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Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#951 Old 8th Jul 2018 at 10:26 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Bur1440
A Estimate from the data analyst Sensor Tower says that Sims Mobile has brought in $15 million in 4 months. That makes it the 8th highest earning mobile game in June. But it sill lags behind Sims Freeplay which is the 3rd highest mobile game for EA. This from Sensor Tower Blog.
Yeah, 8th highest earning mobile game among EA mobile games, not globally.

Now compare this with other data provided by the same source:
Fortnite - $25 million in one month and $100 million after three months (33 million avg./month)
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery - $40 million in two months (20 million avg./month)
Pokemon Go - still $2 million a day! after 2 years (60 million avg./month)
vs.
The Sims Mobile - $15 million in four months (3.75 million avg./month)

The Sims used to be the best selling video game of all time.
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Top Secret Researcher
#952 Old 8th Jul 2018 at 10:34 PM
I actually played free play, and without spending any money, it's a game you play casually and are not forced to pay to do anything. Sometimes, because it's way easier to add any number of sims in your town than in the recent one, you are not even forced to wait with all of your sims. You can leave some to do quest related tasks, while you explore what you unlocked with the other sims. It's mostly just a casual experience tho, and not a real gaming experience.

However, I myself can also not understand why would someone give up ridicilous amounts of their money to save time that has purposely being stolen by the company behind the game (or just simply a producer) just so that they can further have their time stolen from them... it's... baffling! That's why, just like matrix, I'm wondering... WHO are those people and WHY would they do that?!
Maybe for YT views? The first one who has to show off all the contents of the new game update gets the most views? Ughhh...

You can just play the game normally, with waiting times, occasionally checking it on the bus, on the toilet, while eating, not care about limited cosmetic prizes, and you would have way more fun out of it. My personal experience with these types of games, if they are content-wise complete.
But Sims Mobile is far from that, and still has to achieve what FreePlay kept achieving for years. It might get there one day, but with these ridicilous prices (90$ for a fu***ng bed conversion? Really?!), I don't see it going anywhere away from this stupid "cosmetics over functionality" mentality.
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#953 Old 8th Jul 2018 at 10:41 PM
Quote: Originally posted by mixa97sr
(...)That's why, just like matrix, I'm wondering... WHO are those people and WHY would they do that?!
(...)
Well, according to this Sensor Tower company, approximately 50% of all this money spent usually comes from players in the USA, across the boards and regardless of game or platform, with the UK usually coming second at a meagre 8-10%. That at least gives a first indication as to the WHO, although not as to the WHY.
Top Secret Researcher
#954 Old 8th Jul 2018 at 11:34 PM
Quote: Originally posted by bassoon_crazy
They're called 'whales' in other games with microtransactions. I do not know where that term came from, so I don't typically use it.


I believe "whale" is borrowed from the gambling usage, where it's a synonym for "high roller."
Mad Poster
#955 Old 8th Jul 2018 at 11:35 PM Last edited by gazania : 9th Jul 2018 at 5:54 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by 101ita
Nope, you read it right. It's like this for Sims Mobile, Freeplay and many other mobile games. I have no idea why it's so popular, you hardly even play the game, it's just a lot of waiting and not much playing. There's the ridiculously priced pay items and on top of that, the events are incredibly difficult to complete without paying your way through the long waiting times, things you need to collect and so on.

It baffles me how these games are so popular. I know it's *in theory* possible to never pay anything but it's very difficult for me to say with a straight face that these games are free.


I bought into this myself. I added Sims FreePlay two or three years ago.

At first, things were great. If I lagged behind, a US dollar or two would complete the quest for me. I was careful to choose which prizes I wanted. I didn't shell out cash for each quest.

The disillusionment arose when there was a main quest prize I really wanted. You had to get items and complete mini-quests. I played many hours to get the items to complete this quest, and my daughter played in my place when I could not. I shelled out a little more money than usual, though I did have a limit. My reward was that I proceeded to get duds and duplicates, and never could get that main prize, unless I shelled out $20 for the privilege. $20 PLUS the money I paid to try to complete the quests? @#% *#$@, EA. I uninstalled the app.

In retrospect, I should have known better. This is a common ploy with many apps, and I dropped them as well when the company's greed got the best of them. i even played Sims Social, though I dropped that because of really poor customer service ... a different reason. But Sims Social and Free Play were the most disappointing apps I have tried (and I have tried at least two dozen or more apps over the years), and soured me off EA apps for good. EA could offer me a 100 ___-points for free to try an app, and I would never touch another app of theirs again.

Thanks to ALL free-site creators, admins and mods.

