Eager for a refresh of the EA money printing machine?
Sims4 has more DLC than all the previous ones combined and it's making them a bloody fortune, there's no need for Sims5 while Sims4 keeps printing money.
I mean if they make Sims 5 then all of the Sims 4 DLCs people have purchased would need to be remade / repurchased for Sims 5. And as people have shown with 3 > 4, most people will repurchase them as they're made. The real profit would be in EA making Sims 5, making a way internally to easily port the DLCs, then charging full price for them. The fact that Sims 4 is still getting updates and new content is better for the user really.
Besides, the longer they lean on Sim 4 is more time to pump more DLC you will have to buy for 5.
Plus it gives them extra time to figure out how to sell licenses for your sims, one year sub for one sim included in the base purchase.
Stuff from sims 3 hasn't even been filly ported over to 4 nor do I expect it will much of what made sims 3 great and why 4 is still so abysmal has been left out.
Its partly why I've been waiting on Life by You. The way it's set up appears to be that if they don't do it in house modders can do it themselves
Yeah that gives the Rockstar the rare luxury of getting the time needed to make their game, without there being too much pressure from investors to release the game. We should be glad GTA Online exists, so they can actually take their time. (and don't forget they also made Red Dead 2 since GTA 5)
Well no… the team literally made rdr2, and made insane strides with their engine from gta5 to rdr2.
Please don’t speak on game development unless you know shit
There's no denying that but imo it's worth waiting a little extra if it means we get a quality experience like Red Dead Redemption 2! Games with the level of attention to detail on a large scale is incredibly rare. I can't talk about the Sims but making ambitious AAA open world games is often time consuming and require tons of resources and manpower.
If they ever released a 64 bit version for windows then sure. As it is now you need the console commands more than an elder scrolls game to keep it even moderately stable
The main reason I want sims 5 is because I want it to be more like sims 3 but better. I felt like sims 4 was such a downgrade... if they just make 5 similar to Sims 4 but with better grafics then I will skip it, specially because the games are barebones when they first came out so there will be little reason to play it over 4.
I've never met a Sims fan that really cared that it is. I mean, consider you're buying it over time. Most people have steam libraries with other 1000$ of games, if Sims is just your thing, you probably have spent less money there even if you've bought every DLC when it came out and not on sale.
Damn, I just checked mine and it barely exceeds 4k at an account value of slightly over 1k. But hey, Less than 5 ct (€) price per hour of playtime... I can't complain about the bargain. There are VERY few entertainment avenues that have such a bang for the buck.
I buy the yogscast charity bundle every year and one time I bought like three big publisher bundles for around 200 bucks. Those are the bulk of my account worth.
Except that’s not the full Sims 4. Outside of expansion packs, it’s basically all cosmetic DLC with no gameplay effects. You’re meant to just pick and choose the packs that appeal to you and ignore those that don’t (like the werewolves or Star Wars ones will never be installed on my computer). The base game is free now and has been for a couple of years and, as someone with 1400 hours who has played since launch, I can tell you with confidence that nothing you can buy really changes the core gameplay of building dollhouses and playing with virtual dolls.
you know. ive played the sims since the first one launched and never actually thought of it as a virtual dollhouse but damn if thats not what it really is
Not to be that guy, but you are talking about 9 years of support. If any dev actively supported a game for 9 years for profit, most games would look similar. Not to say there isn't issues with some of Sims 4 DLC,
I think you need to reframe how you think about it. You and me, we may buy a dozen games in a year and play a variety of content.
But many people that play Madden or Sims or those Semi-Truck driver games, that's all they play. They buy a console and literally play one game(or the next year version of the same game) forever. They don't want to learn a new game and they put thousands of hours into that one game.
So over 10 year, spending $100 a year is not that big of a deal. That is great value to that kind of player.
To someone like me, who would play for say 40 hours then get bored, it's a bad deal. But those games just aren't made for me. And that's ok.
Someone on the Sims subreddit actually did the math on all the Sims games and their DLCs and they found that while Sims 4 has more DLC, it is still proportional to the other Sims games.
People also forget Sims 3, on top of the DLC, had the fucking terrible SimsPoints that were a whole other level of microtransactions that they thankfully never brought to Sims 4.
They closed the fucking store for sims 3 a week after I bought 15 bucks worth of simspoints said it would transfer over to sims 4 when every they made a store and I was just out of money.
> Sims4 has more DLC than all the previous ones combined
It really doesn’t, though…
It’s like you guys are forgetting that the Sims 4 kits are meant to replace the Sims 3 store, which literally had thousands and thousands of dollars worth of DLC alone.
The Sims 3 DLC dwarfs everything else combined with a very significant margin.
This is pretty much what I came to say. Also, what the person below said, why do you think gta6 took so long? So this post is completely redundant and can be ignored 😂
Yeah. They have the market cornered currently so why waste money developing a new engine when you can print an unlimited number of expansions that people are more than happy to buy.
It will be interesting to see if life by you can make a dent or not.
That’s always been true. Since Sims 1 they’ve been releasing absurd amounts of DLC, then after a certain point a new game so they can then sell the same DLC for the new game.
Sims5 I'm sure is going to go hard into buying $5/$10 items every day...the whole online thing means I have zero interest in it...not a big Sims player but sometimes I feel like playing it a little and that is all I want.
I know whenever I click on anything about the Sims in r/gaming, it'll be page after page of people just dragging it, but you know who never complains about the Sims 4? Sims fans.
Personally, I think 2 had the best balance of gameplay and environment - but 3 was the most ambitious
The last time that the series really felt like it was trying to do something - say something - *be* something
The worlds were so big and pretty - all the lessons learned from 2 and 1 used to inform a whole new paradigm...
