financial benefits of involving the community. I say that because Grant said the pack was a huge success and they want to do more things like that, while talking a lot about how they're trying to work on improving communication with us. The reason he spoke about the future of TS4 specifically is because he gets a lot of people asking him about whether TS4 is ending. He didn't just decide to talk about it randomly, he was getting frustrated with constantly being asked about it. And as for the exact wording, every time they have brought a new version out, they have ended the previous version, therefore from his point of view, saying they are working on TS4 for years is the same as saying there's no TS5 about to be announced. Grant isn't someone to over-analyse every way his tweet can be interpreted, therefore it doesn't make sense to read so much into what he doesn't say. Not to mention it sounds better to say they're still working on it for years, rather than it's their main one for a few more years, the latter is highlighting the fact that they're going to drop it and move on. I mean they obviously will drop it at some point but still a poor idea to highlight that to the customers.
Then why did he go on twitter just now? He hasn’t been active on twitter since he talked about the basegame in 2014 and you can be quite sure that both he and most of the other gurus will disappear again within the next couple of months. So there are for me to see only two possible reasons:
1. The gurus became active to prepare people for EA Play, E3 and Gamescom.
2. The gurus became active to make people ready for an announcement of TS5 without simmers going into panic because they (incorrectly) would think that TS4 wouldn’t get more new content.
I think it was a combination of those two points. But I don’t believe that the gurus would have become that active and even suddenly completely unexpected guarantee that TS4 would get new content “for years to come” unless TS5 is about to be announced.
Because this is EA's new marketing strategy for Sims 4. Seriously, it's all about marketing. The new fiscal quarter started in April, and with it, there are a lot of new changes. We did not get a quarterly teaser. A new community manager came in who seems to post mostly on Twitter instead of the forums. An expansion pack was announced only a month before its release, when in the past they have always announced them at least two months in advance. Suddenly the developers, including the lead producer, are appearing on Twitter and answering questions and communicating more. Things are different, and we were even forewarned by the Gurus/EA that they would be changing how they do things from here on. The question is, why?
I completely agree with your statement that it is all about marketing because that it was I have been trying to say for years!
But I don’t believe that it was just about the new community manager. Way too much happened for that to be true and I am quite sure that most of the gurus will disappear from twitter again within one to two months. Seasons was suddenly announced and months before expected. It seems that they had decided to make Seasons ready before the likely SP and GP which were expected before the EP. Why? According to my theory it likely was about two things:
1. TS5 needed to be announced now and a GP or SP for TS4 wasn’t likely enough to make TS4 simmers believe that TS4 wouldn’t become a dead game after this announcement. But Seasons would likely be just what was needed for this.
2. The problem then was to convince the Sims 4 simmers to believe in a future for TS4 anyway. This required the gurus to go on twitter in advance and guarantee this future. In the end they even had to let Grant talk about “new content for TS4 for years to come” even though the gurus never have been allowed to do something like this before.
But now they are ready to announce TS5 and explain why TS4 still will live even after the release of the Sims 5 basegame
I can tell you my theory, and it has to do with a lot more than just Sims 5:
I believe it goes all the way back to the fall of SimCity. Sims 4 was well into development at that time, and I think that the failure of SimCity spooked EA into reassessing their direction for Sims 4. Granted, no one actually knows for sure what the original plan was for Sims 4, but just judging from the way the game is built, it feels quite different and strange from the previous games. I think that it was intended to have an online feature to it, but not necessarily be anything like an MMO. I believe this because modders have now found a way to hack a multiplayer feature, and that tells me that it is entirely possible it was planned at the beginning of game development. And also, at that time during Sims 4 development, multiplayer online games were hugely trending and on the uprise, so of course EA would want to jump right onto that bandwagon. They follow the money.
But then SimCity burned to the ground and they hesitated. Not wanting to waste all of the development time and money that they had already invested in Sims 4, they changed direction and did what they could to turn it back into an exclusively single player game. This caused some setbacks to its completion before the release date, but since they already had it built to be a live service, they saw they could use that to their advantage. The live service would enable them to patch in anything that was missing and still be able to deliver promised base game features. So they went ahead and released it as planned, announcing ahead that toddlers would not be included, soon patching in pools, ghosts, dishwashers, etc. along the way as "free" content. A sneaky move, but effective. But I think this also explains why teens are the same height as adults (the game's deadline interfered with further development), and toddlers were already in the game code with a placeholder, probably already in a very early development stage.
I disagree with the general idea about what happened because EA usually never give up just because things don’t work out according to plans immediately! An example is the problems with the weather which EA had planned for the Sims 2 basegame but which proved to require much more work than EA had expected. EA disabled the weather for that reason to make TS2 ready to be released at the planned time anyway. Everybody then thought that TS2 would never have rain and snow because the weather made the whole game unstable and it rained inside the houses too if modders reenabled the weather. But to people’s huge surprise EA later released the weather anyway in the very first Seasons EP.
I agree that the problems with SimCity 2013 likely was the reason why EA dropped the multiplayer part for TS4 because there wasn’t time enough to make multiplayer work much better if TS4 should be released already in 2014 as planned. But EA doesn’t give up and I am convinced that EA just postponed the multiplayer part to TS5. Everything IMO point in the direction that TS5 is about to be announced and that EA will continue to make new content to TS4 for years anyway. This only makes sense if TS5 will become some kind of online multiplayer game.
It's certainly not impossible. I did start wondering a couple of months back, if EA would consider having two Sims games running at once instead of waiting for one to end before starting the next. We have seen the popularity of previous games continue on while a new game begins and many Simmers do like to play more than one version of The Sims and they have expressed that they would continue to purchase both if they could. If EA truly thought it would be lucrative in profits, they would consider doing this. But upon thinking about it more, I realized it's also a risk to take because they would be competing with themselves. There are many Sims gamers who would continue to reluctantly support a game, even if it wasn't exactly their ideal model, just because it's the newest and the only recent option. If another Sims game was released, they would ditch the one they don't like in favor of playing the next. Then you have the people who will only support one game at a time, and who wouldn't jump on board with a new Sims game while the current one still has so much potential and promise to continue.
But I see what you're saying that if the "Sims 5" was an online game and very different from Sims 4, people would be more likely to play both because there wouldn't be much overlap. But at this point, I don't think they would call it Sims 5 if they released something like that. Sims 4 is too strong right now and I think it would give off the wrong message to Simmers who are now deeply invested in this game. Even newer Simmers who just jumped on board would be confused because all of the heavy promoting would have drawn them in and it would almost seem like a betrayal, especially when the Game Changers program just went up and the new fan kits are available. Having a "Sims 5" come now would seem in bad taste. But if a new game was just called, "The Sims Online", or an alternate name, it would be clear that the intention would be to run it independently of Sims 4.