RIP Sunni ... truly a ray of light.
Top Secret Researcher
#956 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 12:14 AM
When you realise market has become such a complex and evergrowing thing that's now extremely hard to monitor and take controll of. Anyone can do anything as long as it's carefully planned. I'm sad now
Mad Poster
#957 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 4:10 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Gargoyle Cat
EA Talks About Fairness, Then Hypocritically Defends Pay-to-Win


"Mobile Games are the Future"
Yeah okay, EA. Take Madden and Fifa off consoles and see what happens. I dare you.

The Receptacle still lives!
Forum Resident
#958 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 7:40 AM
The video game industry is slowly, relentlessly lurching from "let's make an experience that people will pay to enjoy" towards "let's corner compulsive gamblers on the go!", and I feel like I'm clinging onto fewer and fewer companies that still try to make an honest-to-god feature complete game.

"Given enough time, hydrogen starts to wonder where it came from, and where it is going." - Edward R. Harrison
One horse disagreer of the Apocalypse
#959 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 8:22 AM
I am a FoE whale. I spent £150 real money buying the blueprints and goods for a The Habitat great building. I was so embarrassed at myself :o

"You can do refraction by raymarching through the depth buffer" (c. Reddeyfish 2017)
Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#960 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 1:10 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Inge Jones
I am a FoE whale. I spent £150 real money buying the blueprints and goods for a The Habitat great building. I was so embarrassed at myself :o
I don't think that this qualifies as whale. An obese anchovy, maybe, at most.
Instructor
#961 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 4:51 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Element
The video game industry is slowly, relentlessly lurching from "let's make an experience that people will pay to enjoy" towards "let's corner compulsive gamblers on the go!", and I feel like I'm clinging onto fewer and fewer companies that still try to make an honest-to-god feature complete game.


I have to say, in general I feel like I'm more interested in (very basic summary) democracy vs. capitalism and see video games merely as a great sample of how bad things can get. When I say Democracy vs. Capitalism, I mean the interests of the people and of the majority being challenged by the interests of the few and those with power.

The general problem is you have companies like EA constantly trying to cut corners, forgetting that their purpose and reason for existing is to provide a product or service, and basically trying to get money by any means neccesary. This results in shady practices. The issue is that for the masses of people, it's hard to organize against this since none of us have control over the 7.6 billion people on Earth. Sure enough, mobile games like this focus on "the whales," because even if we somehow organized a sit down where 85% of us overwhelmingly agreed to avoid these games, the 15% absolutely have the capacity to feed it's survival. This worsens because as the 15% sustain these shady practices, those same practices start becoming normalized in the minds of the consumer because they're simply used to seeing them. Great example is Bethesda with their paid mods. 10 years ago people were flipping out that Horse armor costed $5 or whatever it was. Now? There's paid mods with a worse value ratio and none of us bat an eye because we've become desensitized to it. Growing accustomed to it means the 15% grows to become more and more people rather than shrinks. I find this little phenomena is much worse amongst video games since it's a luxury business too. If Nestlé starts charging $5 for bottled water, people are more likely to push back since lives are involved. If Sims 4 wants an extra $1 for a virtual sofa...? There will always be people enabling it with statements like "why do you care? It's just a game, get a life and find something better to complain about" or something similar.


In some ways...? Perhaps we should be grateful EA is at the helm of shady business practice. They have such shit, blatant "strategies" and are completely lacking in tact and subtlety, so everyone and their mother knows exactly when EA does something awful because they're constantly in the media spotlight. This is "good" because it means any time EA attempts a poor business practice, they're merely giving that poor business practice exposure and opposition. Good for the market as a whole, terrible for EA's own games and licenses, of course. I mean look at Battlefront. They tried to price gouge consumers, and instead there's talks of legislature to ban such games. Think that would've happened if another company like Capcom tried the same thing...? Hell no. It happened because it was EA. EA has both the scope (enough money and customers) and the infamy to attract that many people opposing their moves. EA is as infamous as Stalin and Canadian Geese, and yet they stupidly and shamelessly try to rob people while standing centerstage over and over and over and over, and this makes it all too obvious. Had it been a company like Capcom, we might have to worry about that slowly becoming the norm.

As for Sims Mobile and the future of the Sims franchise....

It fortunately seems like the game bombed....which wtf, we all could've told them that would happen. I find the change in production for Sims 4 to be no coincidence, as if they compared the underwhelming sales of Mobile alongside the generous success of Pets, realized they have nowhere else to turn, and now they're ready to focus on Sims 4. I find it EXTREMELY telling that I can find laggy, choppy animations in every pack post-Parenthood, and suddenly come Seasons all the animations appear smooth. My theory was always that the animations were getting choppy/laggy because they were arguing "don't bother giving it more frames, it won't be noticeable when we port it over to mobile anyways." Unsure if that's how it was, but Seasons - while still flawed - has levels of polish their past packs didn't.