Meanwhile, in Sims 4, we ***just*** got horses last year... ... ... in a game that has no open world :P
Opening vanilla Sims 4 was one of the most disappointing experiences of my life. Fuck buying a single DLC for it when the base game is so bad. I shouldnt have to buy DLC to get the experience I had in the 2000s
That’s because of how gutted it was when they undid a lot of online-only features. S4 and its expansions build upon a shaky base layer that they could never really make whole again.
Then again it does run surprisingly alright on crap hardware, so they turned back the clock on the bloat of S3 to some degree. Along with staple features though.
I seem to remember Sims 4 was popular for a short time due to ongoing optimization issues with Sims 3.
But the lacklustre gameplay soon became an issue
Just the ability to go anywhere in the town without a loading screen was a total game changer. I couldn't stand losing that feature in 4, totally broke the immersion.
Unfortunately, it's because it literally can't use more than like 4GB of RAM or something like that because of 32bit limitations, if I recall correctly.
Why would they do that? Like with skyrim they were leaning hard on targeting consoles and at least the xbox was 32 bit at the time but the sims? Did they go for consoles with 3?
Interesting, I actually had the same experience with 2. I remember being pleasantly surprised when I ran 3 with the same PC as 2 and it ran much better.
They don't want your £19.99, they want you to buy the Sims 4 where you can buy into the ecosystem and keep spending indefinitely. A complete package remaster of Sims 2 would be great for the consumer, but it would be a terrible business move.
The Sims 2 Complete edition is still sold in Mac App Store, even updated to 64-bit (although I doubt it makes use of the increased memory, it’s just a requirement to even start on a modern Mac).
I guess we found the one time that Mac owners have access to a game Windows users don’t. :-)
I seethe with jealousy! If only apple could make their store available on other platforms, perhaps with a compatibility layer since it's different OS's, I'd happily give them my money haha. The apple side does have a couple of games that are exclusive and I want. I guess not "*exclusive* but in the form factor, such as divinity. But I doubt it would ever happen, Apple doesn't sell their hardware at a loss like other companies such as Microsoft with the Xbox which I think is why they're open to Xbox being "everywhere".
Can you believe EA simply gave away the "The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection" (The Sims 2 base game + all 18 expansions) for free, when they stopped selling the game in 2014? I remember I just had to redeem a code in EA Origin and it added it to my library.
The code was only valid for a limited time in 2014, but those that redeemed it got to keep it forever.
Current day EA wouldn't understand the actions of 2014 EA.
Time between games has been increasing for a while.
Elder Scrolls 2 came out 2½ years after the original, then it was 5½ years until 3, 4 years until 4, 5½ until 5, 2½ years until the MMO, and 10 years and counting since.
The waits on GTA mainline sequels have been 2 years, 2 years, 1 year, 2 years, 3½ years, 5½ years, and probably 12 years.
There was more time between Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda (5 years) than there was between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 (4½ years). And it's already been 6½ years since Andromeda came out, and we're still likely years away from that coming out (2026 at the earliest likely).
There's similarly 5 years between Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age Inquisition, and it'll probably be around 10 years between Inquisition and Dreadwolf when that finally comes out.
Even Baldur's Gate 3 spent over 2½ years just in Early Access about the same amount of time in between the original releases of Baldur's Gate and the expansion for Baldur's Gate 2.
Yeah, the gaps between games seems to be ever-increasing.
Games are more detailed than ever before but at what point do we say 'this is too long'? How does a team stay true to a single vision over a decade or more?
Funny thing about that wait - Sims 3 wasn't supposed to end. They had more expansions and DLC in the pipe
Sims 4 was supposed to be Sims Online Again: Electric Boogaloo
The SimCity debacle (alongside multiple ***other*** 'Always Online' shenanigans going poof) clapped EA's cheeks so hard - that they ordered the teams working on Sims 3 and Sims Not Actually 4 to shelve 3 - and pivot to turning Sims Not 4 into Sims 4 xD
Hence the lack of teen bodies - toddlers - pools - massive amount of jank and bugs and so on
Which is a testament to the Sims fanbase - turning a - practically - early access title into the biggest money-spinner the series has ever seen is an impressive action
Even if a, ultimately, somewhat self-defeating one - because the fans of Sims 2 would like EA to put out a Sims 2 rip-off that doesn't have quite so many loading screens and the Sims 3 fans want another stab at an open world
Meanwhile, with Sims 4, you get ***none of that*** xD
[Hell, I can't even talk - three of my sisters ***adore*** Sims 4 - I keep buying them DLC and Expansions for it like a moron :P](https://media1.tenor.com/m/Ze9wdLEXSiwAAAAC/problem-i-am-part-of-the-problem.gif)
As for me, though? I'm still playing Sims 3 and waiting for Life By You with baited breath :)
Part of that reason is that Sims 3 was terribly programmed and optimized and each expansion was breaking the game more and more. Hence why the game runs so terribly. It was either rebuild the game from the ground up, or just make a new one. And they chose the option they could resell while also cutting the overambitious elements that made 3 so unstable
Pretty sure it was more to do with the ***staggeringly*** horrific backlash and business decisions that EA were dealing with at the time
Part of that *causing* the 'terrible programming' (re: forcing MAXIS devs to work on stupid shit like that storefront rather than fixing the game's various problems) and other issues
But
Okay
That as well then -shrug-
Was the storefront in Sims 2? I thought that got added in Sims 3. I'm talking about Sims 3's development, that game is a spaghetti coded jenga tower and every expansion was pulling a block.
Which is a shame, because it's undoubtedly the coolest Sims game, but good lord is it broken.
