EA: "If The Sims 4 Isn't Successful, There Won't be a Sims 5"

[PatrickXD]

Great message you're sending there. Don't hold the franchise to ransom because you made a shitty cash grab and people saw right through it before it was even released. The only way to make The Sims 4 a game worth getting is the promise of FreeLC, but that's not a promise EA is willing to make.
In all fairness to the dude that said this, he seems to be genuinely trying to make The Sims 4 a better experience for consumers, and of course the business model of the game really has nothing to do with him.

 

[Kuredan]

I think Maxis should sell its IP to Firaxis and form one company Firaxis-Maxis. That way we can say "Chillin' out, Maxis, Firaxis all cool, and all shootin some b-ball outside of the school..."

Also How amazing could a Wil Wright/ Sid Meir game be? Similization anyone? (Yes I know Sid hasn't led Civ since the first one)

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Pretty sure many of us have seen the long list of missing features that have existed since The Sims 1-3 that should have been in this installment. If not, here you go [http://ts4news.com/post/94541924952/89-features-missing-from-the-sims-4]. If there isn't a Sims 5, it may be because fans of The Sims have gotten sick of getting fleeced, and wanna play a feature-rich game.

But this is EA we're talking about here. They can't exactly go a full month without being hypocritical and shoving feet in their mouth so often, they may have developed a fetish.

Looking at that list, maybe what he means is that they are continuing the same level of feature strip for the Sims 5, but that literally means there is no game left, so they don't need to work or think about it, because it's already done?

 

[Nazulu]

Well it's good they want to improve Sims 4 before moving on, but I really can't see it at all when it hasn't proven to be great at release, and everyone with a brain will just wait till it's really cheap with every single feature they cut out comes in a nice neat bundle, or just won't bother with it all.

EA! You're not improving you're image with this.

 

[Qage]

So that statement you released the other day about wanting to get away from the "Worst Company of the Year" title being followed by this statement, makes the former seem even more disingenuous now, doesn't it?

Not only are you charging a very hefty price for The Sims 4 when it has even less features than the previous entry, but you're now threatening the production of another instalment to the series based upon it's success. So basically you've just taken the franchise to ransom, blackmailed the consumers if they potentially want to see another instalment, and then you've gone and phrased it in such a way as to imply that it's the consumers fault?

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Seriously, what is your problem, EA?

On the other hand, this would be an amazing opportunity for another company to swoop in with their own Sims-style game that has more features and is generally more consumer friendly.

 

[CriticalMiss]

There won't be a Sims 5 anyway as they'll chop it up and sell it as DLC for Sims 4. It's the next illogical step after taking out half of the game and selling chunks of the content as expansion packs.

 

[Rozalia1]

Allow me to translate for those who have difficulty understanding EA promos:

EA: It's time to get rid o' the trash, the garbage, the worthless piece of crap out here, and we started with John Riccitiello. Yeah, we're gettin' very real around here. We are so, real, it's unbelievable. Because, if you don't get over like I said, you're fired. If you don't draw number, if you don't entertain, if you don't put asses in seats, if you don't put the coinage in the piggy bank, you're fired. No more games. No more, "Kayfabe." "It's a work." "I've won 34 game awards." Who gives a damn, how many... fake awards you won!? If you don't draw money, you get fired around here. If you don't put asses in seats, you?re gone.

 

[fix-the-spade]

So how many franchises does EA kill off before EA realizes that creating EA Origin was a bad idea?

This has nothing to do with Origin.

Battlefield 3 managed to sell well over ten million PC units and every one of them goes through Origin, so if the product is good enough people will use it just like they put up with Steam and Uplay.

Trouble is EA aren't making the products. They're stripping out everything but the absolute bare essentials and putting in every possible 'encouragement' they can for micro transactions on full price games.

Whether it's Battlefield 4, Simcity, Dead Space 3, Need for Speed, Titanfall or now Sims 4 you can look at all those products and see where they had the base of a really fantastic game, then once they had enough for a trailer and a feature list they start cutting it up for the DLC packs.

I'm assuming now that when EA are at the very planning stages of a game they plan which bits they can sell separately just as carefully as the base mechanics, if not more so. It's having the effect of killing titles as fast as EA can que them up, but apparently EA must be making some money from it because they keep trying.

