Yes, I forgot to mention that too!

That's not true. People were really excited about sim city 2013, but EA ruined it, people are still playing sim city 4 now because there's nothing better.



As for the sales. I don't think they were very good, considering that the franchise is very famous, I was expecting more

With regards to forum activity, don't forget many new players of TS4 won't be used to forums and will be more likely to go for Facebook groups etc which are easier to use, especially to post photos.

That they are not bragging about the sales number can mean only one thing, corroborated by the OP linked statistics: they have nothing to brag about. Isn't this always the case with bragging? I don't actually know if EA had bragged about the TS2 sales in the past, but let me in turn play the devil's advocate for a bit What if they did it for TS3 only because they wanted to convince the potential customers that, yes, it indeed sells well, despite the Sims being witless puddings? So bragging about its initial sales made marketing sense, imo, as it did with Sim City 2013. And they had something to brag about.
I'd imagine that when TS2 came out they were too busy counting the ever growing profits to actually want to convince anyone of anything except buying their next EP too, cause, hey, it's awesome! One after the other, TS2 and its EPs delivered, both in fun and in sales, while, as far as I know, TS3 kept selling less and less, and though it at first sold more than even TS2 base, in the end it undersold its predecessor.

Someone somewhere said that TS4's worst failing was the existence of TS3. I also believe this, and it is so in more ways then one. It is a complete game, of course, but it is also the most bugged, the least fixed and cared about. It served them, and quite openly so, as a milking cow - "we'll take as much as we can, thanks, now move along!" business policy. People will not tolerate this forever. If it were food or energy they were selling, and they were the only sellers, then maybe. But with games? It's ridiculous to even think it. Not even The Sims can survive such exploitative practice. And I believe, judging mostly by the bugs and the sheer content they spewed out under TS3 name, that this is the face they have shown to their customers. Greed. And no one likes greed, not even the greedy people, unless it's their own.

So, yup, paying for TS3 with bad sales even now. Were it released as an online installment it would have sunk so hard... Which leads me to conclude that somewhere deep in the bowels of EA HQ, someone is actually happy about these meager numbers. It could have been a LOT worse.

So, no, I don't believe this is the end of the series. It could have been, but they were wise enough to avoid that by not releasing an online game. They will try to make it work, of course. It's The Sims, after all - it has a huge potential to bring in money. What worries me personally is that they still don't seem to know why this game has that potential, i.e. have no clue as to what it actually is as a game, even though they make it. As if it had somehow happened to them, instead of being made by them, and now they must keep the "mojo" going, though what the "mojo" is - no idea. Maybe the venerable Mr. Wright took it with him when he left?

I don't understand people saying this was only physical copies, when this is on the page in the first link the OP posted. (please see attached screenshot of that page.)

But not releasing sales numbers, especially over a month after the game's release, is a very bad sign for the shareholders in EA. That gives them the impression that the game isn't selling that well, and may cause some of them to sell their shares, which is a bad thing.

I was a physical copy buying person in the past but to buy ts4 digitally was just so much easier and convienant. I downloaded it at midnight on the release date. I also have some ts3 eps on digital download and it also makes them very easy to install when I have to reformat my hard drive or any situation that causes me to have to reinstall. Just log into origin and click download.

I'm not completely opposed to digital copies. I bought a digital copy of Smash Bros as soon as I got home from work (no time to go to the nearest Gamespot and I HAD to have that game on release day). But for The Sims and other EA games I don't feel comfortable unless I have a physical copy of at least the base game. Call me paranoid but I'm one of those people who just feels really uneasy about Origin based on horror stories I've heard.

Also, it's hard to say that the game is a failure for EA without knowing the budget the game was made on and how much profit EA expected to return from this game.

Lets not be in a hurry to call it a failure. Also, I never remember EA bragging about The Sims series. They barely run TV ads for the series.



Yeah, those are all nintendo sales, which tells me they are able to collect digital sales for those games only. Not TS4, so it still doesn't count those sales.