I actually think Sims 4 could honestly improve from here on out if their plans are indeed to release two EPs each year, I just wonder if the game can handle it since stability issues seem to be popping back up. The team at least seems excited and confident they can take this game three more years, so that at least shows there seems to be something that sparked new excitement and confidence amongst them with all the recent bragging and spitballing ideas about future content. New management perhaps? There's something bittersweet about possible improvements incoming, knowing it took them the lifespan of a typical Sims game to simply get on track and that while many of us would welcome NOT having to re-buy a Sims game every four years, I doubt this is the base game we wanted to stick with. And on a personal level, there'd also be something very bitter for me since I remember making the argument 4 SPs per year = 40$ = the price of an EP, argued SP team has people that made EPs in the past such as Graham, and wondered if the SP team could be absolved so the SP guys can work on EPs instead, and I had to listen to a thousand excuses from fans about why that's impossible. Now it might be happening and ho'damn why did we need to wait 4 years to realize this was optimal???

Guess there's no point on dwelling on that now though. Can only hope for the future and hope Mobile truly bombed, Sims 4 got new management/a new strategy and perhaps better funding.

Quote: Originally posted by Inge Jones
I am a FoE whale. I spent £150 real money buying the blueprints and goods for a The Habitat great building. I was so embarrassed at myself :o


I have played a F2PMMO that relied on whales. We had a couple that spent their inheritance on the game, a guy that mortgaged his house and sold his car, and a guy I knew -when he quit - went to check how much he'd spent over 4 years and realized it was $40,000. I don't think most people realize what exactly "whale" means in this market...
One horse disagreer of the Apocalypse
#962 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 5:29 PM
Quote: Originally posted by DeservedCriticism
I have played a F2PMMO that relied on whales. We had a couple that spent their inheritance on the game, a guy that mortgaged his house and sold his car, and a guy I knew -when he quit - went to check how much he'd spent over 4 years and realized it was $40,000. I don't think most people realize what exactly "whale" means in this market...


Wow.... I feel better now

"You can do refraction by raymarching through the depth buffer" (c. Reddeyfish 2017)
Mad Poster
#963 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 5:49 PM
Someone spent around 60k or something for a WEAPON SKIN. A SKIN for a video game. A fucking PNG file (or whatever they inevitably convert them to). I was absolutely disgusted. So much can be done with that money and they wasted on what basically amounts to an image file.

And honestly, when you realize that gaming companies will go out of their way to pander to a very small fraction of the community in favor of a the entire community, that makes it even more sad.

->> Check Out Checkout: Journey To Employee Of The Month! <<-

~ Just a click a day is nothing short of helpful! ~
Instructor
#964 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 6:12 PM
Quote: Originally posted by matrix54
Someone spent around 60k or something for a WEAPON SKIN. A SKIN for a video game. A fucking PNG file (or whatever they inevitably convert them to). I was absolutely disgusted. So much can be done with that money and they wasted on what basically amounts to an image file.

And honestly, when you realize that gaming companies will go out of their way to pander to a very small fraction of the community in favor of a the entire community, that makes it even more sad.


Thing is, those models are actually better, too. A weapon skin doesn't make you better at the game, it just looks fancy and unique, so most people don't feel driven to purchase them and some would actually welcome them as a reasonable means to allow a game to sustain itself financially. TF2 has a hat too where some guy cornered it's market and drove it's price up to $20,000.

The one thing I learned from F2P models is that people will pay a lot of money to feel special, whether that's unique fashion or being the strongest person on the server.
Instructor
#965 Old 9th Jul 2018 at 6:45 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Gargoyle Cat
No. It is a total shit show. Why would I / should I be grateful for that?

There is no shortage of companies within US borders that engage in crony capitalism which is what EA is doing. There are plenty of reasons for that, none of which I'm going to get into.

Dealing with these companies isn't hard. The consumer can always slam their wallet shut and say no. This choice is free for the taking 24 hours a day / 7 days a week / 365 days a year. It is only when Wall Street tells EA "Jump!" do they respond with "How High?" On the other hand, when EA's customers complain about being sold DLC for DLC, the customer is told to STFU. EA barks about respect, but yet offers none unless a person is a stock holder.

All the Andrew Wilson's of the world are a dime a dozen...


Don't be grateful for it for it's games, but in terms of the industry at large...?