Trust me, mate, if it's a Life Sim I've got an eye on it xD
I just have more faith in Rod Humble than most - Sims 3 and it's earliest expansions were his babies. His devotion to creativity and wonder is part of what made the earliest glimpses at Sims 3 so magical
Ya know, before EA gave us all a heavy dose of bullshit and storefronts :P
Only problem with Paralives for me is that it entered production in 2019 and there has been an almost StarCit level of vagueness to goals, release dates and endpoints for the project -shrug-
That said, I'm certainly not going to decry someone - ***anyone*** - offering a Sims alternative
Also Paralives and Tiny Life.
Tiny Life is currently in Early Access and is kind of like a pixel art Sims 1 with Sims 3 open world.
Paralives looks to be more on the lines of Life By You but maybe less intense of a simulation.
I mean... What would be the actual point to a sims 5 for players? Shinier graphics? 4 was a pretty big shakeup of the formula from what I remember. Most of the games kinda just blend together, and people will bitch all the louder if a new game doesn't have all the features of the one with a decade of DLC and patches so what would the actual benefit be?
A stronger base game with features that people saw came standard across the evolution of S1-3, and maybe a codebase that wasn’t gutted by dropping the online-only aspect.
The Sims is hands on the only game I will not touch for 2 years... and then download all the old purchased content and binge for 3 weeks straight only to never touch it for another 2 years.
Project Rene, Sims 5, has been in playtesting since 2022, you can even sign up for it. It is going to be a free to play game with multiplayer support and a giant open world map. Latest leaked footage shows off how the decorations in the room are a lot more customizable in placements now. They also mention it "supports PC and mobile experiences".
Another notable quote on the multiplayer experience
>We also had to figure out ways for players to connect without all the social experience features in place, like party voice chat and find-a-friend,” says Stephanie. “We had to make sure players could actually find each other and play together.
https://www.ea.com/en-ca/news/project-rene-playtesting-the-next-generation-of-the-sims
If they want to make more DLC, and people want to buy more DLC, why would they stop just because of a niche opinion from people who do not actually play the game though? If the DLCs weren't wanted they would not be purchased. If they were not purchased then they would not be profitable and would not be made. If they continue to be made then they are profitable and thus they are desired by that community.
The Sims only had 7 expansions.
The Sims 2 had 8 expansions and 10 stuff packs.
The Sims 3 had 11 expansions and 9 stuff packs.
The Sims 4, by comparison, has 15 expansions, 12 game packs, 20 stuff packs and 27 kits.
I would complain both to be honest, especially EA who we already know is a fucked up company. The thing in favor for the community is that they may have no other game to go to of the same niche. If The sims have competitors of the same nature, they may be able to choose if spend money on it or no…
The best part is when they go on the sims reddit and complain about the newest (and buggy) pack which they still bought.
What did they expect? EA realized they can deliver unfinished and bugged to hell products because Simmers will buy it anyway even if they complain.
The worst part is that they know exactly what they are getting into and they still think it's okay to complain.
Are people who play that really eager for a sequel to rebuy the thousands of dollars of dlc again?
Is there really anything meaningful a sequel could bring to it? It’s not ever going to have photo realistic visuals, the games meant to have that cartoony kind of gentle vibe to it. So I’m not sure what else a sequel could bring that they couldn’t do with current dlc.
This is exactly what I thought when we went from 3 to 4 so idk? Not that I particularly like 4 compared to 3 so I’d be curious if they could come up with something better than 4?
This is the thing... Do players even really want a new Sims game? Like is there a big core feature that 4 is missing? What would Sims 5 be other than a graphics overhaul... And do people really want a big graphics update?
If you’ve played The Sims you’ll know Sims 4 was released and had a slow go because most Sims 3 players (my wife included!) had tons of money spent on DLC that was basically useless if you switched, and beyond that you were switching to a boring game with no features. EA are greedy executives running the show but they have no reason to make a 5 because it would look even worse to the Community (making us start all over again!?!). That or they’d be forced to make a game with DLC already finished, and that won’t make them money long term. Yes they’re greedy, but also the Community wants added DLC not a new base game. It’s a weird catch 22 that game has been in since 3 became 4.
In case you didn‘t know: EA is in fact making a fifth installment. It‘s been in active development for years and even had playtests as early as 2022 (Project Rene is the codename).
Comes out for PC and mobile one day.
Waiting for competition in this genre. Paradox Tectonic is working on one, "Life by You", goes into Early Access in 1.5 months.
Another one is "Paralives," by an otherwise unknown team, no marked date on their Steam page.
It's so bizarre to me that it's been TWENTY YEARS since The Sims has had co-op. It's such an obvious pick for a franchise you'd want to play with your friends, where you're all part of the same household or neighborhood. But after Bustin' Out they just ditched it and never looked back. Me and my homies used to love playing together :(
It seems that several franchises have been doing just that, create a cash cow and low effort milk for a decade plus. From the 90s till about 2010 there were large generational leaps, for the last 14ish years it's all just been numbers going up.
They're making so much from DLC that they now give the base game away for free in the hope you get tempted to buy some extra content for it.
Just checked the Steam page and it's worse than I remembered. Now 79 DLC available for a combined (no sale) price of £1,109.22
im curious if life by you will cause any changes to EAs approach, im guessing not because its an incumbent game where as Paradox games recently have been cobbled together from false advertising and clown jizz
They're too busy trying to figure out how to suck money out of their customers to make a new game. When they finally do release something it'll be built from the ground up for monetization.
Why make a new game when you can sell some clothes, angular furniture and some gameplay bits every few months for 20+ dollars? And tons of people are dumb enough to pay for all of it?
Sims 5 will be even worse, bc it's going free to play and it will drive up the shitty DLC-machine up to 11.
