LMAO this one is a hilarious amalgam of journalism trends. “ Home comforts: how The Sims let millennials live out a distant dream. Today’s young people are flocking to an egalitarian utopia where home ownership is available to all.”
Ah yes, of course, I forgot that is why I play The Sims. 🤣🤣🤣
Oh good, yes I thought I would share some fun ones too. I had a good read with that one too. It is so true. My aunt has been visiting and she said LA area is finally allowing people to live in garages because young adults and adults aren't able to live on their own.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Maybe if that "established community" weren't so hostile, they'd be more supportive.
Why do you think it became this hostile? Yes, I and others have learned to forgive the extremely unfinished base game they released, given that - with enough "hostility" - they eventually decided to patch in a lot of things they should've never omitted in the first place. Or maybe it simply bothers people to hear from one of the biggest & richest gaming companies in the world that bunk beds are "beyond their budget" and "capabilities" for, by now, at least 5 packs they would've fit in perfectly. It's like all you people play are The Sims. Please, I play TS4 a lot, but you cannot seriously, seriously believe that this is the very best they could ach-
I believe the studio is putting in all of they effort - individually and collectively - that it can to produce the best game it can. And yet it gets slammed and slandered here, day in, day out.
Oh wait, you do believe it.
It's fine to enjoy the game, most days I do too, but at what point will people stop treating EA like a small indie developer with a studio of max 20 people instead of the company it really is? Do you think it has the reputation it has - not just in this community but in most of its communities - because of its extremely altruistic tendencies and history of "putting in all of the effort - individually and collectively - that it can"? Really? I don't blame the devs for a lack of resources and sometimes they do quite well with the limited means they appear to be given, but is this kind of stuff really excusable for a gaming company of this size and a game that's been around for 20 years and yet still seemingly incapable of leveraging the technology that's currently on the market ..........?
We deserve nothing but the chance to decide, again and again, whether the product is worth our money or our time.
Sure but one problem: where else will we turn for this type of game? Where else can we invest our money? We want a fix of a simulation game like the sims, well then we have .. uh right. The Sims. Big fat decision time.
Your emotional investment entitles you solely to your own emotional returns. It's a game. Historically, an enormously popular and successful one. In its current version, it is more popular than The Sims, TS2, or TS3 ever were. Maybe that's why the TS4 anniversary is worth celebrating.
My investment isn't just emotional. Maybe go check your bank account and see how often you've paid EA/Maxis for TS1 all the way through to 4 (and the spin-offs). It's very material. And without all of our highly material investments, there'd be no 4 to celebrate. And I sincerely doubt TS4 is more popular than any of the others. No single poll in the community has ever revealed that to be the case. Ever. I'm not even sure how well they can measure how many people really played TS1 and TS2 because a huge amount of people used to share their (often burned) copies and keys with each other - since that used to be possible. Meaning that up to 5 kids might have been playing with the same copied CD and expansions. How the hell do you factor that into your sales numbers? And why do you think they'd do anything but proclaim TS4 the biggest and best? How else will you convince new generations to join? By saying "uh it's alright, not nearly as advanced as what we used to be capable of, but good enough for post-millennial expectations!"?
As Simmers, we spend a lot of money on both - more on the latter, I bet. When the company making toilet paper celebrates their brand's 20th birthday, what do we get? A sale, most likely, and some birthday-themed packing for a while. We don't get anything for free. Well, we don't exactly get a present for having been so nice as to buy their product for 20 years, for sure.
So, with that in mind - and do note, both items provide us with considerable comfort and are very important to us Simmers - how can the whole Sims birthday situation be viewed?
Origin ID: Nindigo79
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
As Simmers, we spend a lot of money on both - more on the latter, I bet. When the company making toilet paper celebrates their brand's 20th birthday, what do we get? A sale, most likely, and some birthday-themed packing for a while. We don't get anything for free. Well, we don't exactly get a present for having been so nice as to buy their product for 20 years, for sure.
So, with that in mind - and do note, both items provide us with considerable comfort and are very important to us Simmers - how can the whole Sims birthday situation be viewed?
Comparing Sims 4 to toilet paper. That’s a new one
@drake_mccarty Both have a lot in common. They are the meaningful product of a company whose first concern is how well it's selling. I can add even further: Imagine there was only that one brand of toilet paper. You wouldn't have to make a particularly good toilet paper due to zero competition - everyone would buy out of need. Think of all you could get away with and still profit?
Origin ID: Nindigo79
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
As Simmers, we spend a lot of money on both - more on the latter, I bet. When the company making toilet paper celebrates their brand's 20th birthday, what do we get? A sale, most likely, and some birthday-themed packing for a while. We don't get anything for free. Well, we don't exactly get a present for having been so nice as to buy their product for 20 years, for sure.
