You mean, in that you design creatures and control their actions and development?
When I was at the store the other day I saw a whole WALL of The Sims expansion. What are there like 20? It was a bit overwhelming. Sim Teen, Sim Romance, Sims Out About Town, Sim Hot Tub, all kinds of crazy stuff.
I played the original . . . it’s some kind of crazy spin off TO THE EXTREME! now. If it’s overwhelming to me imagine to the ordinary, new to games consumer.
Yeah, I see what you mean. Also now that Will Wright has been revealed as a staunch Republican supporter (kidding, I know Giuliani isn’t religious right).
I was just joking on the fact that the game does have an Evolution Phase, but of course you do control the creature so Spore is really all about Intelligent Design.
Judging by the Will Wright info in another thread and referenced by Hanzii above, I think we all know how many Sims games are coming out soon and it begins with a 9…
Nice! 8)
I still want my Sim Earth 2 with digital DNA and full extra-planetary climate modeling.
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please.
Is Tilted Mill working on any more SimCity games?
In my mind it’s more about making a race of yetis that have crescent blades for feet.
I love Tilted Mill but I hope not.
On a recent GFW podcast Shawn Elliot described Spore as Sim Intelligent Design.
Also, thanks for the post Rod. Though phrases like “The Sims Label was created to innovate” make me feel like QT3 has been briefly turned into Paradise City.
And I don’t have a link, but in one of the earlier interviews with Will Wright about Spore, he said that it was actually more about Intelligent Design than evolution, because it turns out that evolution is boring.
I realize this going to come across as belligerent, when I really don’t intend to get all up in your business, but: does the “innovation with no apologies” extend to the content packs for The Sims 2? I always respected the company’s treatment of the Sims license (on the PC, anyway), because even though people on the internets kept criticizing EA for just milking a cash cow by cranking out more of the same, that wasn’t the case. There was a real insistence that the expansions be genuine expansions of the gameplay, and not just a bunch of objects and clothes shoveled onto a disc.
Lately, though, it seems like that’s exactly what EA’s been doing: diluting the title by putting out discs with nothing more than objects and clothing sets. I know that even the simplest objects still require a significant amount of coding and testing effort, that the genuine expansions are still being released, and that the content packs are labeled as such and priced lower. Still, it’s the principle of the thing.
SimLife was about evolution. So, yes, boring.
I’d kill for SimEarth 2, though.
Every time you guys start a Sims thread, a least one person will reinstall after seeing the new expansions they have missed out on.
I am that person. Curse you guys … there goes my free time. right-click newspaper, “Look For Job.”
If EA would just give up on EA Link and put their shit on Steam already, I would buy every damn expansion there is. But, alas, they don’t want my money.
No its not belligerent at all. Just put aside expansion packs for a moment. Because I want to put the whole label into context.
Last year we released the SimsOnStage.com a performance community, MySims an original game designed for the Nintendo platforms which sold over 3m copies and is the biggest selling 3rd party game in western markets in 2007 (not bad for an original games first 4 months of sales), SimCity societies which experimented with how you can model a society, The Sims Stories Line which were a romance story and a buddy movie in terms of plot (innovate for games I would say). Not to mention the two small original download ables released (SnapCity & Bumper Blast).
In addition I think we did rather interesting things with Sims castaway (another great console seller) and yes the expansion packs. We released for example the H&M stuff pack, which may mean nothing to you but was used in a huge contest with yahoo to have sims players design fashion for H&M, the winners clothes are going to be carried in the H&M stores.
So yes I think we are an incredibly innovative studio, it may not be with games many core gamers like like or follow and I realise the size of our label flies under most core gamers radar, but we do do a lot of very innovative stuff.
Finally we are not criticized for doing the same by core gamers, more often we are criticised for innovating. Go read the MySims reviews which has through the roof customer satisfaction from our players but a significant number of reviews will say “this isnt what the sims is meant to be like”, its kinda like criticizing WoW for not being an RTS.
When it comes to the EP’s I think our packs are of very high quality indeed. Seasons and Bon Voyage this year were incredibly feature packed. Wouldn’t you agree? I would hold up the Sims 2 expansions with pride when it comes to quality and innovation.