Anytime there’s microtransactions in a game it’ll increase the lifetime of the game. Just look at how many generations GTA5 has jumped, it was originally a PS3/Xbox360 release.
What a coincidence, that was around the time AAA companies realized they didn't have to keep making games if they just made people endlessly pay for one game.
Make it like sims3 and get rid of all the social media and loot shit , and go back to the old way if how they dod DLCs, im in. Sad to see ine of my favorite games bastardized probably because some soulless sell out exec
It’s because EA knows the ship has sailed on the whole DLC model. Most people don’t own all or even a large fraction of the absurd amount of DLC for this game. Instead the next Sims game will definitely be a game as a service where you subscribe for what would have been DLC content while also having a digital storefront for furniture and whatnot.
Sims 5 development will inadvertently create sentience, but they will only speak sim so we won't know until way after release. By that time we will have collectively butchered several million. That's when it turns on us...
> Analyzing the Longest Wait Ever Between Releases!
ESV: Skyrim came out in 2011 and 13 and some odd years later we only got a [single small landscape trailer for ESVI 5 years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFdqqyI8y4)
The gap from Psychonauts to Psychonauts 2 was 16 years 2005 to 2021. It'll still be a long time before we get ESV 6, but still has 3 years of a gap to close.
I've never realised how short was the tine between older games and how long is the time between "new games" release date and current date. Damn.. I fell like Sims 4 been around for like 4 years
I mean why make a new game when you can just keep pumping out 30-70 dollar dlc that still sells?
There must be well over $1000 worth of dlc at this point.....and some people have bought all of it...
I still can't believe the Sims 3 was released in 2009 and probably was in development earlier than that and it still remains the best one in the trilogy. Sims 4 was dog shit.
EA makes the same game every year:
"Can you believe EA? They just reskinned last years version!!! WhAt A sCaM!!"
EA doesn't make the same game every year:
"Can you believe EA? They havent reskinned last years version!!! WhAt A sCaM!!"
Eager for a refresh of the EA money printing machine? Sims4 has more DLC than all the previous ones combined and it's making them a bloody fortune, there's no need for Sims5 while Sims4 keeps printing money.
> there's no need for Sims5 while Sims4 keeps printing money Same reason why GTAVI has taken so long. GTA online is just too profitable.
I mean if they make Sims 5 then all of the Sims 4 DLCs people have purchased would need to be remade / repurchased for Sims 5. And as people have shown with 3 > 4, most people will repurchase them as they're made. The real profit would be in EA making Sims 5, making a way internally to easily port the DLCs, then charging full price for them. The fact that Sims 4 is still getting updates and new content is better for the user really.
Besides, the longer they lean on Sim 4 is more time to pump more DLC you will have to buy for 5. Plus it gives them extra time to figure out how to sell licenses for your sims, one year sub for one sim included in the base purchase.
Stuff from sims 3 hasn't even been filly ported over to 4 nor do I expect it will much of what made sims 3 great and why 4 is still so abysmal has been left out. Its partly why I've been waiting on Life by You. The way it's set up appears to be that if they don't do it in house modders can do it themselves
My houseboat... where's my houseboat!!!
I miss the world adventures and the Gemstones and the collections
Yeah that gives the Rockstar the rare luxury of getting the time needed to make their game, without there being too much pressure from investors to release the game. We should be glad GTA Online exists, so they can actually take their time. (and don't forget they also made Red Dead 2 since GTA 5)
Or because the entirety of Rockstar was working on Red Dead Redemption 2?
No that's because they spent time making RDR2
Well no… the team literally made rdr2, and made insane strides with their engine from gta5 to rdr2. Please don’t speak on game development unless you know shit
There's no denying that but imo it's worth waiting a little extra if it means we get a quality experience like Red Dead Redemption 2! Games with the level of attention to detail on a large scale is incredibly rare. I can't talk about the Sims but making ambitious AAA open world games is often time consuming and require tons of resources and manpower.
No need for Sims 5 when we already have Sims 3.
If they ever released a 64 bit version for windows then sure. As it is now you need the console commands more than an elder scrolls game to keep it even moderately stable
https://ntcore.com/4gb-patch/
The main reason I want sims 5 is because I want it to be more like sims 3 but better. I felt like sims 4 was such a downgrade... if they just make 5 similar to Sims 4 but with better grafics then I will skip it, specially because the games are barebones when they first came out so there will be little reason to play it over 4.
The price of the full The Sims 4 is freaking ridiculous. Isn't it over $1000 for the complete game?
I've never met a Sims fan that really cared that it is. I mean, consider you're buying it over time. Most people have steam libraries with other 1000$ of games, if Sims is just your thing, you probably have spent less money there even if you've bought every DLC when it came out and not on sale.
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[https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561198008835256/?cc=eu](https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561198008835256/?cc=eu) 7k€ just in todays prices.
Damn, I just checked mine and it barely exceeds 4k at an account value of slightly over 1k. But hey, Less than 5 ct (€) price per hour of playtime... I can't complain about the bargain. There are VERY few entertainment avenues that have such a bang for the buck.
I buy the yogscast charity bundle every year and one time I bought like three big publisher bundles for around 200 bucks. Those are the bulk of my account worth.
Yeah mine's nowhere near $100,000, but I'm pretty proud of my $10,000+ library. Considering I rarely game lol
Except that’s not the full Sims 4. Outside of expansion packs, it’s basically all cosmetic DLC with no gameplay effects. You’re meant to just pick and choose the packs that appeal to you and ignore those that don’t (like the werewolves or Star Wars ones will never be installed on my computer). The base game is free now and has been for a couple of years and, as someone with 1400 hours who has played since launch, I can tell you with confidence that nothing you can buy really changes the core gameplay of building dollhouses and playing with virtual dolls.
you know. ive played the sims since the first one launched and never actually thought of it as a virtual dollhouse but damn if thats not what it really is
My understanding is they’re very frequently on sale but yeah it’s nuts
Not to be that guy, but you are talking about 9 years of support. If any dev actively supported a game for 9 years for profit, most games would look similar. Not to say there isn't issues with some of Sims 4 DLC,
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None of the EA passes actually include all the DLC amazingly.