It's interesting to think about, though. I'm curious to see what direction EA takes for The Sims in the future.
@LiELF I agree that TS5 likely will be released under another name if it is an online game and if TS4 also will get new content at the same time as TS5. But the problem is that the name Sims Online was already used for another Sims game in 2002. Therefore I don’t think that EA will use that name again. So I can’t guess which name EA then is likely to choose?
I have absoluteley no idea if we get another EP this year, but assuming we do, it will either be november or december.
I expect a small amount of patched contant, like 3 hairstyles and 2 deco objects, alongside bugfixes for seasons in july, 2 SPs and a GP in august, september and october, the GP most likely in september.
theme wise, I hope for witches/magic, which also seems logical as this is the thing I have seen more hints towards so far.
This is only a guess. I have been wrong before, predicting Toddlers would come as part of a GP rather than as a patch, for example.
Many people say it will be University GP, but I am unaware of any puns or hints that say anything about school/university/collage anywhere.
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
The markets for PC games and for mobile games are very different and there are no chance that EA will release a free online Sims game for PCs too within the next few years! The reasons are:
1. The big PC versions of the Sims games give EA many times higher profit than the mobile Sims games do. This is the reason why EA never has even considered to let the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile become available for Windows PCs and Macs too even though a lot of other mobile games are available in such versions too!
2. The PC game mainly earn money to EA by making it possible to sell a huge number of extra packs which are cheap to make with the dedicated game engine which EA therefore has developed for each PC game. So EA would really like to make a Sims game with a lot of paid packs for mobile devices too! But this isn’t possible with current technology. Therefore EA makes free Sims games for mobile devices instead and has to be satisfied with income from showing adds and from selling extra but unnecessary stuff.
So even though I expect EA to soon announce “Sims 5” as an online multiplayer PC game I don’t believe at all that it will be a free game or that its packs will be free because that would reduce EA’s income and profit much more than EA ever would accept! Instead I think that EA likely sees the online multiplayer part as something that maybe can give EA even higher income by selling subscriptions too - or at least from showing adds in the game. It is more about porting this model from other multiplayer games from EA (like the Battlefield games and so on) to the Sims games too. But exactly how EA will do it we can’t know before the game is actually announced.
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
The markets for PC games and for mobile games are very different and there are no chance that EA will release a free online Sims game for PCs too within the next few years! The reasons are:
1. The big PC versions of the Sims games give EA many times higher profit than the mobile Sims games do. This is the reason why EA never has even considered to let the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile become available for Windows PCs and Macs too even though a lot of other mobile games are available in such versions too!
2. The PC game mainly earn money to EA by making it possible to sell a huge number of extra packs which are cheap to make with the dedicated game engine which EA therefore has developed for each PC game. So EA would really like to make a Sims game with a lot of paid packs for mobile devices too! But this isn’t possible with current technology. Therefore EA makes free Sims games for mobile devices instead and has to be satisfied with income from showing adds and from selling extra but unnecessary stuff.
So even though I expect EA to soon announce “Sims 5” as an online multiplayer PC game I don’t believe at all that it will be a free game or that its packs will be free because that would reduce EA’s income and profit much more than EA ever would accept! Instead I think that EA likely sees the online multiplayer part as something that maybe can give EA even higher income by selling subscriptions too - or at least from showing adds in the game. It is more about porting this model from other multiplayer games from EA (like the Battlefield games and so on) to the Sims games too. But exactly how EA will do it we can’t know before the game is actually announced.
I think you misunderstood my point here.
I never said EA would make Sims 5 as a cross platform free to play game. What I said is the Sims 4 is likely to be the last Sims game on PC ever.
I think they will release a few mobile title where a very shallow base game, with not even half as much contentas Sims 4 base game, is downloadable for free, but with content and gameplay packs you have to pay for. Each pack about half the size of a stuff pack, but charging 20$ or something.
You say they have to release Sims 5 next year to atract new simmers. EA has stated multiple times that they believed the game market will shift towards mobile and PC and consoles will be abandoned at some point. So to them it would make sense to make the future of the Sims all mobile for younger players don't play on the PC anymore but on their phones and tablets. That is what they believe. That is why they released that crappy cash grab of Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
Sims 4 will keep getting content, but there will not be a Sims 5. Not on PC or consoles. Ever. Unless EA decides that they cannot get enough profit from the Franchise and sell it to someone else.
Not with the ways things are going. They'll likely release multiple games pack that could have been made into one EP before they make another EP unfortunately
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
The markets for PC games and for mobile games are very different and there are no chance that EA will release a free online Sims game for PCs too within the next few years! The reasons are:
1. The big PC versions of the Sims games give EA many times higher profit than the mobile Sims games do. This is the reason why EA never has even considered to let the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile become available for Windows PCs and Macs too even though a lot of other mobile games are available in such versions too!
2. The PC game mainly earn money to EA by making it possible to sell a huge number of extra packs which are cheap to make with the dedicated game engine which EA therefore has developed for each PC game. So EA would really like to make a Sims game with a lot of paid packs for mobile devices too! But this isn’t possible with current technology. Therefore EA makes free Sims games for mobile devices instead and has to be satisfied with income from showing adds and from selling extra but unnecessary stuff.
So even though I expect EA to soon announce “Sims 5” as an online multiplayer PC game I don’t believe at all that it will be a free game or that its packs will be free because that would reduce EA’s income and profit much more than EA ever would accept! Instead I think that EA likely sees the online multiplayer part as something that maybe can give EA even higher income by selling subscriptions too - or at least from showing adds in the game. It is more about porting this model from other multiplayer games from EA (like the Battlefield games and so on) to the Sims games too. But exactly how EA will do it we can’t know before the game is actually announced.
I think you misunderstood my point here.
I never said EA would make Sims 5 as a cross platform free to play game. What I said is the Sims 4 is likely to be the last Sims game on PC ever.
I think they will release a few mobile title where a very shallow base game, with not even half as much contentas Sims 4 base game, is downloadable for free, but with content and gameplay packs you have to pay for. Each pack about half the size of a stuff pack, but charging 20$ or something.
You say they have to release Sims 5 next year to atract new simmers. EA has stated multiple times that they believed the game market will shift towards mobile and PC and consoles will be abandoned at some point. So to them it would make sense to make the future of the Sims all mobile for younger players don't play on the PC anymore but on their phones and tablets. That is what they believe. That is why they released that plum cash grab of Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
Sims 4 will keep getting content, but there will not be a Sims 5. Not on PC or consoles. Ever. Unless EA decides that they cannot get enough profit from the Franchise and sell it to someone else.