EA has the subtlety of a fucking boulder. They do one shady practice, hit the news headlines for it and have lawmakers questioning their practices, and within 4 months they're at it again with some new scandal. They legit have no shame and don't even seem to understand it'd be in their best interest to "lay low" once and a while to let the fires die down. If another company with more cunning were in their place, they could swindle customers and a lot less people would catch on or even speak out against it.

The one thing EA is good for is they're so bad that they're even bad at being bad, and that makes their bad practices much easier to catch and push back against. You say it's as simple as not paying, I'm saying you can choose not to pay, but you cannot choose on behalf of others with lower standards. A scandal however will discourage a loooooot of people to follow suit in not paying, and EA is practically a scandal factory.
Mad Poster
#966 Old 10th Jul 2018 at 4:59 AM
Quote: Originally posted by DeservedCriticism
Thing is, those models are actually better, too. A weapon skin doesn't make you better at the game, it just looks fancy and unique, so most people don't feel driven to purchase them and some would actually welcome them as a reasonable means to allow a game to sustain itself financially. TF2 has a hat too where some guy cornered it's market and drove it's price up to $20,000.

The one thing I learned from F2P models is that people will pay a lot of money to feel special, whether that's unique fashion or being the strongest person on the server.


To feel special in a video game, of all things. Granted, buying and trading skins is a business for many people, but people are dropping a while comma for these skins. That’s absolutely ridiculous.

->> Check Out Checkout: Journey To Employee Of The Month! <<-

~ Just a click a day is nothing short of helpful! ~
Instructor
#967 Old 10th Jul 2018 at 9:04 PM
Quote: Originally posted by matrix54
To feel special in a video game, of all things. Granted, buying and trading skins is a business for many people, but people are dropping a while comma for these skins. That’s absolutely ridiculous.


Psychology is fascinating, man. As I said, in some ways I don't think I'm here because I'm this avid Sims fan or gamer, but rather because I truly feel like gaming is a place that amplifies and highlights some of the more ridiculous aspects of capitalism/human consumer psychology better than anything else.
Test Subject
#968 Old 12th Jul 2018 at 12:05 AM
i came here to learn about how ea was moving to the mobil market to actually end up learning about communism....very interesting indeed
Instructor
#969 Old 12th Jul 2018 at 5:45 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Gargoyle Cat
I watch the gaming industry from a distance. EA may thump their chests the loudest, but that does not mean there is no bullshit going on elsewhere. Valve is currently playing the victim card as they had their hands slapped over loot boxes. Then there is this kind of crap going on. Game devs getting a thrill by means of verbally abusing customers instead of just setting their Twitter account to private and or keeping their thoughts to themselves if they don't want any type of feedback. This is just a drop in the bucket of sludge that is the gaming industry right now. My gratitude will not be appearing in that bucket.

You're right, I can't tell other people what to do. However, I am a fan of shining light in dark, smelly corners. There are always going to be people that defend the likes of EA, Valve, ect... It is their choice to do so.

You seem to have this idea if EA has just one more scandal that somehow the house of cards will fall down. It is going to have to be a epic scandal before that happens. They are not going to put the 'lives' of their Golden Geese ( FIFA and Madden) on the line, they can't afford to do that. They will play the players, just like they did with Battlefront 2. Yeah, they removed the loot boxes, but turned around and made their popular mobile games much more expensive to play. It was a total shell game but yet morons in the media continue to sing the praises and clap EA on the back because they 'did the right thing'.

These problems within the gaming industry as a whole are much deeper than people are willing to talk about.


Nah, you misunderstand me.

I'm not discouraging shining a light on others. What I'm saying is that of all the candidates out there....say we wanted to do away with overpriced DLC. Which company do you think is more likely to spark enough controversy that legislature or gaming culture demands that practice stop: EA, Valve, Nintendo, Ubisoft or Bethesda?

Answer is EA for the exact reasons I outlined. Other companies have problems, but EA is a fantastic lightning rod for calling attention to poor practices. That's why I want them to keep getting criticized. Valve itself is a great example. Valve's business model is being damaged. Why? Because of EA. EA fucks up and it can screw over the other bad companies too, but I doubt the same would apply if Valve was guilty of Battlefront.
Lab Assistant
#970 Old 13th Jul 2018 at 7:05 AM Last edited by Atreya : 13th Jul 2018 at 7:07 AM. Reason: correcting typo
Quote: Originally posted by 101ita
Nope, you read it right. It's like this for Sims Mobile, Freeplay and many other mobile games. I have no idea why it's so popular, you hardly even play the game, it's just a lot of waiting and not much playing. There's the ridiculously priced pay items and on top of that, the events are incredibly difficult to complete without paying your way through the long waiting times, things you need to collect and so on.