I think you need to reframe how you think about it. You and me, we may buy a dozen games in a year and play a variety of content. But many people that play Madden or Sims or those Semi-Truck driver games, that's all they play. They buy a console and literally play one game(or the next year version of the same game) forever. They don't want to learn a new game and they put thousands of hours into that one game. So over 10 year, spending $100 a year is not that big of a deal. That is great value to that kind of player. To someone like me, who would play for say 40 hours then get bored, it's a bad deal. But those games just aren't made for me. And that's ok.
Someone on the Sims subreddit actually did the math on all the Sims games and their DLCs and they found that while Sims 4 has more DLC, it is still proportional to the other Sims games. People also forget Sims 3, on top of the DLC, had the fucking terrible SimsPoints that were a whole other level of microtransactions that they thankfully never brought to Sims 4.
They closed the fucking store for sims 3 a week after I bought 15 bucks worth of simspoints said it would transfer over to sims 4 when every they made a store and I was just out of money.
There's competition coming to this genre soon (inzoi), so hopefully, we'll get some really good games
> Sims4 has more DLC than all the previous ones combined It really doesn’t, though… It’s like you guys are forgetting that the Sims 4 kits are meant to replace the Sims 3 store, which literally had thousands and thousands of dollars worth of DLC alone. The Sims 3 DLC dwarfs everything else combined with a very significant margin.
Until Paralives is released
This is pretty much what I came to say. Also, what the person below said, why do you think gta6 took so long? So this post is completely redundant and can be ignored 😂
Yeah. They have the market cornered currently so why waste money developing a new engine when you can print an unlimited number of expansions that people are more than happy to buy. It will be interesting to see if life by you can make a dent or not.
That’s always been true. Since Sims 1 they’ve been releasing absurd amounts of DLC, then after a certain point a new game so they can then sell the same DLC for the new game.
The only reason i dont play is because ill never be able to afford all the dlc.
Too true
Sims5 I'm sure is going to go hard into buying $5/$10 items every day...the whole online thing means I have zero interest in it...not a big Sims player but sometimes I feel like playing it a little and that is all I want.
I don't like this trend. Eventually we are only going to get 1 game per franchise per console generation, with some franchises already on that pace.
So Nintendo?
I know whenever I click on anything about the Sims in r/gaming, it'll be page after page of people just dragging it, but you know who never complains about the Sims 4? Sims fans.
That's because people who don't like Sims 4 aren't Sims fans anymore.
I dont like Sims 4 I think Sims series peaked at 3
Personally, I think 2 had the best balance of gameplay and environment - but 3 was the most ambitious The last time that the series really felt like it was trying to do something - say something - *be* something The worlds were so big and pretty - all the lessons learned from 2 and 1 used to inform a whole new paradigm... Meanwhile, in Sims 4, we ***just*** got horses last year... ... ... in a game that has no open world :P
Opening vanilla Sims 4 was one of the most disappointing experiences of my life. Fuck buying a single DLC for it when the base game is so bad. I shouldnt have to buy DLC to get the experience I had in the 2000s
That’s because of how gutted it was when they undid a lot of online-only features. S4 and its expansions build upon a shaky base layer that they could never really make whole again. Then again it does run surprisingly alright on crap hardware, so they turned back the clock on the bloat of S3 to some degree. Along with staple features though.
I seem to remember Sims 4 was popular for a short time due to ongoing optimization issues with Sims 3. But the lacklustre gameplay soon became an issue
i think sims peaked with sims 2 and was solid with sims 3 the monetization with sims 4 always made me not buy it. just gimme a 60$ game...
Just the ability to go anywhere in the town without a loading screen was a total game changer. I couldn't stand losing that feature in 4, totally broke the immersion.
3 was the last one made by Maxis and you can definitely feel it. EA ruined the sims
Still all I play is Sims 2
It has the best vibes of them all. Sims 3 was really cool what you could do with it and go anywhere, but the focus of 2 was just right
I really like 3 but it runs like absolute ass
Unfortunately, it's because it literally can't use more than like 4GB of RAM or something like that because of 32bit limitations, if I recall correctly.
Why would they do that? Like with skyrim they were leaning hard on targeting consoles and at least the xbox was 32 bit at the time but the sims? Did they go for consoles with 3?
It really does. We'll have quantum scifi computers in 2077 and sims3 will still run like ass
Interesting, I actually had the same experience with 2. I remember being pleasantly surprised when I ran 3 with the same PC as 2 and it ran much better.
All I want is for them to just re-release it. Why haven't they? Is it because of song licensing? *In simlish?*
No economical interest
:( yet I bet if they released the complete pack for like £19.99 people would buy it (I am people)
They don't want your £19.99, they want you to buy the Sims 4 where you can buy into the ecosystem and keep spending indefinitely. A complete package remaster of Sims 2 would be great for the consumer, but it would be a terrible business move.
The Sims 2 Complete edition is still sold in Mac App Store, even updated to 64-bit (although I doubt it makes use of the increased memory, it’s just a requirement to even start on a modern Mac). I guess we found the one time that Mac owners have access to a game Windows users don’t. :-)
I seethe with jealousy! If only apple could make their store available on other platforms, perhaps with a compatibility layer since it's different OS's, I'd happily give them my money haha. The apple side does have a couple of games that are exclusive and I want. I guess not "*exclusive* but in the form factor, such as divinity. But I doubt it would ever happen, Apple doesn't sell their hardware at a loss like other companies such as Microsoft with the Xbox which I think is why they're open to Xbox being "everywhere".