Our Stuff packs (which you maybe referring too) came as a result of requests for more content, just straight objects from our players. We did it and they have been extremely well received. Check out Teen Style Stuff this holiday season. As you mentioned I know this can have a whiff of putting less into EP’s but this isnt the case (we keep track of object numbers and features from pack to pack), the Stuff pack line is created with a separate team.
Written in haste, I hope that makes sense.
Cheers!
Rod
Good man.
Sure, which is why I said that the expansion packs are the only area where I believe the company is getting it right. Bon Voyage adds the usual objects and clothing sets, but also adds new gameplay that ripples back into the main game, and it still manages not to feel like just a rehash of “Vacation.”
It’s all the other stuff that has me concerned. It’s not a case of energy being sapped away from the EP teams to go to the “Stuff Packs” and whatever else, it’s a case of how “The Sims” is presented to the audience. When I see a site that I can’t differentiate from a mini-YouTube, and a casual game which I’m sure is a lot of fun but just looks like a reskinned version of Peggle, and both have the same “Sims” brand placed on them that the EP does, it feels like it’s diluting the license.
But then, I don’t have the unenviable job of taking one of the biggest, if not the biggest, franchises in videogames and having to figure out how to expand it. So take this for what it is: the opinions of one random guy on the internet.
I just remember the last couple of years before the move to Redwood Shores, when we’d have company meetings where everyone seemed genuinely surprised at how well the Sims series was being received. It was exceeding expectations, and seemed to break the rules of how you market a game – expansion packs are not supposed to gain sales the longer the series goes on, for example. But I never got a sense of arrogance, but real pride in what the company was doing.
The general consensus outside the company (from what you call “core gamers”) was that EA was just milking a cash cow, cranking out whatever, slapping “The Sims” on it, and raking in the cash. Even though I never worked directly on a “proper” Sims game, I knew that wasn’t the case – there was the trite-but-valid philosophy that you don’t give the customers what they want, you give them more than what they want. It was just a neat case of a company with a machine that printed money, that still held onto the responsibility to uphold the value of the license. (Which was very welcome after seeing the “take a dump in a box, slap ‘Star Wars’ on it, and watch it sell like gangbusters” mentality of late-90s LucasArts).
Again, two things: that still comes through in the real expansion packs, and the company and franchise are very different from what they were even four or five years ago.
Fair enough and I totally get it. Thanks for taking the time to respond.
First I am glad the bit of the label you play, you like. I hope you would accept that the other products the label puts out other people like just as much. It may seem weird that for thousands of people around the world The Sims is “oh yeah the guys who do MySims” or “Oh yeah thats to do with that country singing site I visit” but thats the charm of our label, we get to be quirky.
The Sims label actually was carved out of EA over two years ago over concerns we might lose the magic you mentioned. We were given the chance to have creative freedom outside of the central EA central studio , its really been a fantastic time, I hope any of your friends still working here would tell you the same.
For us The Sims PC game is one of many properties within the Sims label. So from our perspective our labeling is akin to EA Sports or outside EA something like Mario. Both of these brands have many different games of different types. For me if we can bring back something like the glory years of Maxis when something like SimAnt or Klick&Play would show up one day and Sim Earth, SimTower and The Sims another day then I am happy.
Sure it means you have misses and sometimes you might stretch too far, but the thrill of taking a chance on something new and the upside when it hits is worth the ride.
p.s. you might want to download bumper blast, it actually started life as a game about memes, the mechanics still reflect that and I think you will find them pretty unique :)
There is a lot of hatred against the sims. But I don’t understand why. It’s a mass market game that people love. It’s not offensive, and it isn’t a rip-off or clone of anything else. The sims expansion packs sell well because the people who buy the sims like them. You make products you think people will like.
I can see why a lot of hardcore FPS playing gamers might not understand the popularity of the sims, but I don’t see why it bugs them so much. Maybe it’s because it’s more sandboxy and seems less like a typical PC game, but to me, that’s a good thing.
A sandbox in which a modern, bustling, well-developed and perfectly-managed city runs a daily debt of thousands, but a sprawling trailer park complex which doesn’t even have a fire department is raking in the cash like Bill Gates circa 1995.