Don’t be confused just because the market for mobile games is growing even faster (and especially in China) because the total market for games is growing too. This won’t stop very soon because countries like China and India have huge populations that put together are about 8 times as big as the population in the US or about 4 times as big as the population in Europe. So when the inhabitants in those two countries (and in many other countries too) start playing games almost as much as the inhabitants of Europe, Australia and North America do then making such games will become even more profitable than it is now!
We don’t know yet what will happen in a future that is even farther away. But mobile phones won’t replace PCs in any foreseeable future. The future for consoles is more insecure though and maybe smartTVs will be able to replace them as gaming devices after a couple of more decades?
Not with the ways things are going. They'll likely release multiple games pack that could have been made into one EP before they make another EP unfortunately
agree.
this is my point to. at the current rates of expansion pack releases we are getting. getting another in the next 4 to 5 months seems unlikely.
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
The markets for PC games and for mobile games are very different and there are no chance that EA will release a free online Sims game for PCs too within the next few years! The reasons are:
1. The big PC versions of the Sims games give EA many times higher profit than the mobile Sims games do. This is the reason why EA never has even considered to let the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile become available for Windows PCs and Macs too even though a lot of other mobile games are available in such versions too!
2. The PC game mainly earn money to EA by making it possible to sell a huge number of extra packs which are cheap to make with the dedicated game engine which EA therefore has developed for each PC game. So EA would really like to make a Sims game with a lot of paid packs for mobile devices too! But this isn’t possible with current technology. Therefore EA makes free Sims games for mobile devices instead and has to be satisfied with income from showing adds and from selling extra but unnecessary stuff.
So even though I expect EA to soon announce “Sims 5” as an online multiplayer PC game I don’t believe at all that it will be a free game or that its packs will be free because that would reduce EA’s income and profit much more than EA ever would accept! Instead I think that EA likely sees the online multiplayer part as something that maybe can give EA even higher income by selling subscriptions too - or at least from showing adds in the game. It is more about porting this model from other multiplayer games from EA (like the Battlefield games and so on) to the Sims games too. But exactly how EA will do it we can’t know before the game is actually announced.
I think you misunderstood my point here.
I never said EA would make Sims 5 as a cross platform free to play game. What I said is the Sims 4 is likely to be the last Sims game on PC ever.
I think they will release a few mobile title where a very shallow base game, with not even half as much contentas Sims 4 base game, is downloadable for free, but with content and gameplay packs you have to pay for. Each pack about half the size of a stuff pack, but charging 20$ or something.
You say they have to release Sims 5 next year to atract new simmers. EA has stated multiple times that they believed the game market will shift towards mobile and PC and consoles will be abandoned at some point. So to them it would make sense to make the future of the Sims all mobile for younger players don't play on the PC anymore but on their phones and tablets. That is what they believe. That is why they released that plum cash grab of Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
Sims 4 will keep getting content, but there will not be a Sims 5. Not on PC or consoles. Ever. Unless EA decides that they cannot get enough profit from the Franchise and sell it to someone else.
Don’t be confused just because the market for mobile games is growing even faster (and especially in China) because the total market for games is growing too. This won’t stop very soon because countries like China and India have huge populations that put together are about 8 times as big as the population in the US or about 4 times as big as the population in Europe. So when the inhabitants in those two countries (and in many other countries too) start playing games almost as much as the inhabitants of Europe, Australia and North America do then making such games will become even more profitable than it is now!
We don’t know yet what will happen in a future that is even farther away. But mobile phones won’t replace PCs in any foreseeable future. The future for consoles is more insecure though and maybe smartTVs will be able to replace them as gaming devices after a couple of more decades?
I never said PC gaming is dead. Nor did I say PC gaming is about to die. I don't even believe that it will, at least for the next few decades.
What I said was that EA thinks it will die, and wants to leave the market before it dies.
EA's Ceos and management have stated that multiple times, as well as several dev.studios being re-structured for the production of mobile games and budget for PC projects being shortend and cut speaks volumes as well.
I do believe that they are wrong to believe that, for the reasons you've said. But just because they are wrong in our oppinion doesn't change their oppinon.
They will not invest in what they, for whatever reason, think is a dieing market. They try to get as much out of what they already invested and have their investments progressively smaller in order to guarantee a smooth transition, but ultimately, they are retreating from the PC market and have growing investments in the mobile market.
The attempt to make Command and Conquer a multiplayer online competitive free2play microtransactions mobile thing got generals 2 cancelled and the Command and Conquer franchise in ruins. Then there is the plum dungeon keeper mobile plum. Despite fans (including myself) longing for a proper Dungeon Keeper 3.
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
The markets for PC games and for mobile games are very different and there are no chance that EA will release a free online Sims game for PCs too within the next few years! The reasons are:
1. The big PC versions of the Sims games give EA many times higher profit than the mobile Sims games do. This is the reason why EA never has even considered to let the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile become available for Windows PCs and Macs too even though a lot of other mobile games are available in such versions too!
2. The PC game mainly earn money to EA by making it possible to sell a huge number of extra packs which are cheap to make with the dedicated game engine which EA therefore has developed for each PC game. So EA would really like to make a Sims game with a lot of paid packs for mobile devices too! But this isn’t possible with current technology. Therefore EA makes free Sims games for mobile devices instead and has to be satisfied with income from showing adds and from selling extra but unnecessary stuff.
So even though I expect EA to soon announce “Sims 5” as an online multiplayer PC game I don’t believe at all that it will be a free game or that its packs will be free because that would reduce EA’s income and profit much more than EA ever would accept! Instead I think that EA likely sees the online multiplayer part as something that maybe can give EA even higher income by selling subscriptions too - or at least from showing adds in the game. It is more about porting this model from other multiplayer games from EA (like the Battlefield games and so on) to the Sims games too. But exactly how EA will do it we can’t know before the game is actually announced.
I think you misunderstood my point here.
I never said EA would make Sims 5 as a cross platform free to play game. What I said is the Sims 4 is likely to be the last Sims game on PC ever.
I think they will release a few mobile title where a very shallow base game, with not even half as much contentas Sims 4 base game, is downloadable for free, but with content and gameplay packs you have to pay for. Each pack about half the size of a stuff pack, but charging 20$ or something.
You say they have to release Sims 5 next year to atract new simmers. EA has stated multiple times that they believed the game market will shift towards mobile and PC and consoles will be abandoned at some point. So to them it would make sense to make the future of the Sims all mobile for younger players don't play on the PC anymore but on their phones and tablets. That is what they believe. That is why they released that plum cash grab of Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
Sims 4 will keep getting content, but there will not be a Sims 5. Not on PC or consoles. Ever. Unless EA decides that they cannot get enough profit from the Franchise and sell it to someone else.