Speaking of BF4, it's still fll of bugs and only half balanced, but yell at me that I can buy ten Battlepacks for £9 (about $15) at every opportunity, or it would do if I hadn't stopped playing once those messages appeared on my account.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

So EA make a extremely bad sequel and than takes the whole Nintendo-level money printing franchises as a hostage? Gee, color me surprised and skeptical.
They are using the "hostage" to get more money and then they will make Sims 5 right after the finish the 10th 60 euro expansion pack and 100th 10 euro DLC because the game will be successful no matter how you look at it. They are just trying to get more from people who like the franchise but don't want to give EA money for this pile of shit they shat.


But in the small chance they actually will cancel Sims 5 if Sims 4 isn't successful, I would say great. I would rather have the franchise dead and in somewhat nice memory than to see its butchered corps dragged more than 4.

Here's a thought: There's obviously a pretty big market for life sims considering The Sims success as a franchise. That isn't likely to go away just because EA decides to takes its toys and go home. So let's say that no more Sims games get made. Sounds like a good opportunity for another developer to me.

I always wondered why The Sims had no real competition anyway...

This. So much of this!

Why is there no Sims competition? There are so many publisher, I don't see why no one tried to take a part of the cake. We had Singles 1 and 2, but those two games revolved around the gimmick of uncensored nudity that it completely missed what made Sims so loved. No character creation, extremely limited house building, even more limited interaction between people...

Sims didn't have any competition at all yet prints money. On the other hand we have CoD which prints money and everyone and their mother wants a piece of the cake. I wish the publisher would get their heads out of their asses and actually think before they make decisions.

 

[AstaresPanda]

LOL. So threats now EA ? right after you wanting to not be voted the worst in America lol So bring out a game take out a bunch of content EVERYONE KNOWS should been in as standard as it has been for the last 3 games, everyone knows your going to rip us all off for DLC. I mean everyone knew the Sims was bad for endless expanion packs but ffs EA.......

 

[sorsa]

Yeah I also read it as "Buy this one or bunny gets a bullet in the head".

Mirror mirror on the wall, how can I be the greatest asshole of them all.

 

[TKretts3]

Doesn't it go without saying that if a game/movie/book isn't successful that there won't be a follow-up in the near future?

 

[masticina]

Does this means that if it doesn't sells to everybody right now living from 1 week old to over 100 year old in the western countries it will be seen as a failure?
Or do they also require the whole of Asia and Africa added to make it actually a "success"

Where did they put the success or failure boundary this time.
Wait I have a better idea make sure also aliens are required to buy it...

 

[twm1709]

There is a "Beyond Good and Evil 2" joke here somewhere....

 

[Verlander]

I would imagine that DLC would be a more profitable direction for them now, particularly if it comes with a strong advertising campaign.

 

[Scrythe]

I read that headline as "If people aren't willing to drop hundreds of dollars on the 40 expansion packs we release for this title, it'll be the last."

Did anyone else find it strange that Sims 3 utilized a combination of physical and digital DLC? I don't mean that in the sense of how Borderlands 2 sold all of it's DLC as an optional, separate disc, but that the 'expansion packs' that could have easily been sold as digital downloads were on discs, while the digital stuff was all microtransaction garbage.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

So they make a terrible game, and it doesn't sell well. They threaten that if it doesn't sell well, they won't make Sims 5. Based off how bad 4 appears to be, would 5 be worth it?

 

[prowll]

EA guilting the fans to get them to buy a watered-down version of their beloved franchise?
What a surprise.

I read it differently. To me it wasn't the same as Frank Gibeau the executive saying "5 mil or gtfo." This is the developer saying "We have to make this good so that you'll buy it. Otherwise they won't ask us to make another one."

Is this EA's way of saying they are actually going to be listening to their playerbase?

That's the way I took it.

If the game that is designed to milk customers with a million small content DLCs doesn't sell well, they'll stop the series because they can't figure out how do it differently. Thanks for looking out for the customers EA! Great job.

Wait you lost me.

Totally agree. I don't see this as 'holding the gamer base hostage', I see this as a completely reasonable business reaction. If the game is bad, so bad that the gamer base does not buy it, why on god's green earth would they put MORE time and energy and resources into something that lost money for them, instead of a different game or franchise that will make money and people enjoy?

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Basically what I got from this is that EA knows people are unhappy with the game, so in attempt to sell more copies they're blackmailing the consumers by saying "if you don't buy this one you're not getting another one.