The flip side to this article is that most of the criticisms, while really valid, talk about the intended play style for life sim games to be to live through the key points of their character’s lives with immersion.
For literally 20 years, I’ve barely seen it used for this purpose, instead people make themselves, their friends, their dream house, they cheat in money and turn off aging etc. Actually stopping to roleplay your character making friends is the activity most people do when their bored of the regular things they do.
Still, InZoi seeming to not simulate the lives of any of the other NPC’s is a big loss. Even if you’re not interacting with that part of the game, knowing it’s there is great. The Sims 4 (or 3, I forget) strove to reach the dream version of this: You buy a cheap property in a fully open world and ‘functioning’ town and you could walk from your front door to the town center, and the neighbour you see may also drive to town and you’ll see them there. Then as you play, you go from working in the gym to owning it, and can now modify it like your property because it runs on the same rules, the same goes for everything else. The Sims didn’t manage this but their later games clearly launched with this as their design’s guiding light.
I’m mostly interested in the game as a character creator and house builder, but that’s because I don’t expect any game to do a good job of what the article writer wishes for, The Sims included.
The Sims 4 (or 3, I forget) strove to reach the dream version of this: You buy a cheap property in a fully open world and ‘functioning’ town and you could walk from your front door to the town center, and the neighbour you see may also drive to town and you’ll see them there
That was 3. 3 also has the best customization system where you can make custom patterns for literally every object in the game, so you never had to live with mismatching furniture if you didn’t want to.
Keep in mind that “those games” also have decades of content added through expansions and mods, it’s very difficult to separate the true base games from what they have become today, in fact a lot of them were relatively simplistic and shallow in their very first releases too. Go play the first version of one of the Sims games with no expansions and tell me if you’re having a good experience with deep and interesting mechanics for your Sims, knowing what you know now of what the Sims are capable of.
We are comparing a game in its infancy to an established giant, of course it will pale in comparison… for now, and for quite some time. The question is whether it will catch up, because if it does, it’s going to become something very, very big. Yes that’s a big if, but it’s an if worth waiting for.
Its kinda bizarre that there are so few Sims clones/replacements.
It’s not that bizarre when you think about it. As a technical piece of software, Sims is actually quite complex.
You need a sophisticated character editor with a vast array of clothing options. You need a house editor that allows you to build any house you can imagine. You need a huge array of possible interactions between people and all kinds of objects. You also need lots of randomized interaction and AI (as in traditional game AI) to control NPCs. You need to have all these things be affected by the characters traits and you need them to go through life stages while still being interesting.
It’s a whole lot. It’s basically impossible to build a game like that as an indie developer. You really need a large team and that means funding. And that’s where it gets hard cause you are up against Sims and I don’t imagine many sources of funding want to make that bet.
Its a big piece of work sure, but there haven’t even been attempts (that I know of).
And sims is priced so high (with all the expansions) that getting in that market seems feasable if one of the big names wanted to try.
Seems worth an attempt, rather than churning out copy-cat FPS/dots/battle royals/flavour-of-the-month games :/
Big name studios are usually publicly owned which means they have shareholders to answer to and they demand a return on their investment. That means no risk taking which means no niche genres. It’s why shareholders (ultra wealthy people) are the enemy of art and why publicly traded studios all go to shit after enough time.
And indie devs don’t want to touch the sim genre because it’s an incredibly challenging thing to make and would take most people years and years to get anywhere on it. Their only shot is having an angel investor to keep them afloat.
It’s why shareholders (ultra wealthy people) are the enemy of art and why publicly traded studios all go to shit after enough time.
No arguments there…
Your probably right, but gaming company’s do plenty of other risky stuff, like Concord etc. Would have been nice if they had at least tried to make a sims along the way.
Practically none really, but there are competitors coming out at least, primarily this and Paralives, probably because people are sick of EA’s shit.
EA have been pulling their shit for decades though, so its surprising no one has tried to eat their lunch before now.
I think it’s because life sim games are hard to make, and up until recently, no one thought it was worth the effort to make one, when most people would just stick to The Sims. It probably helps that TS4 has been out for so long, and TS5 or whatever they want to call their next one, seems far away.
The games industry is more than happy to throw away billions churning out copy-cat games, that compete in incredibly crowded genres, so it would have been nice if they had at least tried to compete in the one genre with only a single competitor. Its kinda funny that TS4s biggest competitor is TS3.
according to EA Sims 5 will never happen. Probably because they know they will lose so many players that have already spent north of 1000$
Going in expecting the game to be a 1:1 Sims replacement is a bit much.
I do hope it improves over time.
It sure wants to be though. Seemingly.
It’s a good goal to have, but expecting it from the early access release isn’t the right mindset.
It’s the developers or publishers themselves that shouldn’t hold these kind of expectations. Because it’s when they fail to hit a target that their enthusiasm fades and we’re left with a rushed project, abandoned halfway.