Don’t be confused just because the market for mobile games is growing even faster (and especially in China) because the total market for games is growing too. This won’t stop very soon because countries like China and India have huge populations that put together are about 8 times as big as the population in the US or about 4 times as big as the population in Europe. So when the inhabitants in those two countries (and in many other countries too) start playing games almost as much as the inhabitants of Europe, Australia and North America do then making such games will become even more profitable than it is now!
We don’t know yet what will happen in a future that is even farther away. But mobile phones won’t replace PCs in any foreseeable future. The future for consoles is more insecure though and maybe smartTVs will be able to replace them as gaming devices after a couple of more decades?
I never said PC gaming is dead. Nor did I say PC gaming is about to die. I don't even believe that it will, at least for the next few decades.
What I said was that EA thinks it will die, and wants to leave the market before it dies.
EA's Ceos and management have stated that multiple times, as well as several dev.studios being re-structured for the production of mobile games and budget for PC projects being shortend and cut speaks volumes as well.
I do believe that they are wrong to believe that, for the reasons you've said. But just because they are wrong in our oppinion doesn't change their oppinon.
They will not invest in what they, for whatever reason, think is a dieing market. They try to get as much out of what they already invested and have their investments progressively smaller in order to guarantee a smooth transition, but ultimately, they are retreating from the PC market and have growing investments in the mobile market.
The attempt to make Command and Conquer a multiplayer online competitive free2play microtransactions mobile thing got generals 2 cancelled and the Command and Conquer franchise in ruins. Then there is the plum dungeon keeper mobile plum. Despite fans (including myself) longing for a proper Dungeon Keeper 3.
You are underestimating hugely how serious and well educated the managers in EA’s top are! Just read some of the background for EA’s current CEO on https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ea-picks-ea-sports-vp-as-new-ceo/ They are not amateurs but highly skilled businessmen who never would have got their current jobs if they hadn’t been top trained in marketing and managing such a huge company like EA is! You can be very very sure that they are studying the market for games all the time and always are looking for ways to earn more money and you can also be very very sure that they won’t hesitate a second to close down games or studios that don’t give EA a satisfying profit for the investments!
Such people don’t think with their emotions but calculate carefully a lot of things that could give the company higher profit and they certainly don’t overlook that EA still can earn hundreds of millions of dollars on new PC games!
But of course they don’t ignore either the fact that the market for mobile games are growing faster than the market for PC games and now also has become bigger. This just doesn’t mean that EA can afford to neglect its most profitable PC games at all!
So I don’t fear for the future for the PC Sims games at all in that way! My only worry is instead that EA’s market investigations clearly seem to have proved that SPs sell better than EPs and that about 11 to 15 yrs old simmers apparently are the huge majority of the customers because this almost certainly means that future Sims games will be just as simplified and almost childish as TS4 IMO is.
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
The markets for PC games and for mobile games are very different and there are no chance that EA will release a free online Sims game for PCs too within the next few years! The reasons are:
1. The big PC versions of the Sims games give EA many times higher profit than the mobile Sims games do. This is the reason why EA never has even considered to let the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile become available for Windows PCs and Macs too even though a lot of other mobile games are available in such versions too!
2. The PC game mainly earn money to EA by making it possible to sell a huge number of extra packs which are cheap to make with the dedicated game engine which EA therefore has developed for each PC game. So EA would really like to make a Sims game with a lot of paid packs for mobile devices too! But this isn’t possible with current technology. Therefore EA makes free Sims games for mobile devices instead and has to be satisfied with income from showing adds and from selling extra but unnecessary stuff.
So even though I expect EA to soon announce “Sims 5” as an online multiplayer PC game I don’t believe at all that it will be a free game or that its packs will be free because that would reduce EA’s income and profit much more than EA ever would accept! Instead I think that EA likely sees the online multiplayer part as something that maybe can give EA even higher income by selling subscriptions too - or at least from showing adds in the game. It is more about porting this model from other multiplayer games from EA (like the Battlefield games and so on) to the Sims games too. But exactly how EA will do it we can’t know before the game is actually announced.
I think you misunderstood my point here.
I never said EA would make Sims 5 as a cross platform free to play game. What I said is the Sims 4 is likely to be the last Sims game on PC ever.
I think they will release a few mobile title where a very shallow base game, with not even half as much contentas Sims 4 base game, is downloadable for free, but with content and gameplay packs you have to pay for. Each pack about half the size of a stuff pack, but charging 20$ or something.
You say they have to release Sims 5 next year to atract new simmers. EA has stated multiple times that they believed the game market will shift towards mobile and PC and consoles will be abandoned at some point. So to them it would make sense to make the future of the Sims all mobile for younger players don't play on the PC anymore but on their phones and tablets. That is what they believe. That is why they released that plum cash grab of Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
Sims 4 will keep getting content, but there will not be a Sims 5. Not on PC or consoles. Ever. Unless EA decides that they cannot get enough profit from the Franchise and sell it to someone else.
Don’t be confused just because the market for mobile games is growing even faster (and especially in China) because the total market for games is growing too. This won’t stop very soon because countries like China and India have huge populations that put together are about 8 times as big as the population in the US or about 4 times as big as the population in Europe. So when the inhabitants in those two countries (and in many other countries too) start playing games almost as much as the inhabitants of Europe, Australia and North America do then making such games will become even more profitable than it is now!
We don’t know yet what will happen in a future that is even farther away. But mobile phones won’t replace PCs in any foreseeable future. The future for consoles is more insecure though and maybe smartTVs will be able to replace them as gaming devices after a couple of more decades?
I never said PC gaming is dead. Nor did I say PC gaming is about to die. I don't even believe that it will, at least for the next few decades.
What I said was that EA thinks it will die, and wants to leave the market before it dies.
EA's Ceos and management have stated that multiple times, as well as several dev.studios being re-structured for the production of mobile games and budget for PC projects being shortend and cut speaks volumes as well.
I do believe that they are wrong to believe that, for the reasons you've said. But just because they are wrong in our oppinion doesn't change their oppinon.
They will not invest in what they, for whatever reason, think is a dieing market. They try to get as much out of what they already invested and have their investments progressively smaller in order to guarantee a smooth transition, but ultimately, they are retreating from the PC market and have growing investments in the mobile market.
The attempt to make Command and Conquer a multiplayer online competitive free2play microtransactions mobile thing got generals 2 cancelled and the Command and Conquer franchise in ruins. Then there is the plum dungeon keeper mobile plum. Despite fans (including myself) longing for a proper Dungeon Keeper 3.