You are correct in saying it is hard to judge profitability for EA without an idea of what was invested in creating the game, but also in not having access to EA's own projections to know if it is on track or not.

Still, EA has, in the past, been quite amenable to releasing initial sales figures when it was to their advantage. They did that for TS3 (over one million sold in the first week), and even SC 2013 (also crowed about selling a million units, even while being gored in the media for the launch difficulties). So the lack of statements over a month from release does feel like a break in their pattern of PR after successful (and even not so successful) releases in the past. However, it is indirect and speculative to draw any conclusions from that behavior.

Judging digital sales is difficult with EA, as the majority is run through their own service, Origin (although they have had stuff released on Steam, like TS3, but I honestly don't know if TS4 was on Steam as well or not). So while perhaps Nintendo openly shares digital sales data, EA appears not, which does make total sales an unknown, other than to management.

However, EA appears to be expending significant time and money at addressing player concerns very early in release, and that's a good thing, no matter the source of the motivation.

Agreed. Imagine the stock market's response to an online-only The Sims debut. If Sim City Whatever was a fiasco, I dare not imagine what fiasco the wrath of Simmers would have brought about in that case. But it would have involved the shareholders, surely, especially in the year after the Whatever's debut. (Sorry, there's only one Sim City. I now call this SC Whatever. And I'm actually not sorry for calling it that.)

As I'm sure will this. And I'm rather enjoying the fact, actually

I won't worry if the sims 4 is at 8th rank.

I would concidering ts4 fails if it reached at 1098th rank.

Just looking at Electronic Arts stock (a show of confidence in the company) EA's stock is down from a high of 37 points less then three months ago and has recently fallen as low as 32 points. If Sims 4 was a success then their stock would be somewhere in the 40-mark. I could certainly be worse but people are right that its a bad sign EA isn't talking about sales figures as historically they LOVED bragging about them to show their success.

The fact is that the left out many core features Sim fans loved and are looking for feedback on how to fix it. Unfortunately, I don't know if they can without implementing open neighborhoods and story progression. Despite all of the Sims 4's advancements they've taken too many steps back.

Right now their success and the future of the franchise is going to come to the feedback that the developers get back and what they prioritize to implement. Its Simcity all over again... *sighs*

I've played all games in the series, with all expansions. Sims 4 is the only one I've played longer than 3 weeks at a time. The only one where I'm STILL excited to see what happens next, even if sometimes it feels a bit grindy. The other ones - there was a whole bunch to do, but nothing I WANTED to do, so I stopped and I didn't regret stopping.

I would be VERY cautious about trying to extrapolate stock price from the performance of any individual game franchise that EA holds. Stock prices are generated by the market's analysis of total revenue and, hopefully, profitability, of EA's holdings as a whole. Remember, both new Madden and FIFA versions were also released in the last 2 months, and appear to be selling quite well. Besides, if you look at stock performance over time, on June 2, 2009, EA stock sold for ~$22.00. TS3 was released the same day. By August 21, 2009, despite good sales figures on TS3, the stock price was $19.44. By June, 2010, EA was down to $15, and by July, 2012, setting new lows around $11. Clearly, EA stock price over those years was no judge of Sims sales alone, indeed, apparently not even supported by those sales. Although I suppose you could argue it could have been even worse if TS3 had tanked as well. Still, you can see that trying to couple stock price of a company that releases many games each quarter is not the best strategy to look at one particular game.

However, should EA release information suggesting that TS4 did not perform to expectations, I'm quite sure it would be one topic of conversation during one of Wilson's analyst teleconferences, although certainly not likely to be enter stage. Especially with the stated goal of putting the "player first" as his tagline for his tenure.

