In conclusion to part 1 of Rod Humble’s interview, GameIndustry is finishing it off with the second part:
Q: The Sims pretty much invented the expansion business, and EA came under a fair bit of stick for the whole monetisation of a franchise idea… which was a bit unfair wasn’t it? Looking at any franchise now and expansions, DLC, sequels – it’s all an assumed part of the business.
Rod Humble: I’ve heard it over the years – when we opened the Store, which enables you to buy selected items of furniture, and now with Sims 3 I hear it a bit as well.
My perspective is that first of all, this is additive stuff – so if we weren’t making the expansion packs or the extra content and charging for it, we wouldn’t be building it. It’s not like anybody is losing anything if they’re thinking they could have gotten it for free – I assure you, I’ve seen the profit-and-loss, we just couldn’t afford to do it from a business perspective.
The second thing is, from a player perspective, I’ve always been in the opposite camp and I just don’t get it. I just wanted more stuff for my game that I loved. I like my extra Burnout cars, I like the extra content I get in the games – I like the extra content in Fallout, I like the game so much I want more stuff.
So to me, I like it, and I think that for a lot of our core players they’d say they love it. I just think that for the players that don’t have it, they feel like they’re falling behind if they don’t have all the expansion packs, and to help serve them is over time we put out a value price compilation – say the first two expansions bundled for a lower price. There’s a significant proportion of players who wait for that, they know it’s coming and they can afford to wait a year or two, get the whole lot in one go.
The majority of Sims 1 sales, for example, happened after The Sims 2 had launched. It just kept going, and going, and going. With the Sims 2 sales we still see the same thing – they’re still tracking incredibly strong, and this is happening the week before the launch of The Sims 3. There’s just so much value in those games – if you bought The Sims 2 compilation now it would keep you busy for a very, very long time, and I think that value is recognised.