You are underestimating hugely how serious and well educated the managers in EA’s top are! Just read some of the background for EA’s current CEO on https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ea-picks-ea-sports-vp-as-new-ceo/ They are not amateurs but highly skilled businessmen who never would have got their current jobs if they hadn’t been top trained in marketing and managing such a huge company like EA is! You can be very very sure that they are studying the market for games all the time and always are looking for ways to earn more money and you can also be very very sure that they won’t hesitate a second to close down games or studios that don’t give EA a satisfying profit for the investments!
Such people don’t think with their emotions but calculate carefully a lot of things that could give the company higher profit and they certainly don’t overlook that EA still can earn hundreds of millions of dollars on new PC games!
But of course they don’t ignore either the fact that the market for mobile games are growing faster than the market for PC games and now also has become bigger. This just doesn’t mean that EA can afford to neglect its most profitable PC games at all!
So I don’t fear for the future for the PC Sims games at all in that way! My only worry is instead that EA’s market investigations clearly seem to have proved that SPs sell better than EPs and that about 11 to 15 yrs old simmers apparently are the huge majority of the customers because this almost certainly means that future Sims games will be just as simplified and almost childish as TS4 IMO is.
All your statement is saying to me is that if they say they think PC gaming is dieing (which they did multiple times. Google it. Take a look at youtube.) then they are most probably right bercause they have done way more research in that matter than you or I did or will ever be able to do.
I am thinking with my own feelings when I believe they are wrong and you are thinking with your feelings when you say they cannot abandon the PC and *MUST* announce Sims 5 now.
I agree that they can't abandon the PC *NOW* and boom! No more PC games from EA. They are making a gradual shift.
For that reason, I don't believe there will ever be a Sims 5. And if there is, it will probably be five to eight years from now till it releases and it will have a shorter development time and lower budget than Sims 4. Sims 4 let go of the open world and CAST for performence, had neither toddlers nor pools nor ghosts at launch and is still lacking a lot of what Sims 3 had from the very beginning, but it also made improvements over previous games.
I don't expect Sims 5, if it ever comes out, to have half as much content and gameplay as Sims 4. For the exact reasons I am telling you.
Also, it would be a giant waste of money to support two mayor sims titles at the same time.
Of course I could be wrong. I have been wrong again, and I admit it. You don't have to take my word for it.
You don't even have to ask me to provide a link or klick one. You could google it yourself.
Just go and vote on Grant's new poll, though now, a long way down the page about what you might like in a Farming pack. Raising livestock currently on 51%. One day left from today 11th. June
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
The markets for PC games and for mobile games are very different and there are no chance that EA will release a free online Sims game for PCs too within the next few years! The reasons are:
1. The big PC versions of the Sims games give EA many times higher profit than the mobile Sims games do. This is the reason why EA never has even considered to let the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile become available for Windows PCs and Macs too even though a lot of other mobile games are available in such versions too!
2. The PC game mainly earn money to EA by making it possible to sell a huge number of extra packs which are cheap to make with the dedicated game engine which EA therefore has developed for each PC game. So EA would really like to make a Sims game with a lot of paid packs for mobile devices too! But this isn’t possible with current technology. Therefore EA makes free Sims games for mobile devices instead and has to be satisfied with income from showing adds and from selling extra but unnecessary stuff.
So even though I expect EA to soon announce “Sims 5” as an online multiplayer PC game I don’t believe at all that it will be a free game or that its packs will be free because that would reduce EA’s income and profit much more than EA ever would accept! Instead I think that EA likely sees the online multiplayer part as something that maybe can give EA even higher income by selling subscriptions too - or at least from showing adds in the game. It is more about porting this model from other multiplayer games from EA (like the Battlefield games and so on) to the Sims games too. But exactly how EA will do it we can’t know before the game is actually announced.
I think you misunderstood my point here.
I never said EA would make Sims 5 as a cross platform free to play game. What I said is the Sims 4 is likely to be the last Sims game on PC ever.
I think they will release a few mobile title where a very shallow base game, with not even half as much contentas Sims 4 base game, is downloadable for free, but with content and gameplay packs you have to pay for. Each pack about half the size of a stuff pack, but charging 20$ or something.
You say they have to release Sims 5 next year to atract new simmers. EA has stated multiple times that they believed the game market will shift towards mobile and PC and consoles will be abandoned at some point. So to them it would make sense to make the future of the Sims all mobile for younger players don't play on the PC anymore but on their phones and tablets. That is what they believe. That is why they released that plum cash grab of Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
Sims 4 will keep getting content, but there will not be a Sims 5. Not on PC or consoles. Ever. Unless EA decides that they cannot get enough profit from the Franchise and sell it to someone else.
Don’t be confused just because the market for mobile games is growing even faster (and especially in China) because the total market for games is growing too. This won’t stop very soon because countries like China and India have huge populations that put together are about 8 times as big as the population in the US or about 4 times as big as the population in Europe. So when the inhabitants in those two countries (and in many other countries too) start playing games almost as much as the inhabitants of Europe, Australia and North America do then making such games will become even more profitable than it is now!
We don’t know yet what will happen in a future that is even farther away. But mobile phones won’t replace PCs in any foreseeable future. The future for consoles is more insecure though and maybe smartTVs will be able to replace them as gaming devices after a couple of more decades?
I never said PC gaming is dead. Nor did I say PC gaming is about to die. I don't even believe that it will, at least for the next few decades.
What I said was that EA thinks it will die, and wants to leave the market before it dies.
EA's Ceos and management have stated that multiple times, as well as several dev.studios being re-structured for the production of mobile games and budget for PC projects being shortend and cut speaks volumes as well.
I do believe that they are wrong to believe that, for the reasons you've said. But just because they are wrong in our oppinion doesn't change their oppinon.
They will not invest in what they, for whatever reason, think is a dieing market. They try to get as much out of what they already invested and have their investments progressively smaller in order to guarantee a smooth transition, but ultimately, they are retreating from the PC market and have growing investments in the mobile market.
The attempt to make Command and Conquer a multiplayer online competitive free2play microtransactions mobile thing got generals 2 cancelled and the Command and Conquer franchise in ruins. Then there is the plum dungeon keeper mobile plum. Despite fans (including myself) longing for a proper Dungeon Keeper 3.
You are underestimating hugely how serious and well educated the managers in EA’s top are! Just read some of the background for EA’s current CEO on https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ea-picks-ea-sports-vp-as-new-ceo/ They are not amateurs but highly skilled businessmen who never would have got their current jobs if they hadn’t been top trained in marketing and managing such a huge company like EA is! You can be very very sure that they are studying the market for games all the time and always are looking for ways to earn more money and you can also be very very sure that they won’t hesitate a second to close down games or studios that don’t give EA a satisfying profit for the investments!