So, with that in mind - and do note, both items provide us with considerable comfort and are very important to us Simmers - how can the whole Sims birthday situation be viewed?
As fun as comparing The Sims 4 to toilet paper is, comparing an entertainment product to an amenity is ridiculous.
People need amenities like good old Andrex but they don't need The Sims 4. They go out of their way to invest time and money into it that could be invested elsewhere. Some folks have been going out of their way for 20 years to do just that. A lot of those people are now excluded because they're over 25 or not in on new trends, when they're the ones who've helped keep the series going this long.
Ironically, for it's 75th anniversary, Andrex actually released a new ad with their signature puppy all grown up alongside an older man. It was done "in an effort to demonstrate the role the Kimberly-Clark brand has played in the lives of generations of families".
A toilet paper company did a better job of acknowledging past customers than The Sims 4 did.
As Simmers, we spend a lot of money on both - more on the latter, I bet. When the company making toilet paper celebrates their brand's 20th birthday, what do we get? A sale, most likely, and some birthday-themed packing for a while. We don't get anything for free. Well, we don't exactly get a present for having been so nice as to buy their product for 20 years, for sure.
So, with that in mind - and do note, both items provide us with considerable comfort and are very important to us Simmers - how can the whole Sims birthday situation be viewed?
It's not a fair comparison because they're selling completely different products and a TP company can do little more than what you've described.
Looking at how other video games celebrated their anniversaries would make more sense. You've mentioned that you've recently got back into WoW, did you see how Blizzard celebrated their event?
Pokemon Go has some stuff going on later this month to celebrate a birthday too and it's not even a milestone I think, just a birthday.
Do people expect too much of these events? Likely for some people, but there's a precedent that has been set and even Maxis/EA has set themselves when you look at past birthdays. I don't think the majority were expecting the sun and the moon but I do think a lot (myself included) were expecting a little more than just a hot tub and some renders. (Especially the re-used one that they didn't even change the 15 to a 20).
I think people here would have even appreciated a sale. (Like you've suggested with the TP example). I would have bought a birthday pack with themed throwback content (for example). I know they did a sale on the content out already, but it wasn't any different to sales past, and in fact, the sales of the past have been cheaper and included more content. If someone already owns all of the content, this sale doesn't help them but a birthday themed content pack would have. If they were only going to do the sale route with content out already, it probably should have included all of the content out. Again with the TP, they wouldn't have just put the 3-ply on sale, the 2 and 1-ply would have been included as well as the 6, 12 and 24 packs.
There was little to no effort put in here and it shows and I believe that's the real heart of the problem for most people.
Or maybe it simply bothers people to hear from one of the biggest & richest gaming companies in the world that bunk beds are "beyond their budget" and "capabilities" for, by now, at least 5 packs they would've fit in perfectly.
This is your interpretation and twisting of what was actually said by the devs.
The only thing they said regarding budget restrictions was about a stuff pack, not about any of the other packs that bunk beds might have thematically fit into.
As for capabilities, that was to my recollection said several years ago, and since then there were things added to the game that at the time the developers hadn't yet figured out how to implement.
Adjusting facts to fit what you want to believe is not helping your argument. And the company's wealth isn't going to make coding do what the coders want it to do. It might buy more man-hours and a bigger team but who's to say that would in any way help get things done.
But on the general topic:
The big distinction in all this is that I see a lot of anger directed at the Gurus and the coders behind the scenes (though mostly the Gurus who are accessible via social media. The ones who don't get to decide the budgets or timeframes for development, the ones who were put in a crappy situation to begin with. That, to me, is unfair, especially with how vicious some of those attacks get (I need to keep reminding myself to ignore comment sections). EA itself is a big company, sure, but even that doesn't mean that loyal customers are in any way owed anniversary gifts or freebies. Some companies reward customers because that's the marketing route they choose but it's in no way something that should be expected.
Entitlement in the community is absolutely a thing but that's not surprising, it's a thing in the world in general nowadays. Expecting a good product is one thing. Demanding freebies? Not so much. My ire is not with those who feel like there should've been more engagement from the team about celebration, more sharing of nostalgia about the game. I'm annoyed with the huge (or maybe just loud) amount of those who have spent months now posting things like "we better get [insert a variety of additions to the game] for the anniversary or I won't be happy". That is entitlement, plain and simple. I've seen more of that in various places (this forum included) and honestly, I believe that no matter what the devs could've done, it wouldn't be enough for those already determined that they're being robbed.