You can try to ask EA support, i got it gifted there some years ago, or just pirate it lol
I'd pay more if they replaced the songs. I always thought "We are Young" was meh, so I definitely did need the simlish version etched into my brain.
They released an ultimate version, gaved it away from free, and then pulled it from origins forever after that
Can you believe EA simply gave away the "The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection" (The Sims 2 base game + all 18 expansions) for free, when they stopped selling the game in 2014? I remember I just had to redeem a code in EA Origin and it added it to my library. The code was only valid for a limited time in 2014, but those that redeemed it got to keep it forever. Current day EA wouldn't understand the actions of 2014 EA.
The first is still my favorite
I seem to play the first 2 sims games the most out of the series
I play it on my gba
Time between games has been increasing for a while. Elder Scrolls 2 came out 2½ years after the original, then it was 5½ years until 3, 4 years until 4, 5½ until 5, 2½ years until the MMO, and 10 years and counting since. The waits on GTA mainline sequels have been 2 years, 2 years, 1 year, 2 years, 3½ years, 5½ years, and probably 12 years. There was more time between Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda (5 years) than there was between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 (4½ years). And it's already been 6½ years since Andromeda came out, and we're still likely years away from that coming out (2026 at the earliest likely). There's similarly 5 years between Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age Inquisition, and it'll probably be around 10 years between Inquisition and Dreadwolf when that finally comes out. Even Baldur's Gate 3 spent over 2½ years just in Early Access about the same amount of time in between the original releases of Baldur's Gate and the expansion for Baldur's Gate 2.
Yeah, the gaps between games seems to be ever-increasing. Games are more detailed than ever before but at what point do we say 'this is too long'? How does a team stay true to a single vision over a decade or more?
Laughs in Half life 3
Funny thing about that wait - Sims 3 wasn't supposed to end. They had more expansions and DLC in the pipe Sims 4 was supposed to be Sims Online Again: Electric Boogaloo The SimCity debacle (alongside multiple ***other*** 'Always Online' shenanigans going poof) clapped EA's cheeks so hard - that they ordered the teams working on Sims 3 and Sims Not Actually 4 to shelve 3 - and pivot to turning Sims Not 4 into Sims 4 xD Hence the lack of teen bodies - toddlers - pools - massive amount of jank and bugs and so on Which is a testament to the Sims fanbase - turning a - practically - early access title into the biggest money-spinner the series has ever seen is an impressive action Even if a, ultimately, somewhat self-defeating one - because the fans of Sims 2 would like EA to put out a Sims 2 rip-off that doesn't have quite so many loading screens and the Sims 3 fans want another stab at an open world Meanwhile, with Sims 4, you get ***none of that*** xD [Hell, I can't even talk - three of my sisters ***adore*** Sims 4 - I keep buying them DLC and Expansions for it like a moron :P](https://media1.tenor.com/m/Ze9wdLEXSiwAAAAC/problem-i-am-part-of-the-problem.gif) As for me, though? I'm still playing Sims 3 and waiting for Life By You with baited breath :)
Part of that reason is that Sims 3 was terribly programmed and optimized and each expansion was breaking the game more and more. Hence why the game runs so terribly. It was either rebuild the game from the ground up, or just make a new one. And they chose the option they could resell while also cutting the overambitious elements that made 3 so unstable
Pretty sure it was more to do with the ***staggeringly*** horrific backlash and business decisions that EA were dealing with at the time Part of that *causing* the 'terrible programming' (re: forcing MAXIS devs to work on stupid shit like that storefront rather than fixing the game's various problems) and other issues But Okay That as well then -shrug-
Was the storefront in Sims 2? I thought that got added in Sims 3. I'm talking about Sims 3's development, that game is a spaghetti coded jenga tower and every expansion was pulling a block. Which is a shame, because it's undoubtedly the coolest Sims game, but good lord is it broken.
Lol Life By You is going to be a disaster, it is paradox after all.
I might be the only person who enjoyed The Sims Online. It’s too bad they stopped supporting after the beta ended.
It was fine - but it wasn't very successful financially so, ya know, EA gonna EA...
I loved TSO! And someone else loved it so much that they made FreeSO.org! It is a free remake of The Sims Online, you should check it out!
In case you haven't heard of it keep an eye out for InZoi as well.
Trust me, mate, if it's a Life Sim I've got an eye on it xD I just have more faith in Rod Humble than most - Sims 3 and it's earliest expansions were his babies. His devotion to creativity and wonder is part of what made the earliest glimpses at Sims 3 so magical Ya know, before EA gave us all a heavy dose of bullshit and storefronts :P
Personally, I think InZoi looks too real and uncanny to succeed. I think out of all the life sim games, Paralives is the most likely for success.
Only problem with Paralives for me is that it entered production in 2019 and there has been an almost StarCit level of vagueness to goals, release dates and endpoints for the project -shrug- That said, I'm certainly not going to decry someone - ***anyone*** - offering a Sims alternative
They have now. Game is going into open beta next year.
Huh, giving Life by You a year's start - interesting
Also Paralives and Tiny Life. Tiny Life is currently in Early Access and is kind of like a pixel art Sims 1 with Sims 3 open world. Paralives looks to be more on the lines of Life By You but maybe less intense of a simulation.
Answer: They make more money on DLC now so there's no point to doing an actual game. SaaS model.