Such people don’t think with their emotions but calculate carefully a lot of things that could give the company higher profit and they certainly don’t overlook that EA still can earn hundreds of millions of dollars on new PC games!
But of course they don’t ignore either the fact that the market for mobile games are growing faster than the market for PC games and now also has become bigger. This just doesn’t mean that EA can afford to neglect its most profitable PC games at all!
So I don’t fear for the future for the PC Sims games at all in that way! My only worry is instead that EA’s market investigations clearly seem to have proved that SPs sell better than EPs and that about 11 to 15 yrs old simmers apparently are the huge majority of the customers because this almost certainly means that future Sims games will be just as simplified and almost childish as TS4 IMO is.
All your statement is saying to me is that if they say they think PC gaming is dieing (which they did multiple times. Google it. Take a look at youtube.) then they are most probably right bercause they have done way more research in that matter than you or I did or will ever be able to do.
I am thinking with my own feelings when I believe they are wrong and you are thinking with your feelings when you say they cannot abandon the PC and *MUST* announce Sims 5 now.
I agree that they can't abandon the PC *NOW* and boom! No more PC games from EA. They are making a gradual shift.
For that reason, I don't believe there will ever be a Sims 5. And if there is, it will probably be five to eight years from now till it releases and it will have a shorter development time and lower budget than Sims 4. Sims 4 let go of the open world and CAST for performence, had neither toddlers nor pools nor ghosts at launch and is still lacking a lot of what Sims 3 had from the very beginning, but it also made improvements over previous games.
I don't expect Sims 5, if it ever comes out, to have half as much content and gameplay as Sims 4. For the exact reasons I am telling you.
Also, it would be a giant waste of money to support two mayor sims titles at the same time.
Of course I could be wrong. I have been wrong again, and I admit it. You don't have to take my word for it.
You don't even have to ask me to provide a link or klick one. You could google it yourself.
I googled “PC gaming is dying”. But this only gave me some forums where gamers were worried about the future development of their favorite PC game and some discussion about the prices of gaming video cards which some PC gamers seem to think now are too high for them.
So instead I googled “the future of PC gaming” which told me that sales numbers were high in 2016 and 2017 and are expected to be at the same level in 2018. I also found a lot of information on https://kotaku.com/the-state-of-pc-gaming-in-2017-1821309273
So no. I can’t share your pessimism and it isn’t about what I want myself. Steam has more than a 100 million users and Origin is growing too.
I am not really a PC gamer anymore myself because I have mainly played on tablets in recent years. Also I don’t even know if I will return to PC gaming. Only that I soon will need some other games to play and good games are difficult to find. Both for PCs, tablets and consoles.
I am still following the Sims games for PCs though. But I need a better game than TS4 to start playing Sims on a PC. It could be TS5 but I strongly doubt it. Multiplayer isn’t something I need and if TS5 is multiplayer (as I expect) then it will likely be about as simplified and with as small worlds as TS4 has.
For the maybe millionth time.
I *never* said PC gaming was dieing.
I said *EA believes* PC gaming is dieing.
The research you were discribeing is if PC gaming was dieing, and found it not to be true, which is my impression too.
The people of EA's top management disagree on that for whatever reason. I honestly don't know why. For the exact reason you pointed out, the leaders of EA seem to be wrong about that. But strangely, they seem to be so sure, they are willing to gamble with the future of their company.
Either they are wrong, or we are missing something important.
I told you to google something like "EA about the future of gameing", not "the future of gameing".
For the maybe millionth time.
I *never* said PC gaming was dieing.
I said *EA believes* PC gaming is dieing.
The research you were discribeing is if PC gaming was dieing, and found it not to be true, which is my impression too.
The people of EA's top management disagree on that for whatever reason. I honestly don't know why. For the exact reason you pointed out, the leaders of EA seem to be wrong about that. But strangely, they seem to be so sure, they are willing to gamble with the future of their company.
Either they are wrong, or we are missing something important.
I told you to google something like "EA about the future of gameing", not "the future of gameing".
You miss my point which is that EA’s top actually follow the development for all kinds of gaming much more close than we do and they also have access to much more statistics about it than we do. It is their job to evaluate such things all the time and to adjust EA’s plans when things changes!
So no. There is no chance that EA knows less about it than we do and all statistics shows that the market for PC games isn’t decreasing at all! The PC market (and the market for console games too) has just grown slower than the market for mobile games which therefore now has become bigger than the markets for PC games and the market for console games.
So yes EA makes more mobile games now. But EA has no plans to stop making PC games and console games too. The Sims games are among the most profitable games for EA and especially in the PC version. So there is no chance at all that TS4 will become the last big Sims game for PCs!
For the maybe millionth time.
I *never* said PC gaming was dieing.
I said *EA believes* PC gaming is dieing.
The research you were discribeing is if PC gaming was dieing, and found it not to be true, which is my impression too.
The people of EA's top management disagree on that for whatever reason. I honestly don't know why. For the exact reason you pointed out, the leaders of EA seem to be wrong about that. But strangely, they seem to be so sure, they are willing to gamble with the future of their company.
Either they are wrong, or we are missing something important.
I told you to google something like "EA about the future of gameing", not "the future of gameing".
You miss my point which is that EA’s top actually follow the development for all kinds of gaming much more close than we do and they also have access to much more statistics about it than we do. It is their job to evaluate such things all the time and to adjust EA’s plans when things changes!
So no. There is no chance that EA knows less about it than we do and all statistics shows that the market for PC games isn’t decreasing at all! The PC market (and the market for console games too) has just grown slower than the market for mobile games which therefore now has become bigger than the markets for PC games and the market for console games.
So yes EA makes more mobile games now. But EA has no plans to stop making PC games and console games too. The Sims games are among the most profitable games for EA and especially in the PC version. So there is no chance at all that TS4 will become the last big Sims game for PCs!
Eiher our common opinion of PC gaming still having a big Future is wrong, or EA is wrong about it's statement that Mobile Games are the Future of the Industry and that they have to adapt to that, gradually leaving the sinking ship as a long term goal.
I have watched several You Tube videos on the topic of gaming, where that Statement was repeated as a side note or an explenation for behaviour the Developers or Fans did not endorse.
In many of those You Tube Videos, Gamedevs talk about Games they were working on being canceled or were to be redesigned as mobile games instead of PC, for that Reason.
It apears to be a long term plan. Something they gradually do over the course of years. Maybe one or two decades.
I can't see them throwing millions of dollars into a Sims 5 and its future Packs with plans like this.