Was the anniversary underwhelming? Yeah, maybe. But how much of that was due to people building it up in their heads to epic expectations? There were attempts on here and on twitter to engage in an exchange of memories about the game's 20 years that were met with nothing but "well, is this all we're getting?" in replies. I do believe they could've done more to celebrate but I really don't think anything would've been enough in the end. (I mean, the "this is disappointing" started well before the HQ people were even awake, so it was a lost battle before it began)
LMAO this one is a hilarious amalgam of journalism trends. “ Home comforts: how The Sims let millennials live out a distant dream. Today’s young people are flocking to an egalitarian utopia where home ownership is available to all.”
Ah yes, of course, I forgot that is why I play The Sims. 🤣🤣🤣
There is a not-insignificant number of people who play Sims titles, many of whom are on this very forum, who do play their game in a vicarious manner where "they" can do things that they couldn't do in real life; home ownership among them. Is their fun wrong?
Entitlement in the community is absolutely a thing but that's not surprising, it's a thing in the world in general nowadays. Expecting a good product is one thing. Demanding freebies? Not so much. My ire is not with those who feel like there should've been more engagement from the team about celebration, more sharing of nostalgia about the game. I'm annoyed with the huge (or maybe just loud) amount of those who have spent months now posting things like "we better get [insert a variety of additions to the game] for the anniversary or I won't be happy". That is entitlement, plain and simple. I've seen more of that in various places (this forum included) and honestly, I believe that no matter what the devs could've done, it wouldn't be enough for those already determined that they're being robbed.
I've already responded to this entitlement-argument a couple of time over the past few days and since I'm not in the mood to repeat it all again, let me just copy/paste this:
People want free stuff not because they're entitled, spoiled little brats, but because they feel the game is incomplete and not working properly. That's sort of the point. I think @LiELF once again worded that pretty well. There's still so many promises they haven't been able to deliver on, so much unrealized potential, so many broken features, so much dissatisfaction. Even if I like what we have, whenever I play things like TS3 WA I just can't deny how empty and shallow packs like JA and OR really are. They are together still but a fraction of one old pack. If people were completely satisfied and believed EA delivered the best product they could, I doubt so many simmers would continuously hold out hope for the smallest scraps the team could possibly throw at them. So it's not two different things, it's intimately connected. And it hits doubly hard on a day that means so much to the community and apparently so little to the people making it.
ETA: hang on, I'd like to add two more things:
1) It didn't have to be free stuff at all. I think simply giving away TS2 UC editions again, making TS1 available on Origin (not even remastered, just available) or (even a paid) anniversary pack with iconic items from the past (as many people have suggested) would have been better received. Or a unique stream, different from their usual streams, where they talk about all the sims games and the evolution or whatnot. Something better than "here's the continuation of our January sale & a reskinned tub most of you have already paid for and we specifically said would never be included in the base game for free". You know, something thoughtful, something that celebrates all the games.
This is your interpretation and twisting of what was actually said by the devs.
The only thing they said regarding budget restrictions was about a stuff pack, not about any of the other packs that bunk beds might have thematically fit into.
It's not "twisting the facts" actually, it's an (admittedly hyperbolic) characterization of the argument they've thrown at us for every single one of their many omissions from packs: "we couldn't include it, but trust us, we did a LOT of research to come to this conclusion". Maybe instead of researching for hours if you can include it ... idk just work on the feature? But actually, I've already responded to this as well, so apologies, feel free to read the quote in the spoilers below (I'm just really not in the mood to type the same sentences twenty times over). Have a nice afternoon
You know what, I'm getting a little tired of the excuses and the "aw sorry guys, couldn't do bunk beds in a city / university / kids / military / tiny living pack - we did the math, pinky swear, it just didn't fit".
I sometimes wonder what they feel after saying stuff like that, then going home to play a recent, fully polished title like Horizon Zero Dawn, TLoU, GoW, Death Stranding, etc. Whether it's from a big company / publisher or a small one like the one that made Hellblade (a game that proves 20 people can create a masterpiece with enough creative freedom and the right priorities). They must know we're not all (forgive the expression) dense enough not to know what advanced, modern games are capable of. And they can't even do.. bunk beds? I'd have more understanding if they just admitted that the game is so awfully coded that they just can't guarantee the sims won't suddenly start playing musical bunk beds instead of going to sleep. It'd be more honest.
Maybe there really should be two different celebrations here. One among the community to whom the Sims games have meant a lot. And one for the developers who have overcome a lot of work challenges together as colleagues. Because these are two very different things to be celebrating. They probably feel they deserve a present for their work, while the community feels they should have a present for their loyalty over the years.
We've ended up with two parties who both feel entitled for their own different reasons. Assuming for a spell, that this is how they feel. Who knows? Maybe they've already given each other presents or been awarded something by EA for bringing in money, or perhaps rather, saving money.
The customer bunch is a different matter entirely.