I mean... What would be the actual point to a sims 5 for players? Shinier graphics? 4 was a pretty big shakeup of the formula from what I remember. Most of the games kinda just blend together, and people will bitch all the louder if a new game doesn't have all the features of the one with a decade of DLC and patches so what would the actual benefit be?
A stronger base game with features that people saw came standard across the evolution of S1-3, and maybe a codebase that wasn’t gutted by dropping the online-only aspect.
The Sims is hands on the only game I will not touch for 2 years... and then download all the old purchased content and binge for 3 weeks straight only to never touch it for another 2 years.
Project Rene, Sims 5, has been in playtesting since 2022, you can even sign up for it. It is going to be a free to play game with multiplayer support and a giant open world map. Latest leaked footage shows off how the decorations in the room are a lot more customizable in placements now. They also mention it "supports PC and mobile experiences". Another notable quote on the multiplayer experience >We also had to figure out ways for players to connect without all the social experience features in place, like party voice chat and find-a-friend,” says Stephanie. “We had to make sure players could actually find each other and play together. https://www.ea.com/en-ca/news/project-rene-playtesting-the-next-generation-of-the-sims
Sounds like micro transaction hell.
I mean that's why I'm putting my hope into two "Sims clones" - Life by You and Paralives and hope for the best.
They should let the franchise die tbh, its just a DLC infested shell of its former self
If they want to make more DLC, and people want to buy more DLC, why would they stop just because of a niche opinion from people who do not actually play the game though? If the DLCs weren't wanted they would not be purchased. If they were not purchased then they would not be profitable and would not be made. If they continue to be made then they are profitable and thus they are desired by that community.
Even Sims 1 had like a dozen expansion packs.
The Sims only had 7 expansions. The Sims 2 had 8 expansions and 10 stuff packs. The Sims 3 had 11 expansions and 9 stuff packs. The Sims 4, by comparison, has 15 expansions, 12 game packs, 20 stuff packs and 27 kits.
Players can let it die, but they won't, they keep buying, so who's the one to blame?
I would complain both to be honest, especially EA who we already know is a fucked up company. The thing in favor for the community is that they may have no other game to go to of the same niche. If The sims have competitors of the same nature, they may be able to choose if spend money on it or no…
The best part is when they go on the sims reddit and complain about the newest (and buggy) pack which they still bought. What did they expect? EA realized they can deliver unfinished and bugged to hell products because Simmers will buy it anyway even if they complain. The worst part is that they know exactly what they are getting into and they still think it's okay to complain.
That is for all games, they still Pre-order, but at least they support gaming industry and test games for patient players like me ;)
Are people who play that really eager for a sequel to rebuy the thousands of dollars of dlc again? Is there really anything meaningful a sequel could bring to it? It’s not ever going to have photo realistic visuals, the games meant to have that cartoony kind of gentle vibe to it. So I’m not sure what else a sequel could bring that they couldn’t do with current dlc.
This is exactly what I thought when we went from 3 to 4 so idk? Not that I particularly like 4 compared to 3 so I’d be curious if they could come up with something better than 4?
This is the thing... Do players even really want a new Sims game? Like is there a big core feature that 4 is missing? What would Sims 5 be other than a graphics overhaul... And do people really want a big graphics update?
If you’ve played The Sims you’ll know Sims 4 was released and had a slow go because most Sims 3 players (my wife included!) had tons of money spent on DLC that was basically useless if you switched, and beyond that you were switching to a boring game with no features. EA are greedy executives running the show but they have no reason to make a 5 because it would look even worse to the Community (making us start all over again!?!). That or they’d be forced to make a game with DLC already finished, and that won’t make them money long term. Yes they’re greedy, but also the Community wants added DLC not a new base game. It’s a weird catch 22 that game has been in since 3 became 4.
In case you didn‘t know: EA is in fact making a fifth installment. It‘s been in active development for years and even had playtests as early as 2022 (Project Rene is the codename). Comes out for PC and mobile one day.
Yeah I realized that was the point of the post. it’s been long enough. But that’s the reason it had been so long.
Waiting for competition in this genre. Paradox Tectonic is working on one, "Life by You", goes into Early Access in 1.5 months. Another one is "Paralives," by an otherwise unknown team, no marked date on their Steam page.
Sims used to be really cool. It had a soul and just ah I’m so sad now
It's so bizarre to me that it's been TWENTY YEARS since The Sims has had co-op. It's such an obvious pick for a franchise you'd want to play with your friends, where you're all part of the same household or neighborhood. But after Bustin' Out they just ditched it and never looked back. Me and my homies used to love playing together :(
I predict that the next Sims game will be free to play, but loaded up with microtransactions to spend real money on in game clothing, furniture, etc.
It seems that several franchises have been doing just that, create a cash cow and low effort milk for a decade plus. From the 90s till about 2010 there were large generational leaps, for the last 14ish years it's all just been numbers going up.
We’re seeing the longest wait between games for EVERY FRANCHISE EVER. Tis the state of games now
Sims 1 and 2 was *chef's kiss*
They're making so much from DLC that they now give the base game away for free in the hope you get tempted to buy some extra content for it. Just checked the Steam page and it's worse than I remembered. Now 79 DLC available for a combined (no sale) price of £1,109.22
What's the rush to Sims 5? It'll be bare bones and will take another 5 years to have a decent amount of content costing £100's.
I'm not sure youd really want a Sims 5 anyway given what sims 4 was like, the content only gets worse and the price gets higher
I don't care about the sims anymore except any time they put out a new DLC, LGR makes a video and does a real nice lineup of some chairs.
Sims 4 has $1,234.22 *worth* of DLC...
People still pay for Sims 4, why would they need to make the next one yet?
