GameRanx has posted an interesting article about The Sims 4 being offline.
EA labels president Frank Gibeau has revealed that the decision to make The Sims 4 offline-playable was inspired by SimCity’s troubled launch.
Gibeau says that the SimCity debacle and being voted Worst Company in America for a second consecutive year has led to changes at EA.
“In the last few months, we have started making changes to the business practices that gamers clearly don’t like,” Gibeau said. “In the spring, we dropped our online pass program for consoles – both next-generation and current-generation. We listened to the feedback onSimCity and decided that The Sims 4 would be built as a single-player, offline experience. We announced some new intellectual properties at E3 and will unveil more new games in the months ahead.”
Despite SimCity’s difficulties Gibeau revealed that the game has done quite well selling two million copies to date. “and the number of people logging in and playing is holding steady.SimCity is a success. However, underestimating demand in the first month was a major miss. We hope that the game and the service we’ve provided since then meets the fans’ high standards.”
A recent EA survey hinted that SimCity might be playable offline in future.
Gibeau adds that EA are launching an “initiative to help players transition to the new consoles”. He says that want the changeover to be “a lot easier by allowing players to carry forward their achievements.”
He added that “there’s much more to come. The point is we are listening, and we are changing.”
Gibeau has previously commented that EA wants to stop being “hated”.
The Sims 4 gameplay will be demonstrated for the first time at gamescom next month.
I’m personally glad its going to be offline since it will allow for a lot more creativity and we should still be able to play the game at least if EA goes under by any chance.
If EA wants to earn my trust back, a good start would be to:
– Provide offline modes for the games where such a mode makes sense, including SimCity and DarkSpore.
– Stop boycotting Steam. I’ve already chosen Steam as my only provider of DRM-protected digital games, so I’m just going to ignore any DRM-protected game that is not either available in a physical copy for a reasonable price or else offered on Steam. Or, better yet, offer the games DRM-free; I purchase DRM-free games from any store that cares to offer them.
– Either revive the great old franchises EA has purchased the developers and killed, or sell them to outsider developers that can do the franchises justice. This is the reason I actually started hating EA, and part of the reason I won’t use Origin; every time I hear it’s name I’m reminded of how EA killed the Ultima and Wing Commander franchises.
– Whenever experimenting with new monetization models, run them through a reasonable control group, so bad ones, or highly inflated prices for things players tend to expect to be free, don’t tarnish the company’s image. Also, look at ways to offer complete packages for reasonable prices; the huge price of acquiring the full content of the Sims store, which will likely be replicated with SimCity, also makes the company seem greedy.
– Don’t charge money for things that provide advantages in online games; paid advantages basically prevent me from caring about those online modes and make me think of the company as one that actively promotes pay to win. This includes Simcity, BTW; paid for DLCs that allow players to increase their city’s efficiency beyond what players that have only the basic game can attain has further lowered my opinion of both the game and the company.
– Give Android the same importance that is being given to iOS devices; In the country where I live iOS has less market share than Windows Mobile (but then, among all countries where Apple sells it’s devices, here is the place with the highest prices in the whole world; an Apple device is literally twice the cost of a same specs Android device here).
… Well, I’ve decided to not get the Sims 4. NO ONLINE MODE?! GOD IT IS SO FREAKING BORING PLAYING BY YOURSELF!
They should at least make it to where you can host your own servers and people can join.
LOOKS like EA is running for the 3rd year of being the worst company.
When EA Screws up all they do is give up! It’s pathetic!
@Dillon
Wait, you’re acutally upset about this? You want a repeat of the horrible launch of SimCity? The Sims has always suppose to have been single player, as it’s not something you can properly play with friends all the time. The Sims Online was pretty much like a chat room.
No one knows anything about the game yet, there may indeed be an online side of it that lets you host you’re own game for your friends to join. Most people want an offline game, so in doing so, maybe they won’t be worst company.
“We hope that the game and the service we’ve provided since then meets the fans’ high standards.”
Wanting to get your game, that you paid money for, to work does not count as “high standards”.
Anymore then wanting your food to be edible when you go to a restaurant counts as having high standards.
Those are just normal standards EA.
@Dillon – they never said there would be no online modes. They said it’ll be offline and not force you to be online to play. They said there will be optional online features.
There was an online Sims game, an awesome one at that, called The Sims Online – which EA unfortunately closed.
BTW, the cynical in me do note that talk about providing an offline mode for Simcity surfaced shortly after a crack for it surfaced, allowing players of the pirated version to indefinitely play, and save their cities, offline. The timing seems too close to be just a coincidence.
Promising, but I’m not holding my breath. EA has promised to be better in the past and did next to nothing to change. Want to stop being considered the worse company? Give your consumer value for money, or at least the impression that they are getting value for money. Bin the store. It’s overpriced, antisocial and taints the entire series with an aura of being false, commercialized and soulless. The base game should have far more features than the Sims 3 base game came with. Weather and pets are a must. I’m not forking out another £30 just to have cats or dogs – these should be standard by now.