Well, here is my personal two cents - instead of a plumbob design on the hot tub, it should have been covered in the number 20 instead
Origin ID: Nindigo79
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
Well, technically, they haven't actually all been working on the game for 20 years, and EA definitely (and luckily) hasn't owned it for 20 either. So the 20th anniversary shouldn't be about the devs working on the game today, but about the game. I don't really see why we should applaud them for doing their jobs (especially since they apparently don't "crunch" too much which still baffles me given the production environment they work in, but whatever) on the day the Sims has existed for 2 decades. I think the task of celebrating their own work anniversaries is a company thing, not a gaming community thing.
Maybe there really should be two different celebrations here. One among the community to whom the Sims games have meant a lot. And one for the developers who have overcome a lot of work challenges together as colleagues. Because these are two very different things to be celebrating. They probably feel they deserve a present for their work, while the community feels they should have a present for their loyalty over the years.
We've ended up with two parties who both feel entitled for their own different reasons. Assuming for a spell, that this is how they feel. Who knows? Maybe they've already given each other presents or been awarded something by EA for bringing in money, or perhaps rather, saving money.
The customer bunch is a different matter entirely.
Well, here is my personal two cents - instead of a plumbob design on the hot tub, it should have been covered in the number 20 instead
I'm not sure what the devs feel, and not sure that they feel that they "deserve" things. They haven't given any indication of what they think or feel, and they probably won't. I'm not sure that this matters since the community has been more than happy to project any and all sorts of desires upon them. I think that's a lot of the rub here -- it's easy to lob accusations and insults on the internet, where you don't have to look someone in the face. Personally, I try to keep to my rule where I don't post something I wouldn't say to someone in person. I think if more people did that then gaming spaces, and the internet at large, wouldn't be such horrible places to be so often.
If doing whatever you're planning in that 20th Anniversary Thread is something that is meaningful to you all, then perhaps that should be the focus at this point. It would certainly be a more positive outlet than the sort of behaviors we've seen over the past week. In the end it's just a video game. I've spent 20 years playing the series, and poured a lot of money into it, but I did so of my own volition. The reward for that decision is the memories. If you relive them with your fellow enthusiasts, is this not the most apt commemoration of two decades?
@drake_mccarty Both have a lot in common. They are the meaningful product of a company whose first concern is how well it's selling. I can add even further: Imagine there was only that one brand of toilet paper. You wouldn't have to make a particularly good toilet paper due to zero competition - everyone would buy out of need. Think of all you could get away with and still profit?
I get what you’re trying to say, but it’s a weird comparison. Other simulation management games get patches, paid DLC, and free content so the expectation for it is set by the industry. Toilet paper is a consumable good, they can’t add more paper on the roll after you bought it.
Well, technically, they haven't actually all been working on the game for 20 years, and EA definitely (and luckily) hasn't owned it for 20 either. So the 20th anniversary shouldn't be about the devs working on the game today, but about the game. I don't really see why we should applaud them for doing their jobs (especially since they apparently don't "crunch" too much which still baffles me given the production environment they work in, but whatever) on the day the Sims has existed for 2 decades. I think the task of celebrating their own work anniversaries is a company thing, not a gaming community thing.
Just wanted to touch on the comment about "crunch". In the programming/gaming world, crunching equals working overtime, to the point of physical and mentail exhaustion, just to finish things on an irrational deadline. Not a good thing, not something that should be the norm or seen as an achievement.
Companies get frequently slammed for forcing their employees to do just that (and the criticism is completely deserved), so the Sims management working on not doing that is not something to be sneered at. Working reasonable hours doesn't mean they're not working hard enough. (granted, billionaire CEOs probably think otherwise)
They did have their own celebration, in house, fwiw.
Well, technically, they haven't actually all been working on the game for 20 years, and EA definitely (and luckily) hasn't owned it for 20 either. So the 20th anniversary shouldn't be about the devs working on the game today, but about the game. I don't really see why we should applaud them for doing their jobs (especially since they apparently don't "crunch" too much which still baffles me given the production environment they work in, but whatever) on the day the Sims has existed for 2 decades. I think the task of celebrating their own work anniversaries is a company thing, not a gaming community thing.
Just wanted to touch on the comment about "crunch". In the programming/gaming world, crunching equals working overtime, to the point of physical and mentail exhaustion, just to finish things on an irrational deadline. Not a good thing, not something that should be the norm or seen as an achievement.
Companies get frequently slammed for forcing their employees to do just that (and the criticism is completely deserved), so the Sims management working on not doing that is not something to be sneered at. Working reasonable hours doesn't mean they're not working hard enough. (granted, billionaire CEOs probably think otherwise)
They did have their own celebration, in house, fwiw.
