should the following thread be sent to ea/maxi developpers of the sims3

[JudeMG]

I guess I'm wondering why some smart, enterprising person or group of people doesn't come up with a game that can compete with The Sims series, one that addresses all the issues and problems and specifically not only allows for, but encourages, custom content from the playing community. One that is even better than The Sims all around, in content and in execution. There must be some way of dodging the trademark aspect -- after all, you see copycat concepts all the time in big business.

The thing is, I don't think EA will ever work on their quality control issues unless they're forced into it by either a drop in profits for some reason, or by some challenging competition. Big corporations like that are very short-sighted from what I've seen...money is everything, and to hell with their consumers. A very, very stupid modus operadi in the long run, IMO.

[abaris]

JudeMG, I'm adressing your whole post: EA bashing may be right in this particular sense, but EA is only a symptom of the whole industry's desease. They have to make money and they have to make a lot of money. Therefore, as has been said in another thread, they have to suck up to each and every American lobby (biggest market after all) to get the lowest possible age rating. Allowing modding is the utmost you can expect under these circumstances and in this sense EA is much better than many of the other companies. No company will ever actively support modders. The legal implications could be too much to handle and it would be against the economical rules also. They want to sell their expansions and new games after all.

Also, since the early 90ies, there's no interest in creating a fanbase or something like a community around the product. The particular PR department will create the ghost or the shadow of a community to fool the customers into a makebelieve support.

And last, there's the quality control. Name one game, that has hit the market in these last few years and hasn't been a public beta. That's how this industry works. You, the customer, is giving them the funds to iron out the flaws or the original product. Also, it is to be expected, that the PR department has released wrongful information about the features of a particular product. These may have been planned for the release, but the deadline forced the dev team into leaving some of them out. There have been worse products than the Sims in this aspect.

[Pierre]

i hope for 2008 2009 ea games will revise there sandard in gaming quality take for example: the sims for ps2 you can raise kids the sims2 for ps2 no kids to raise from baby to toddler toddler to kids kids to teen teen to adult adult to elder and i hope if they make a console version of the game sims3 that we will be able to raise a family when i am talking about a console version the consoles are ps3, wii, xbox 360 nindendo ds (*PS2) and psp

[MaryH]

JudeMG, I'm sure that every single game company in existence would die to have an idea that would blow the Sims franchise into the etherworld; it takes a very rare and unusual talent to spot a winning idea that will translate into the biggest game of all time.
It also takes money-to pay people to create something that even comes close. There have been replicas, copycats and the like, and nobody yet has come up with anything so similar to the Sims that it would seriously challenge the company.
That is why Eaxis is so fat with cash-they have the winner of the competition, and they know it. They can afford to blow off their customers, produce rotten code, and get away with it forever, because they're the "only game in town" named the Sims. As long as they hold the trademark and the intellectual copyrights to the game that they make, they own the cash cow. There's no game company in existence stupid enough to try to infringe on those, lest they get destroyed by a legion of lawyers that would get unleashed if EAxis decided to defend their copyrights.

[billyd1000]

MaryH, Yes! In a different way you said what I said! The Sims 2 could have, should have been the greatest game ever. There is no easy way technically or financially that another company could create something similar. I love this game. I play it daily. It just bothers a lot of us that a company as big as EA, putting out the most sucessful game ever, doesn't put a little more love and pride into their product. If I had a product that was the "Best", I would not want to see so many web sites with so much negative reaction to my product. A problem like this can only be corrected with higher Quality standards and control over those standards. The game is awesome! They have just put share holder opinions at a higher priority than the buyer\players opinion. As always the bottom line rules, cash is King, and the whole greedy world bows down before it. -Bill

[Pierre]

if it was not for for sites like the sims2 mts , sapphire the sims2 insimenator the sims2 tsr that make custom content  the game would not be intressthing because in my opinon i think maxi objects do not offer much choice playing the same house buying the same maxi objects if it was not for custom content frome site like mts the sims2, sapphire the sims2 insimenator i think pepole would stop playing the sims2 and there would not be expansion packs

thank you for sites like the sims2 mts, sapphire the sims2 insimenator the sims2 tsr to name a few

[abaris]

They have just put share holder opinions at a higher priority than the buyer\players opinion. As always the bottom line rules, cash is King, and the whole greedy world bows down before it. -Bill

That's about it. And therefore, you will never get a better quality control by any company. They're selling their stuff anyway and it's not a car killing off it's driver, thereby involving you in a bigtime lawsuit or something. Let's face it, the majority of game buyers are easily satisfied fanboy kiddies with the adults being in the minority.

[MaryH]

Unfortunately, the majority of buyers-"fanboy kiddies" don't know any better than to accept what EAxis puts out-and those of us adults who do know quality when we see it are doomed to suffer because the kiddies do rule the game universe-and I'd dare say that the majority of the meshers, modders and creators are all adults who have better taste and qualifications for games. It is sometimes so stunning to see the difference between a professional creator and a "wannabe" (and there are a lot of those) in the different sites and forums.
But if it wasn't for those people who do create some wonderful stuff, we'd all suffer the lack of imagination that stifles the Sims franchise.
Thank god for the good, great creators-you make the game far better than it was meant to be.