Is it just me or is Sims Spark'd a bit cringeworthy?

nanashi-sims · January 2021

Admittedly, I'm not a reality TV fan. But from the clip I saw on youtube... everything about this show was a bit painful and awkward to watch. I only saw some weird storytelling segment were they had to improv a real estate agent for a busted Sims house. What is the point of this show? Is it popular? If so why? Would love to hear from fans who can detail its merits as much as anyone who agrees with me.

OliwkaWidmo · January 2021

I don't think it was popular. And yeah, it's pretty cringy. I think the problem was that they tried to make it more intense/reality tv dramatic, to appeal to wider audience, but if somebody doesn't care about The Sims, they won't find it entertaining anyway, and if somebody does care, all that manufactured drama will just seem extremely silly.

SimmerGeorge · January 2021

No, the show never really took off. The first episode barely surpassed 1 million views and all the other episodes all currently stand below 400k views.

SERVERFRA · January 2021

Personally, I prefer to watch the Youtubers: Deligracy, James Turner, Plumbella, Englishsimmer & Vixella.
The Spark'd Show was just too boring.

bella_goth · January 2021

a bit? it's an unnecessary & expensive circus that has no reason to be other than embarrass the sims franchise.

adamzaid · January 2021

i couldn't even get past the 1st episode bcz of how cringy it was. i get the idea but i found it a bit too dull ig

keekee53 · January 2021

the whole idea was cringeworthy.

InuMiroLover · January 2021

I still wonder why someone thought this was a good idea. Everytime I see reality shows with a focus on "nerdy" pastimes, it often falls flat on its face and only succeeds in making the community behind it look like odd balls. And the sims is the LAST game you'd put into any kind of competitive context.

If I wanna watch stuff directly tied to my nerdy interests, Ive got the internet. Ive got people I follow that know their audience and tailor content for their audience. Not a tv network trying to be "relatable".

Nushnushganay · January 2021

TV lately is just the worst. So out of touch, so...lacking-in-intrinsic-intelligence (since I can't say it any more succinctly on the forum). I wanted to like it but was left feeling like "huh?"

prettyprettyplumbob · January 2021

I was really excited for Spark'd, but the way they set it up was definitely cringey.

As we all know, it can take MANY, MANY hours to create impressive builds, stories, etc. They would give creators like 30 minutes--which lead to understandably underwhelming results. Nothing was creative or inspiring. They also forced them to work on teams, which just dulled the creative process even further. It was so hard to take any of it seriously. I watch a lot of the creators who they featured on their respective youtube channels, and a lot of them are talented players with interesting personalities--- and none of that came through. They all seemed to take Spark'd as a joke because it was set-up to be one.

Plus, there's the sad added truth that there's only so much you can bring to the game without any CC at all. I really tried to sit through it all, but in the end I never did.

texxx78 · January 2021

It's enough to say that sims 4 won the 'sit and relax' steam award... It's a game to sit and relax, not for competition... even when playing a challenge it's still not a game about competition.

Umbreon12 · January 2021

I saw all four episodes, it was underwhelming.
One, I've seen some of the people on it through their YouTube before the show, and they came off as bland on the show.
They gave the contestants such little time that the stories they came up with were limited or fairly bland. I felt like they were trying to emulate Face Off, Skin Wars, Project Runway when it came to limited time to do something. The Sims really can't do that.
Plus, they didn't focus on the game really at all, they had a goal, and that was it. It really would have been nice to see them cover the history of the game, and what made up the packs. Like, I was watching them create, and the game looks complete, which it isn't. They don't show the CAS, or anything else. People coming in would come in thinking what you see is what you get, not realizing the cost to get the whole game, and maybe not a clue on how to play the game.
So, long story short, never again should they do Spark'd.

Auroraskies · January 2021

It was so ridiculous I don’t even want to talk about it, it would taint me so.

I think they should have invested those resources into their bug forum, instead of relying on unpaid players to manage their issues. It would create a much more favourable impression.

ChadSims2 · January 2021

Everything I seen looked cringe worthy from contestants to host besides Ninja Sparkd was a complete mess.

Orisein · January 2021

i dont understand the point of the show

DoodlyDoofus · January 2021

Is the Pope Catholic?

BookBear · January 2021

No...... It's just......No

Chicklet453681 · January 2021

I never watched it, the whole premise of the show sounded stooopid to me. Sims is not a competitive game that can be made into a reality show.