Yes not just in gaming, in nearly all production environments (trust me, I know from experience ). But it's actually almost unavoidable if you a) set high standards and b) have very strict deadlines - which again, nearly all production environments of this type do. But people who aim to push out the best possible product with the highest level of quality and least amount of bugs rarely ever have enough time to do that within the time constraints they're working in .. so they tend to... crunch. Whether it's in games, animations and other 3D work, graphic design, ... I've rarely met any people in these industries who didn't work overtime. Not because their bosses forced them or because the company lowkey expected it (i.e. they feared they'd be fired if they didn't), but because they simply don't like putting their name on something they don't believe is close to the best it could've been. As opposed to what you may believe, many people in creative industries are more demanding of themselves than their bosses are of them. So I find it weird to hear them say "huh we don't crunch" when they're continuously delivering products with huge amounts of bugs and careless craftsmanship (like .. you know .. telling us we can sell potions but not actually checking that they have a price, or releasing a pack with a photography career that is almost unplayable).
In my humble opinion, I'd rather the game be made by a company that thinks ... like this:
Well, technically, they haven't actually all been working on the game for 20 years, and EA definitely (and luckily) hasn't owned it for 20 either. So the 20th anniversary shouldn't be about the devs working on the game today, but about the game. I don't really see why we should applaud them for doing their jobs (especially since they apparently don't "crunch" too much which still baffles me given the production environment they work in, but whatever) on the day the Sims has existed for 2 decades. I think the task of celebrating their own work anniversaries is a company thing, not a gaming community thing.
Just wanted to touch on the comment about "crunch". In the programming/gaming world, crunching equals working overtime, to the point of physical and mentail exhaustion, just to finish things on an irrational deadline. Not a good thing, not something that should be the norm or seen as an achievement.
Companies get frequently slammed for forcing their employees to do just that (and the criticism is completely deserved), so the Sims management working on not doing that is not something to be sneered at. Working reasonable hours doesn't mean they're not working hard enough. (granted, billionaire CEOs probably think otherwise)
They did have their own celebration, in house, fwiw.
Yes not just in gaming, in nearly all production environments (trust me, I know from experience ). But it's actually almost unavoidable if you a) set high standards and b) have very strict deadlines - which again, nearly all production environments of this type do. But people who aim to push out the best possible product with the highest level of quality and least amount of bugs rarely ever have enough time to do that within the time constraints they're working in .. so they tend to... crunch. Whether it's in games, animations and other 3D work, graphic design, ... I've rarely met any people in these industries who didn't work overtime. Not because their bosses forced them or because the company lowkey expected it (i.e. they feared they'd be fired if they didn't), but because they simply don't like putting their name on something they don't believe is close to the best it could've been. As opposed to what you may believe, many people in creative industries are more demanding of themselves than their bosses are of them. So I find it weird to hear them say "huh we don't crunch" when they're continuously delivering products with huge amounts of bugs and careless craftsmanship (like .. you know .. telling us we can sell potions but not actually checking that they have a price, or releasing a pack with a photography career that is almost unplayable).
In my humble opinion, I'd rather the game be made by a company that thinks ... like this:
I love their honesty and the fact that they are actually play testing and doing their best to fix it before it goes out to consumers! Shame all cannot be that honest and wanting their product to be the best it can be.
@SimTrippy I agree that seeing a delay in a release is better than releasing a half-baked product. The FFVII remaster has had a similar one, iirc, because there were issues they needed to address.
The way I understand what Duke said about the Sims team is that they're working on not making crunch the expected default for their employees. Which is something I do appreciate, especially knowing that other companies (not just in the gaming industry) don't have that kind of approach. I've worked in an environment where crunch was demanded and it didn't end well (for me. my boss, on the other hand, didn't feel any consequences).
I don't believe that crunch is completely abandoned by the Sims team, especially not close to a deadline. I was reacting to the wording you used, which implied that it's expected and normal, something that I think employers should steer away from, rather than towards.
There are things that would have greatly benefited from a delay (Island Living, which I have a feeling was thrown out way sooner than it was originally planned), resources that should be stronger (quality control). As it is though, my experience with software products is that there isn't one that I remember in my 30yr history of computer use that is 100% faultless. However, in the world of "live service" and the possibility of easy "fix it in post" bug fixes, it becomes more obvious and sometimes means that things that should be easy to catch in development are not. The upside of that same world is that bugs, if replicable and fixable, do get fixed (even if not as fast as we'd like them to be).
@darrenfroggy oh okay, no I didn't mean it had to be a default, completely agree there. But if delays / occasional crunch had enabled them to make certain packs (and the base game) better, I think we'd all be happier for it (themselves included). Seems like we mostly agree though, so sorry if I didn't word it very clearly Btw, sorry you had a bad experience at that company - crunch or not, people should not work in an environment where they're being taken advantage of while the boss gets to reap all of the rewards and none of the downsides.