I can't see the missing the Christmas peak, I think there will be another. If Seasons was planned as the only 2018 EP I think they would have released it at the end of the year like all the others.
Maybe a University EP is easier to be made, seeing that some modders kinda made it just using some stuff from GTW. I can see they releasing something that can be easily done, but i dont know if we want that!
Comments
But I don’t believe that it was just about the new community manager. Way too much happened for that to be true and I am quite sure that most of the gurus will disappear from twitter again within one to two months. Seasons was suddenly announced and months before expected. It seems that they had decided to make Seasons ready before the likely SP and GP which were expected before the EP. Why? According to my theory it likely was about two things:
1. TS5 needed to be announced now and a GP or SP for TS4 wasn’t likely enough to make TS4 simmers believe that TS4 wouldn’t become a dead game after this announcement. But Seasons would likely be just what was needed for this.
2. The problem then was to convince the Sims 4 simmers to believe in a future for TS4 anyway. This required the gurus to go on twitter in advance and guarantee this future. In the end they even had to let Grant talk about “new content for TS4 for years to come” even though the gurus never have been allowed to do something like this before.
But now they are ready to announce TS5 and explain why TS4 still will live even after the release of the Sims 5 basegame
I disagree with the general idea about what happened because EA usually never give up just because things don’t work out according to plans immediately! An example is the problems with the weather which EA had planned for the Sims 2 basegame but which proved to require much more work than EA had expected. EA disabled the weather for that reason to make TS2 ready to be released at the planned time anyway. Everybody then thought that TS2 would never have rain and snow because the weather made the whole game unstable and it rained inside the houses too if modders reenabled the weather. But to people’s huge surprise EA later released the weather anyway in the very first Seasons EP.
I agree that the problems with SimCity 2013 likely was the reason why EA dropped the multiplayer part for TS4 because there wasn’t time enough to make multiplayer work much better if TS4 should be released already in 2014 as planned. But EA doesn’t give up and I am convinced that EA just postponed the multiplayer part to TS5. Everything IMO point in the direction that TS5 is about to be announced and that EA will continue to make new content to TS4 for years anyway. This only makes sense if TS5 will become some kind of online multiplayer game.
It's certainly not impossible. I did start wondering a couple of months back, if EA would consider having two Sims games running at once instead of waiting for one to end before starting the next. We have seen the popularity of previous games continue on while a new game begins and many Simmers do like to play more than one version of The Sims and they have expressed that they would continue to purchase both if they could. If EA truly thought it would be lucrative in profits, they would consider doing this. But upon thinking about it more, I realized it's also a risk to take because they would be competing with themselves. There are many Sims gamers who would continue to reluctantly support a game, even if it wasn't exactly their ideal model, just because it's the newest and the only recent option. If another Sims game was released, they would ditch the one they don't like in favor of playing the next. Then you have the people who will only support one game at a time, and who wouldn't jump on board with a new Sims game while the current one still has so much potential and promise to continue.
But I see what you're saying that if the "Sims 5" was an online game and very different from Sims 4, people would be more likely to play both because there wouldn't be much overlap. But at this point, I don't think they would call it Sims 5 if they released something like that. Sims 4 is too strong right now and I think it would give off the wrong message to Simmers who are now deeply invested in this game. Even newer Simmers who just jumped on board would be confused because all of the heavy promoting would have drawn them in and it would almost seem like a betrayal, especially when the Game Changers program just went up and the new fan kits are available. Having a "Sims 5" come now would seem in bad taste. But if a new game was just called, "The Sims Online", or an alternate name, it would be clear that the intention would be to run it independently of Sims 4.
It's interesting to think about, though. I'm curious to see what direction EA takes for The Sims in the future.
I expect a small amount of patched contant, like 3 hairstyles and 2 deco objects, alongside bugfixes for seasons in july, 2 SPs and a GP in august, september and october, the GP most likely in september.
theme wise, I hope for witches/magic, which also seems logical as this is the thing I have seen more hints towards so far.
This is only a guess. I have been wrong before, predicting Toddlers would come as part of a GP rather than as a patch, for example.
Many people say it will be University GP, but I am unaware of any puns or hints that say anything about school/university/collage anywhere.
Judging by the way EA has set their policies shifting away from AAA singleplayer to competitive pay2win multiplayer mobile games as they believe this will be the future of the gaming industry, I highly doubt there will ever be a Sims 5.
They will keep releasing packs for Sims 4 at least until 2020, but after that, there will be no more new content for the Sims on PC.
The Sims Mobile Remastered will probably get more resoruces than Sims 4 in its entire existence when it is in developement.
EA will eventually stop producing games for the PC altogether at some point, focussing at mobile games only.
1. The big PC versions of the Sims games give EA many times higher profit than the mobile Sims games do. This is the reason why EA never has even considered to let the Sims Freeplay and the Sims Mobile become available for Windows PCs and Macs too even though a lot of other mobile games are available in such versions too!
2. The PC game mainly earn money to EA by making it possible to sell a huge number of extra packs which are cheap to make with the dedicated game engine which EA therefore has developed for each PC game. So EA would really like to make a Sims game with a lot of paid packs for mobile devices too! But this isn’t possible with current technology. Therefore EA makes free Sims games for mobile devices instead and has to be satisfied with income from showing adds and from selling extra but unnecessary stuff.
So even though I expect EA to soon announce “Sims 5” as an online multiplayer PC game I don’t believe at all that it will be a free game or that its packs will be free because that would reduce EA’s income and profit much more than EA ever would accept! Instead I think that EA likely sees the online multiplayer part as something that maybe can give EA even higher income by selling subscriptions too - or at least from showing adds in the game. It is more about porting this model from other multiplayer games from EA (like the Battlefield games and so on) to the Sims games too. But exactly how EA will do it we can’t know before the game is actually announced.
I think you misunderstood my point here.
I never said EA would make Sims 5 as a cross platform free to play game. What I said is the Sims 4 is likely to be the last Sims game on PC ever.
I think they will release a few mobile title where a very shallow base game, with not even half as much contentas Sims 4 base game, is downloadable for free, but with content and gameplay packs you have to pay for. Each pack about half the size of a stuff pack, but charging 20$ or something.
You say they have to release Sims 5 next year to atract new simmers. EA has stated multiple times that they believed the game market will shift towards mobile and PC and consoles will be abandoned at some point. So to them it would make sense to make the future of the Sims all mobile for younger players don't play on the PC anymore but on their phones and tablets. That is what they believe. That is why they released that crappy cash grab of Dungeon Keeper Mobile.