It baffles me how these games are so popular. I know it's *in theory* possible to never pay anything but it's very difficult for me to say with a straight face that these games are free.


You are completely right. I played sims freeplay for about a year. When the game is new, it all seems free but they you notice you can unlock extra content when you complete events in time, in real time and the clock keeps ticking even if you don't play. If a task takes 5 minutes, you wait a few minutes. If it takes 2 hours, you check back in 2 hours. If it takes 16 hours to wait behind a yellow line like someone posted here (post #1109), you might end up in the middle of the night. Which means you loose a few hours because the clock keeps ticking while you sleep. If you loose too much time before you start the next task, you can't unlock the additional items.
You can cheat by paying real money to skip tasks. It is possible to do this without money but then you have to plan your personal life around it to make the deadlines. Impossible if you are working or going to school. I refused to pay a lot of money for a 'free game', but I was tempted.

And your phone is always around, so you are basically thinking about the game at times you should be interacting with real people around you.

That's why I'm happy I've returned to Sims on PC. I have to pay for the game in advance but I won't be tempted to pay while in the game and when I stop playing, my sims are actually paused. Not constantly dropping in needs because I can't get online. So I really hope the sims series continues on PC. I'm done with sims on mobile devices.
Lab Assistant
#971 Old 13th Jul 2018 at 8:24 AM Last edited by Caren Yoon : 13th Jul 2018 at 11:15 AM.
TS4 really needs a breakthru. Going mobile is not a good solution because this type of life simulation needs to be detailed as it mimicks people and the reality but this mobile is all about simplicity and effeciency... so I have a big question about TS4. Are simplicity and efficiency of it contributing to making money?
Instructor
#972 Old 16th Jul 2018 at 6:04 PM
Quote: Originally posted by DeservedCriticism
Nah, you misunderstand me.

I'm not discouraging shining a light on others. What I'm saying is that of all the candidates out there....say we wanted to do away with overpriced DLC. Which company do you think is more likely to spark enough controversy that legislature or gaming culture demands that practice stop: EA, Valve, Nintendo, Ubisoft or Bethesda?

Answer is EA for the exact reasons I outlined. Other companies have problems, but EA is a fantastic lightning rod for calling attention to poor practices. That's why I want them to keep getting criticized. Valve itself is a great example. Valve's business model is being damaged. Why? Because of EA. EA fucks up and it can screw over the other bad companies too, but I doubt the same would apply if Valve was guilty of Battlefront.


Have you come across this article DeservedCriticism? I came across it today via Wikipedia. It runs to 5 pages About EA and Origin (not the download site)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...quest-of-Origin
Test Subject
#973 Old 17th Jul 2018 at 12:15 AM
Of course mobile gaming gonna be more beneficial for them, so many uninformed players that spend money recklessly on their mobile game. The Sims isn't driven by the passion of having a great life-simulation game anymore. I really wish that I live in a time when The Sims have some competition, it would be sad if life-simulation genre ends with The Sims 4. There are other games "similar" like the Sims today, sure, but I don't know why that most of them are cringy to me, too much on the "dating" side than the "life-simulation".

I swear if TS4 dlcs aren't so mediocre, they would be making profits every dlc. I feel like they have the potential to do a total overhaul, a total sunshine, giving each dlc contents so bright that everytime we spent $40+ we get a better more immersive, more alive version of The Sims 4. Seasons is the most cool contents throughout the franchise imo, like everytime they do Seasons expansion pack, it's an auto buy for me. But somehow EA found a way to make TS4's Seasons mediocre. I can list contents that are available in previous games that arent included in TS4 Seasons, yet missing content isn't equally bad game, but with engine so good I don't know why they don't make TS4 and its dlcs to be the better version of previous The Sims instead of doing it from 0. Because really with this genre, the game would not just be successful but would also be on top of the charts all the time with innovation. Doing something totally out of the box would birth a new life to TS4. To give an idea, hollywood style big (like really big) city and gameplay, fluid interactions (chatting while walking, holding hands and walk together, like really a simple "what's up" animation would make sims more lively when they pass each other), functioning skills (not just for promotion requirement, but also such things like higher fitness = reduced energy decay, faster hunger fill, better at woohoo etc), it's not all impressive but it would give TS4 a lively second wind.

I'm way out of topic now, I hope that this news doesn't mean the end to the PC franchise. Or at least some talented-passionate developer would continue the puppet house genre with improved version of The Sims.
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