I am very pleased that we had a present, but oh my - had I hoped for horses!!! They still seem to miss from the "cats ans dogs" pack. It would have been so nice.
LMAO this one is a hilarious amalgam of journalism trends. “ Home comforts: how The Sims let millennials live out a distant dream. Today’s young people are flocking to an egalitarian utopia where home ownership is available to all.”
Ah yes, of course, I forgot that is why I play The Sims. 🤣🤣🤣
There is a not-insignificant number of people who play Sims titles, many of whom are on this very forum, who do play their game in a vicarious manner where "they" can do things that they couldn't do in real life; home ownership among them. Is their fun wrong?
Wow, no @OEII1001 my reaction is not to offend anybody. Of course anyone’s fun isn’t wrong.
Journalists are LIVING right now to make anything into Millennials and home ownership. I just thought this was a gratuitous twist on it 🤣haha
LMAO this one is a hilarious amalgam of journalism trends. “ Home comforts: how The Sims let millennials live out a distant dream. Today’s young people are flocking to an egalitarian utopia where home ownership is available to all.”
Ah yes, of course, I forgot that is why I play The Sims. 🤣🤣🤣
There is a not-insignificant number of people who play Sims titles, many of whom are on this very forum, who do play their game in a vicarious manner where "they" can do things that they couldn't do in real life; home ownership among them. Is their fun wrong?
Wow, no @OEII1001 my reaction is not to offend anybody. Of course anyone’s fun isn’t wrong.
Journalists are LIVING right now to make anything into Millennials and home ownership. I just thought this was a gratuitous twist on it 🤣haha
My point was that it was not "gratuitous" when I can name dozens of users right here on this very forum who do just that thing. Video games mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and what the article in question stated was not incorrect.
Why is it not fair? Basically, it's a product sold by a company and purchased by costumers.
Yeah, like I get so emotional over toilet paper.
I mean Sims 4 being like toilet paper is fitting since it is full of holes and poop which makes me giggle thinking about it. Finally the potty humor makes sense.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
Comments
Why do you think it became this hostile? Yes, I and others have learned to forgive the extremely unfinished base game they released, given that - with enough "hostility" - they eventually decided to patch in a lot of things they should've never omitted in the first place. Or maybe it simply bothers people to hear from one of the biggest & richest gaming companies in the world that bunk beds are "beyond their budget" and "capabilities" for, by now, at least 5 packs they would've fit in perfectly. It's like all you people play are The Sims. Please, I play TS4 a lot, but you cannot seriously, seriously believe that this is the very best they could ach-
Oh wait, you do believe it.
It's fine to enjoy the game, most days I do too, but at what point will people stop treating EA like a small indie developer with a studio of max 20 people instead of the company it really is? Do you think it has the reputation it has - not just in this community but in most of its communities - because of its extremely altruistic tendencies and history of "putting in all of the effort - individually and collectively - that it can"? Really? I don't blame the devs for a lack of resources and sometimes they do quite well with the limited means they appear to be given, but is this kind of stuff really excusable for a gaming company of this size and a game that's been around for 20 years and yet still seemingly incapable of leveraging the technology that's currently on the market ..........?
Sure but one problem: where else will we turn for this type of game? Where else can we invest our money? We want a fix of a simulation game like the sims, well then we have .. uh right. The Sims. Big fat decision time.
My investment isn't just emotional. Maybe go check your bank account and see how often you've paid EA/Maxis for TS1 all the way through to 4 (and the spin-offs). It's very material. And without all of our highly material investments, there'd be no 4 to celebrate. And I sincerely doubt TS4 is more popular than any of the others. No single poll in the community has ever revealed that to be the case. Ever. I'm not even sure how well they can measure how many people really played TS1 and TS2 because a huge amount of people used to share their (often burned) copies and keys with each other - since that used to be possible. Meaning that up to 5 kids might have been playing with the same copied CD and expansions. How the hell do you factor that into your sales numbers? And why do you think they'd do anything but proclaim TS4 the biggest and best? How else will you convince new generations to join? By saying "uh it's alright, not nearly as advanced as what we used to be capable of, but good enough for post-millennial expectations!"?
Maybe lowering our expectations to the lowest possible bar is a community problem. But whatever, you do you.
Sorry if I sound angry, but seriously, how many excuses can one make for such a giant of a company. As if they were barely making ends meet.
As Simmers, we spend a lot of money on both - more on the latter, I bet. When the company making toilet paper celebrates their brand's 20th birthday, what do we get? A sale, most likely, and some birthday-themed packing for a while. We don't get anything for free. Well, we don't exactly get a present for having been so nice as to buy their product for 20 years, for sure.
So, with that in mind - and do note, both items provide us with considerable comfort and are very important to us Simmers - how can the whole Sims birthday situation be viewed?