Sims 4 will keep getting content, but there will not be a Sims 5. Not on PC or consoles. Ever. Unless EA decides that they cannot get enough profit from the Franchise and sell it to someone else.
Don’t be confused just because the market for mobile games is growing even faster (and especially in China) because the total market for games is growing too. This won’t stop very soon because countries like China and India have huge populations that put together are about 8 times as big as the population in the US or about 4 times as big as the population in Europe. So when the inhabitants in those two countries (and in many other countries too) start playing games almost as much as the inhabitants of Europe, Australia and North America do then making such games will become even more profitable than it is now!
We don’t know yet what will happen in a future that is even farther away. But mobile phones won’t replace PCs in any foreseeable future. The future for consoles is more insecure though and maybe smartTVs will be able to replace them as gaming devices after a couple of more decades?
agree.
this is my point to. at the current rates of expansion pack releases we are getting. getting another in the next 4 to 5 months seems unlikely.
I never said PC gaming is dead. Nor did I say PC gaming is about to die. I don't even believe that it will, at least for the next few decades.
What I said was that EA thinks it will die, and wants to leave the market before it dies.
EA's Ceos and management have stated that multiple times, as well as several dev.studios being re-structured for the production of mobile games and budget for PC projects being shortend and cut speaks volumes as well.
I do believe that they are wrong to believe that, for the reasons you've said. But just because they are wrong in our oppinion doesn't change their oppinon.
They will not invest in what they, for whatever reason, think is a dieing market. They try to get as much out of what they already invested and have their investments progressively smaller in order to guarantee a smooth transition, but ultimately, they are retreating from the PC market and have growing investments in the mobile market.
The attempt to make Command and Conquer a multiplayer online competitive free2play microtransactions mobile thing got generals 2 cancelled and the Command and Conquer franchise in ruins. Then there is the plum dungeon keeper mobile plum. Despite fans (including myself) longing for a proper Dungeon Keeper 3.
Such people don’t think with their emotions but calculate carefully a lot of things that could give the company higher profit and they certainly don’t overlook that EA still can earn hundreds of millions of dollars on new PC games!
But of course they don’t ignore either the fact that the market for mobile games are growing faster than the market for PC games and now also has become bigger. This just doesn’t mean that EA can afford to neglect its most profitable PC games at all!
So I don’t fear for the future for the PC Sims games at all in that way! My only worry is instead that EA’s market investigations clearly seem to have proved that SPs sell better than EPs and that about 11 to 15 yrs old simmers apparently are the huge majority of the customers because this almost certainly means that future Sims games will be just as simplified and almost childish as TS4 IMO is.
All your statement is saying to me is that if they say they think PC gaming is dieing (which they did multiple times. Google it. Take a look at youtube.) then they are most probably right bercause they have done way more research in that matter than you or I did or will ever be able to do.
I am thinking with my own feelings when I believe they are wrong and you are thinking with your feelings when you say they cannot abandon the PC and *MUST* announce Sims 5 now.
I agree that they can't abandon the PC *NOW* and boom! No more PC games from EA. They are making a gradual shift.
For that reason, I don't believe there will ever be a Sims 5. And if there is, it will probably be five to eight years from now till it releases and it will have a shorter development time and lower budget than Sims 4. Sims 4 let go of the open world and CAST for performence, had neither toddlers nor pools nor ghosts at launch and is still lacking a lot of what Sims 3 had from the very beginning, but it also made improvements over previous games.
I don't expect Sims 5, if it ever comes out, to have half as much content and gameplay as Sims 4. For the exact reasons I am telling you.
Also, it would be a giant waste of money to support two mayor sims titles at the same time.
Of course I could be wrong. I have been wrong again, and I admit it. You don't have to take my word for it.
You don't even have to ask me to provide a link or klick one. You could google it yourself.
https://twitter.com/SimGuruGrant
So instead I googled “the future of PC gaming” which told me that sales numbers were high in 2016 and 2017 and are expected to be at the same level in 2018. I also found a lot of information on https://kotaku.com/the-state-of-pc-gaming-in-2017-1821309273
So no. I can’t share your pessimism and it isn’t about what I want myself. Steam has more than a 100 million users and Origin is growing too.
I am not really a PC gamer anymore myself because I have mainly played on tablets in recent years. Also I don’t even know if I will return to PC gaming. Only that I soon will need some other games to play and good games are difficult to find. Both for PCs, tablets and consoles.
I am still following the Sims games for PCs though. But I need a better game than TS4 to start playing Sims on a PC. It could be TS5 but I strongly doubt it. Multiplayer isn’t something I need and if TS5 is multiplayer (as I expect) then it will likely be about as simplified and with as small worlds as TS4 has.
But I don’t doubt that EA will release TS5 too!
I *never* said PC gaming was dieing.
I said *EA believes* PC gaming is dieing.
The research you were discribeing is if PC gaming was dieing, and found it not to be true, which is my impression too.
The people of EA's top management disagree on that for whatever reason. I honestly don't know why. For the exact reason you pointed out, the leaders of EA seem to be wrong about that. But strangely, they seem to be so sure, they are willing to gamble with the future of their company.
Either they are wrong, or we are missing something important.
I told you to google something like "EA about the future of gameing", not "the future of gameing".
So no. There is no chance that EA knows less about it than we do and all statistics shows that the market for PC games isn’t decreasing at all! The PC market (and the market for console games too) has just grown slower than the market for mobile games which therefore now has become bigger than the markets for PC games and the market for console games.
So yes EA makes more mobile games now. But EA has no plans to stop making PC games and console games too. The Sims games are among the most profitable games for EA and especially in the PC version. So there is no chance at all that TS4 will become the last big Sims game for PCs!
Eiher our common opinion of PC gaming still having a big Future is wrong, or EA is wrong about it's statement that Mobile Games are the Future of the Industry and that they have to adapt to that, gradually leaving the sinking ship as a long term goal.
I have watched several You Tube videos on the topic of gaming, where that Statement was repeated as a side note or an explenation for behaviour the Developers or Fans did not endorse.
In many of those You Tube Videos, Gamedevs talk about Games they were working on being canceled or were to be redesigned as mobile games instead of PC, for that Reason.
It apears to be a long term plan. Something they gradually do over the course of years. Maybe one or two decades.
I can't see them throwing millions of dollars into a Sims 5 and its future Packs with plans like this.
It makes a second EP be possible.
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The Sims 4 General DiscussionWow is that all
it was 4.5 GB ith the sims 3!
packs are always so bloody small with the sims 4
What ?
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The Sims 4 General DiscussionOfficial Statement: The Sims Will Not Attend Gamescom 2018
https://simsvip.com/2018/07/30/confirmed-the-sims-will-not-attend-gamescom-2018/
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