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Why was the Eco Lifestyle marketing so bad?
AmTk86
Posts: 80 Member
This is not me coming for the gurus... kind of. The pack looks good, really good. But I don't blame the community for getting angry when it was first announced. It'd be dumb to say that the backlash was entirely on the gurus. That fake leak definitely caused a significant amount of the community's frustration, but most of it came from the poor marketing surrounding this pack. This pack is coming with so much that the fanbase has been begging for. But instead of showing ANY of that, they put the weakest parts front and center (the bulky objects, reused animations/objects). And when everyone got upset (justifiably but taken too far), the gurus made no effort to make the pack seem more appealing. Instead, they kept emphasizing the aspects people were the most hesitant about, like the smog—no talk about the firefighters or the new billing system. No sneak peeks to how the community voting system was going to work or the new apartments. They just got defensive and wouldn't address the community's concerns. Yes, simmers sometimes act like petulant children, but the criticisms were not unwarranted this time around. I STILL believe that Tiny Living should have combined with this pack along with the conservationist career from Island Living. Instead, Maxis released three eco-friendly packs within a year of each other. That was a bad decision, and they should have known better.
I genuinely don't think the hate towards this pack was caused by people jumping the gun but by EA's poor marketing.
I genuinely don't think the hate towards this pack was caused by people jumping the gun but by EA's poor marketing.
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It's literally homemade not business made.
Admittedly the trailers are kind of vague too - they don't explain what it is that's so 'big' about this new EP; they focus too much on the new items and not the gameplay.
The gurus got defensive because they clearly love this pack and know that it's actually amazing and a massive amount of effort went in to making new Districts and the pack affecting ALL worlds like Seasons did.
BUT I do agree, their marketing is HORRIBLE.
Well, the false leak claimed the next pack was going to be called "Country Living". So a lot of people assumed it would be the much anticipated Farming pack that has been highly requested and got excited. So, of course, when the pack was revealed as Eco Lifestyles, many players were disappointed.
I personally wasn't hyped either way. But I think the live stream really redeemed the pack after those awkward trailers.
Its times like that when we really really REALLY need to remind ourselves to ALWAYS TAKE LEAKS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. Yeah its fun to talk about and speculate, especially when we're dying for some new info. But its pretty embarrassing to see people have a complete and utter meltdown over seeing that they werent getting what they expected, when the leak didnt even promise anything in the first place.
Dont take a leak as pure gospel, wait for something that's actually official to come along to either verify or completely annihilate it. Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for disaster.
I really hope the fake leak drove this point home for people.
The problem is in the fans who always act high and nasty
It's not just about marketing as I said. I think some simmers too are kind of eating crow and want something to blame. Trailers never give away everything that's in the pack some are just big teasers.
As for the leak, I rarely pay attention to those. I've been playing Sims since 2005 and leaks are leaks are leaks and rarely, if ever true. While I would enjoy farming in my game, since I have a game save set in the 18th century, EA only does what EA wants to do. Sometimes that corresponds to what fans are asking for, leading us to believe they do listen, but more often than not, they have their own plans on what is going into an iteration, despite us. It is what it is.
Thankfully, I missed all those complaint threads.
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Games in the past couldn't just rely on a livestream to singlehandedly create broad interest for the game. You have to wonder why these trailers only play digitally and don't get any actual ad play on tv or even on certain platform cites. I don't think they are meant to actually advertise the game hence the idea to make the gameplay trailors more story driven and from a sims perspective. I don't understand why they would do that when the game has no story porgression or even built in lore.
I think this style of marketing suits a stuff pack, maybe even a game pack but I don't like how we have to wait months at a time to learn the theme of Expansions only to never know what of substance is in the game until we see a livestream. What's more, we don't even know how it interacts with other packs until it's actually in the hands of players.
I was in the Livestream thread for EL the other day and there was one individual in particular who was constantly commenting things like “Ugh I hate this pack, it’s trash, they’re lazy”, etc. Then when the Gurus would release more information about what we’re getting, this same individual would comment “Yea that looks cool, but I’m still not buying it” and “That’s awesome, but still not worth $40”, etc. Finally the last thing I read from them was “I’m so glad ___ is being added as an update because I definitely won’t be buying this pack”. It’s like... why? Lol why spend 2 hours of your life watching a stream just to hate the entire time. I could tell by their reactions that they were upset more people weren’t angry with the livestream like they were. As soon as more people were saying how they loved this feature or that feature, the person got quiet. They were unsuccessful in getting other people to agree with them. The transition was interesting. And like you said, they’ve been quiet ever since. It was just something I noticed and remembered now that you mention it.
I'm with you; I hate when the games try to strong-arm me into playing a certain way. In my opinion features should be made optional as often as possible. Even smaller/more avoidable examples of this bug me, like how in 2 kids would be taken away by the social worker if their grades were too low making it difficult to play a child who was a slacker and/or struggled in school. If the pack has an option to disable the smog/environmental effects, I would be all for this pack and it would probably jump to the top of my wishlist. But if the effects aren't optional, and I'm going to be forced into making all my Sims care about the environment or have a dirty world, I won't get it.
"omg my god! What did they do? oh, wait was that a ladder? Cool, I got to watch that again." was my reaction.
Then I watched it again and got Fallout vibes and jumped on the excitement train for this pack within minutes. My excitement is only growing as I learn more things about the pack. I can't wait!