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
Comparing Sims 4 to toilet paper. That’s a new one
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
As fun as comparing The Sims 4 to toilet paper is, comparing an entertainment product to an amenity is ridiculous.
People need amenities like good old Andrex but they don't need The Sims 4. They go out of their way to invest time and money into it that could be invested elsewhere. Some folks have been going out of their way for 20 years to do just that. A lot of those people are now excluded because they're over 25 or not in on new trends, when they're the ones who've helped keep the series going this long.
Ironically, for it's 75th anniversary, Andrex actually released a new ad with their signature puppy all grown up alongside an older man. It was done "in an effort to demonstrate the role the Kimberly-Clark brand has played in the lives of generations of families".
A toilet paper company did a better job of acknowledging past customers than The Sims 4 did.
It's not a fair comparison because they're selling completely different products and a TP company can do little more than what you've described.
Looking at how other video games celebrated their anniversaries would make more sense. You've mentioned that you've recently got back into WoW, did you see how Blizzard celebrated their event?
Pokemon Go has some stuff going on later this month to celebrate a birthday too and it's not even a milestone I think, just a birthday.
Do people expect too much of these events? Likely for some people, but there's a precedent that has been set and even Maxis/EA has set themselves when you look at past birthdays. I don't think the majority were expecting the sun and the moon but I do think a lot (myself included) were expecting a little more than just a hot tub and some renders. (Especially the re-used one that they didn't even change the 15 to a 20).
I think people here would have even appreciated a sale. (Like you've suggested with the TP example). I would have bought a birthday pack with themed throwback content (for example). I know they did a sale on the content out already, but it wasn't any different to sales past, and in fact, the sales of the past have been cheaper and included more content. If someone already owns all of the content, this sale doesn't help them but a birthday themed content pack would have. If they were only going to do the sale route with content out already, it probably should have included all of the content out. Again with the TP, they wouldn't have just put the 3-ply on sale, the 2 and 1-ply would have been included as well as the 6, 12 and 24 packs.
There was little to no effort put in here and it shows and I believe that's the real heart of the problem for most people.
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
This is your interpretation and twisting of what was actually said by the devs.
The only thing they said regarding budget restrictions was about a stuff pack, not about any of the other packs that bunk beds might have thematically fit into.
As for capabilities, that was to my recollection said several years ago, and since then there were things added to the game that at the time the developers hadn't yet figured out how to implement.
Adjusting facts to fit what you want to believe is not helping your argument. And the company's wealth isn't going to make coding do what the coders want it to do. It might buy more man-hours and a bigger team but who's to say that would in any way help get things done.
But on the general topic:
The big distinction in all this is that I see a lot of anger directed at the Gurus and the coders behind the scenes (though mostly the Gurus who are accessible via social media. The ones who don't get to decide the budgets or timeframes for development, the ones who were put in a crappy situation to begin with. That, to me, is unfair, especially with how vicious some of those attacks get (I need to keep reminding myself to ignore comment sections). EA itself is a big company, sure, but even that doesn't mean that loyal customers are in any way owed anniversary gifts or freebies. Some companies reward customers because that's the marketing route they choose but it's in no way something that should be expected.
Entitlement in the community is absolutely a thing but that's not surprising, it's a thing in the world in general nowadays. Expecting a good product is one thing. Demanding freebies? Not so much. My ire is not with those who feel like there should've been more engagement from the team about celebration, more sharing of nostalgia about the game. I'm annoyed with the huge (or maybe just loud) amount of those who have spent months now posting things like "we better get [insert a variety of additions to the game] for the anniversary or I won't be happy". That is entitlement, plain and simple. I've seen more of that in various places (this forum included) and honestly, I believe that no matter what the devs could've done, it wouldn't be enough for those already determined that they're being robbed.
Was the anniversary underwhelming? Yeah, maybe. But how much of that was due to people building it up in their heads to epic expectations? There were attempts on here and on twitter to engage in an exchange of memories about the game's 20 years that were met with nothing but "well, is this all we're getting?" in replies. I do believe they could've done more to celebrate but I really don't think anything would've been enough in the end. (I mean, the "this is disappointing" started well before the HQ people were even awake, so it was a lost battle before it began)
Anyway, off to build some more stuff.
There is a not-insignificant number of people who play Sims titles, many of whom are on this very forum, who do play their game in a vicarious manner where "they" can do things that they couldn't do in real life; home ownership among them. Is their fun wrong?