Which likely explains why the TS4 developers are now scrambling devoting significant effort to obtaining player feedback and releasing things like ghosts, careers, and even pools (which prior to release was described as "really hard" to do, but somehow, they got it done pretty quickly) as free patches. All that before even launching the anticipated "season pass" DLC which probably had been slated to be released by now, based on placeholder ads that were available for it before the TS4 launch date, yet remains mysteriously become silent. Getting this far past release and still no word on that DLC buy in system yet might be more telling about market acceptance of the game than any other factor already kicked around.

According to the Sims Wiki, Will Wright wasn't directly involved with the development of The Sims after the initial game; he'd already moved onto what would eventually become Spore. He basically wasn't involved with The Sims 2, which still seems to be regarded as "the best" of the games. Lucy Bradshaw, who is currently the General Manager of Maxis, was the Executive Producer of The Sims 2; making it in a sense "her" game. She was also involved with Sims 3 and Sims 4. If she of all people still has no idea of what it was they did... words fail me.

it may not be better as a whole, but it sure beats the sims 3 on a few good parts.
for me, that would be mostly the interactions between sims, which i am still intrigued by, and was very dissapointing by in the sims 3.
the previous game seemed a bit empty and lifeless where sims were concerned, and with the sims 4 that isnt the issue anymore. so "for a base game", to me, that seems like a pretty good start.

but i can imagine people not being as enthousiastic in buying this game, that with the open world not being so open and all,
and that being a game without ep's, thus being incomplete.
but what we are getting in return for it, as a start, it definatly makes it worth buying for me.

if i had to choose either a sims 3 base game, or a sims 4 base game, i would, without a doubt, choose the last.

Yes, I'm enjoying TS4's failure immensely.

It's unclear what you're trying to say.

As interesting as I find this discussion, it lacks actual data. I wonder if we'll ever know.

No one should be shocked by this at all. From the asinine marketing to leaving out core features in the game,if the OP info is correct,it's sale are doing exactly what I thought it would do. I knew it would crack the top 10 because...well...its the Sims.It has a large fan base,some of those willing to shell out money for name alone,and that goes a long way. However, I think some people got smart and figured out quickly that this isn't a $70 game. Is it a bad game? No,its not. But its a $40 game with $30 name attached to it. Does it have future potential to be great? Absolutely! But no one should have to put down $70 for POTENTIAL! Why do you think EA is giving you ghost,pools,Stars Wars costumes and stuff for free? Because the game has to be bolstered up so people will think $70 is worth it. I'd be willing to bet my paychecks for the rest of the year that if this game sold as well it was on track to sell,no of us would have seen any "free" anything. I got my hands on a copy for $30 and for that,the game feels and plays ok. I'm missing some features from previous installments but I can go back and play those (I didn't uninstall TS3,its still my go to for long legacy play) . I'm not here to get into a "which is better?" argument,or to dump all over TS4. For the money I've spent on the game,It's alright,but I shudder at the thought of those who payed AAA game price for an alpha staged game.And after that Simcity 2013 debacle, I think Simmer (and gamers,in general) have their eyes opened wider and are pushing past cute marketing jargon to find out exactly what value they are getting for their money.

This game isn't gonna fail,however I think Ea should take these low sales numbers as a wake up call and start making better,less buggy fuller fleshed out games.

The hope that I still had for Brandshaw and the remaining remnants of the Maxis team still being a part of The Sims Studio died the day she made a blog post after the furor broke out
over the travesty that was SimsCity 2013, where she blathered on and on in defending their design choices, about how having an offline game and other game elements long time SimCity fans expected didn't
fit their 'vision'.

As far as I'm concern, she's just another EA drone. I'm sure she probably has to be in order to keep her job but still, it was such a bummer to read that.

Really, truthfully, for all this talk, we're not going to know anything definitively until either:

1. An xpac comes out, signaling a continued investment in the franchise
2. An announcement comes out that there will be no xpac, updates, etc.

Everything else is conjecture.

the original sim city has more content and things to do than the latest one. the game was a flop. played it for about an hour and a half then deleted it. i still have 4 one my machine and play it.

I totally agree but still ...

TS4 is still not available for MAC users. Is it bad sign?