Forgeron · January 2021

Name a reality competition that isn't cringeworthy:

Onverser · February 2021

It was meh. It could've been an interesting show but it totally missed the mark and just ended up being repetitive. Every challenge was just "create a story!". Yawn. If they had challenges like creating sims or builds to fit a theme and the best build or sim wins that could've been interesting but the format they took didn't work.

I doubt it'll be back for a second season, the final episode didn't even get 250k views. Plumbella was in the series and her YouTube videos pretty much all get more views than that within days. I really doubt they made any profit on the show at all, if anything they probably lost money from it.

dominimp · February 2021

I think this would work as like a mini-series on Youtube or something, but I watched it when it aired and was like: "Hmm... 4 episodes is hardly something I can get invested in long-term"

So yeah, throw it on Youtube or Twitch and maybe this can work... Or maybe mix it up and extend it to 10 to 12 episodes with more people tournament style or something.

Idk just spit ballin'.

Either way, as it is right now... 4 episodes would be good as a mini-series on a streaming platform and is kinda odd on a cable channel.

In my opinion anyway. (=

Sk8rblaze · February 2021

You couldn't pay me to watch it.

nanashi-sims · February 2021

I would have been more keen on a professionally backed streamlined let's play series (like Jessa Sim's series) that had multiple seasons (not the players that are already available on youtube, but unknowns with novel ideas not readily available on blogs and youtube). I reckon this Spark'd show ends any future for Sims on TV, yeah?

drakharis · February 2021

I give the show a chance but the people they use really aren't best suited for their roles on the show. Some of them I watch for mod reviews. Yeah, Spark'd is a tad cringeworthy. Games like the Sims aren't meant to be competitive but instead meant to be played with our imaginations being the only limitation. There are challenges out there for people to play if they feel like doing challenges whether it's playing a generation challenges, 100 baby challenge, gameplay challenges, build challenges, Era Challenges, etc. That is where "Spark'd" fails. It tries to make the Sims something it is not nor should be. You should never be judged on your own imagination and how you choose to use it in the game. If you want to see how many times your sim can woohoo in a day, that is fine too. Maybe you want your sim to start with nothing and work hard to reach their goal and make it big. Go right ahead. There are no limits. I would rather have the competitiveness taken out of Spark'd and see what everyone's imagination can come up with. We are pretty imaginative as a community. I'd rather have somebody be given an opportunity as a builder to build something grand and given a month to build it whatever their heart's desire is. Believe me, I've done castles in the past and those always take me a few weeks to do. Somebody do a story and we tune in each episode to see what their sim household is doing now. Having people come up with households in CAS and showing how we can create whatever we wish in CAS along with the sims backstories that the person we are seeing playing their household is playing being added in as Townies and such as we see households of playable characters disappear and new CAS creations being added in throughout the series. Keeping the Sages and Vlad but removing everyone else and replacing them. Choosing a couple of households at the beginning of the show and we see the CAS creation of the households that will replace them. Maybe The Goths are gone but we have a zany family of vampires treasure hunters live there now instead. Maybe the Pancakes are gone and we have a family who eats nothing but waffles living there instead.

lostatcore · February 2021

I didn't mind the show. As a fan of The Sims it was okay. I was more excited for it when it was announced than I was actually watching it. Plus I stan Plumbella so as soon as she was voted off I lost a lot of interest.

The big critique I have is that it pitted creators against each other. Like others have pointed out The Sims is not a competitive game so to make a competition show out of it just seemed off. They would have been better getting all the creators together then for each episode give them all a collective challenge and see what they could come up with when you combine all that talent. Nobody was given a time to shine, it was all too quick. The majority of them came across as bland. We all know they're not but newcomers to the series would not have got that. I also found DrGluon to be very unlikeable on the show.

Do I think it will get a second season? Probably not. Do I think it should? Maybe... but they'd have to make some serious changes to the format for it to work.

wineland88P · February 2021

I like the idea of the show but did not like how they overhyped drama. The manufactured drama really made the show cringey even though I love the sims content creators featured on the show. I do like the competition aspect of having popular sims content producers compete against each other on teams. I think the series could be cool if they did a second season if they dial back the manufactured drama and fleshed out more of the creators stories.

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Is it just me or is Sims Spark'd a bit cringeworthy?

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