I've already responded to this entitlement-argument a couple of time over the past few days and since I'm not in the mood to repeat it all again, let me just copy/paste this:
ETA: hang on, I'd like to add two more things:
1) It didn't have to be free stuff at all. I think simply giving away TS2 UC editions again, making TS1 available on Origin (not even remastered, just available) or (even a paid) anniversary pack with iconic items from the past (as many people have suggested) would have been better received. Or a unique stream, different from their usual streams, where they talk about all the sims games and the evolution or whatnot. Something better than "here's the continuation of our January sale & a reskinned tub most of you have already paid for and we specifically said would never be included in the base game for free". You know, something thoughtful, something that celebrates all the games.
And 2)
It's not "twisting the facts" actually, it's an (admittedly hyperbolic) characterization of the argument they've thrown at us for every single one of their many omissions from packs: "we couldn't include it, but trust us, we did a LOT of research to come to this conclusion". Maybe instead of researching for hours if you can include it ... idk just work on the feature? But actually, I've already responded to this as well, so apologies, feel free to read the quote in the spoilers below (I'm just really not in the mood to type the same sentences twenty times over). Have a nice afternoon
We've ended up with two parties who both feel entitled for their own different reasons. Assuming for a spell, that this is how they feel. Who knows? Maybe they've already given each other presents or been awarded something by EA for bringing in money, or perhaps rather, saving money.
The customer bunch is a different matter entirely.
Well, here is my personal two cents - instead of a plumbob design on the hot tub, it should have been covered in the number 20 instead
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
I'm not sure what the devs feel, and not sure that they feel that they "deserve" things. They haven't given any indication of what they think or feel, and they probably won't. I'm not sure that this matters since the community has been more than happy to project any and all sorts of desires upon them. I think that's a lot of the rub here -- it's easy to lob accusations and insults on the internet, where you don't have to look someone in the face. Personally, I try to keep to my rule where I don't post something I wouldn't say to someone in person. I think if more people did that then gaming spaces, and the internet at large, wouldn't be such horrible places to be so often.
If doing whatever you're planning in that 20th Anniversary Thread is something that is meaningful to you all, then perhaps that should be the focus at this point. It would certainly be a more positive outlet than the sort of behaviors we've seen over the past week. In the end it's just a video game. I've spent 20 years playing the series, and poured a lot of money into it, but I did so of my own volition. The reward for that decision is the memories. If you relive them with your fellow enthusiasts, is this not the most apt commemoration of two decades?
Yeah, like I get so emotional over toilet paper.
I get what you’re trying to say, but it’s a weird comparison. Other simulation management games get patches, paid DLC, and free content so the expectation for it is set by the industry. Toilet paper is a consumable good, they can’t add more paper on the roll after you bought it.
Just wanted to touch on the comment about "crunch". In the programming/gaming world, crunching equals working overtime, to the point of physical and mentail exhaustion, just to finish things on an irrational deadline. Not a good thing, not something that should be the norm or seen as an achievement.
Companies get frequently slammed for forcing their employees to do just that (and the criticism is completely deserved), so the Sims management working on not doing that is not something to be sneered at. Working reasonable hours doesn't mean they're not working hard enough. (granted, billionaire CEOs probably think otherwise)
They did have their own celebration, in house, fwiw.
Yes not just in gaming, in nearly all production environments (trust me, I know from experience
In my humble opinion, I'd rather the game be made by a company that thinks ... like this:
I love their honesty and the fact that they are actually play testing and doing their best to fix it before it goes out to consumers! Shame all cannot be that honest and wanting their product to be the best it can be.
The Cowboy and the Mermaid
The way I understand what Duke said about the Sims team is that they're working on not making crunch the expected default for their employees. Which is something I do appreciate, especially knowing that other companies (not just in the gaming industry) don't have that kind of approach. I've worked in an environment where crunch was demanded and it didn't end well (for me. my boss, on the other hand, didn't feel any consequences).
I don't believe that crunch is completely abandoned by the Sims team, especially not close to a deadline. I was reacting to the wording you used, which implied that it's expected and normal, something that I think employers should steer away from, rather than towards.
There are things that would have greatly benefited from a delay (Island Living, which I have a feeling was thrown out way sooner than it was originally planned), resources that should be stronger (quality control). As it is though, my experience with software products is that there isn't one that I remember in my 30yr history of computer use that is 100% faultless. However, in the world of "live service" and the possibility of easy "fix it in post" bug fixes, it becomes more obvious and sometimes means that things that should be easy to catch in development are not. The upside of that same world is that bugs, if replicable and fixable, do get fixed (even if not as fast as we'd like them to be).
Wow, no @OEII1001 my reaction is not to offend anybody. Of course anyone’s fun isn’t wrong.
Journalists are LIVING right now to make anything into Millennials and home ownership. I just thought this was a gratuitous twist on it 🤣haha
My point was that it was not "gratuitous" when I can name dozens of users right here on this very forum who do just that thing. Video games mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and what the article in question stated was not incorrect.