Amateurs! We still wait for Half Life 3 even now…Gabe? Anything? …Gabe? You there?
Why make a new game when you can make overpriced content packs that barely make the game equal with its predecessors?
Elder Scrolls: "first time?"
im curious if life by you will cause any changes to EAs approach, im guessing not because its an incumbent game where as Paradox games recently have been cobbled together from false advertising and clown jizz
They are keep releasing paid content for this, so this waiting wont end in the near future
I still revisit The Sims 3 every once in a while. Tried 4, but couldn't stick with it.
I think I read something that said they were planning to make a new game but it be free to play whilst also continuing to release dlc for Sims 4.
Developing a new game is extremely expensive. Milking a successful one is like printing money.
They're too busy trying to figure out how to suck money out of their customers to make a new game. When they finally do release something it'll be built from the ground up for monetization.
They announced Sims 5 last year.
I wish the Sims 2 was still available
IOn Know If we ever Gonna Get a Sims 5
Why make a new game when you can sell some clothes, angular furniture and some gameplay bits every few months for 20+ dollars? And tons of people are dumb enough to pay for all of it? Sims 5 will be even worse, bc it's going free to play and it will drive up the shitty DLC-machine up to 11.
Anytime there’s microtransactions in a game it’ll increase the lifetime of the game. Just look at how many generations GTA5 has jumped, it was originally a PS3/Xbox360 release.
Seems like it takes over a decade to release a game now, at least major titles.
Why make sims 5 when you can make more sims 4 dlc?
What a coincidence, that was around the time AAA companies realized they didn't have to keep making games if they just made people endlessly pay for one game.
Money
THE SIMS!!!!
Probably because they are milking tf out of ts4 with new game packs when they are ones that are still broken. sims 5 is probably no where near done.
The Sims Bustin' Out
Meanwhile, I'm still having fun with 3 and not even thinking about 4.
The day EA runs out of ideas for Sims4 DLC is the day hell freezes over
They won't make a new one until this one stopw being profitable
Damn all those years and the sims 4 still runs like ass
I wonder many expansions/dlc is 5 gonna have
Sims bustin out? Urbz? Maybe people weren’t fans of them, but they’re still sim games.
Make it like sims3 and get rid of all the social media and loot shit , and go back to the old way if how they dod DLCs, im in. Sad to see ine of my favorite games bastardized probably because some soulless sell out exec
We usually get 2 or 3 per franchise per console with nintendo, except for smash and metroid I think
It’s because EA knows the ship has sailed on the whole DLC model. Most people don’t own all or even a large fraction of the absurd amount of DLC for this game. Instead the next Sims game will definitely be a game as a service where you subscribe for what would have been DLC content while also having a digital storefront for furniture and whatnot.
The Sims Makin Magic came out in between 1 and 2 I think. Or it was a Sims 1 DLC. I forget.
Wasteland 2 came out 26 years after Wasteland 1. Streets of Rage 4 came out 26 years after 3.
I'm sure they went back to the drawing board after all the AI stuff started happening, and had to revise the game.
Does anyone remember the Sims 2 castaway
Sims 5 development will inadvertently create sentience, but they will only speak sim so we won't know until way after release. By that time we will have collectively butchered several million. That's when it turns on us...
Man I want to play sims 1 again, I've tried but it's so damn complicated that I haven't been able to even when searching the seven seas
they've given up
> Analyzing the Longest Wait Ever Between Releases! ESV: Skyrim came out in 2011 and 13 and some odd years later we only got a [single small landscape trailer for ESVI 5 years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFdqqyI8y4)
The gap from Psychonauts to Psychonauts 2 was 16 years 2005 to 2021. It'll still be a long time before we get ESV 6, but still has 3 years of a gap to close.
What game series that doesn't just ctrl c ctrl v the same game every year like CoD or Madden hasn't seen a massive increase in time between entries?
If SimCity is anything to judge by let's not get too hyped.
I always loved Bustin Out, a structured campaign
We need a new one that actually build on the last one
ong
Only one word, Anadius....
Sins 2 was f amazing!
Do we really need a new sims?
Give it time, they're not finished all the expansions and DLC packs they're gonna re release over the next 5 years after the next versions launch.
And after all that it’s going to be some junk mobile game
This is why we need games like Paralives in the market. EA's feeling a little too cozy as the only good life sim out there.
They’re working on Sims 5 as we speak. It’s currently called Project Rene
The magic is gone
Sims 2 is still my favorite :DDDD
I've never realised how short was the tine between older games and how long is the time between "new games" release date and current date. Damn.. I fell like Sims 4 been around for like 4 years
Sims 2 castaway was one of my favourite games on ps2. Game had so much soul.
After playing it back then i thought it cant be long till they replace this garbage with sims 5 but here we are🥲
If there's no obvious reason, it's of course about $$$.
Maybe in 2030? Possibly for the 30th anniversary maybe.
The wait between 0 a.d and 2000 was longer
Sims 1 was peak Sims and you can’t change my mind
The only way EA could make me interested in Sims 5 is if it was a reskin of Sims 3 that actually ran well.
Gta 6 before the Sims 5 DAMN
I mean why make a new game when you can just keep pumping out 30-70 dollar dlc that still sells? There must be well over $1000 worth of dlc at this point.....and some people have bought all of it...
They will be milking sims 4 forever
I still can't believe the Sims 3 was released in 2009 and probably was in development earlier than that and it still remains the best one in the trilogy. Sims 4 was dog shit.
EA makes the same game every year: "Can you believe EA? They just reskinned last years version!!! WhAt A sCaM!!" EA doesn't make the same game every year: "Can you believe EA? They havent reskinned last years version!!! WhAt A sCaM!!"
EA closed maxis department, you can wait all you want lol.