Right from the start TS4 has been a bit more kiddy in visual design, tone and atmosphere than its predecessors even when we ignore its fundamental technical shortcomings. Fast forward a few years and now we have to make do with a cartoon episode parody of Stranger things (and that’s after several months of Get Costume) while we are (apparently) awaiting a hipster fashion stuff pack.

Sure, you’re free to stick to a narrower interpretation of how we ended up here, but I think it’s reasonable to say that a younger (in this case female) target audience complete with an underage cheerleader squat keeping the simguru egos inflated for doing half a job, is not an implausible (part of the) explanation for the current state of affairs at all. Over the last year especially the business model seems to have well shifted toward prioritizing low-cost hype over quality and tweens are just easier to get excited (or to bring to tears over a new hair style as I’ve learned here earlier) than older fans of the series.

Also, the Sims is a life simulator. There is no wide group that it would ever appeal to. It’s literally a niche audience and it always has been. We’ve had much better predecessors but it had nothing to do with the points that you continue to bring up. The only reason the Sims 4 has sold so well is because it has no real competition on the market and none of the other gaming companies want to take a piece of the pie because it’s a small profit to begin with. The ones that even dip their toe into the same genre tend to be closer to Star Dew Valley or Minecraft in nature and there are a lot more games closer to that than the Sims. One could argue that EA wanted to branch out into something more like them but I think the idea is that they were looking at Second Life and got scared (especially since it had some of the former Maxis devs or leads working on it at the time.)

Nothing that you’ve brought up had anything to do with that. You’re looking at what you see as the symptoms and pointing to those as if they’re the disease. Do you understand what I’m saying? 😛

I’m sure the budget plays a big part in this, but when the priorities for the game are as far off as they have been, and it is arguably all about cheap point-scoring with backdrops, instagram fashion and whatnot for the dollhouse simulator, I doubt that the money would be funneled into aspects of the game that most desperately need improving in order to retain interest among a wider group of gamers.

I have not really played much outside of Build mode since December 18th admittedly. For me playing after a patch usually stops at updating mods and editing a few houses, then taking some screenshots in live. I do use a mod or 4 + an extensive amount of S4S overwrites to manage the population better than the vanilla game allows for, so thankfully no more Night of the Turbans for me either way.

Also I’m pretty sure Dudley’s comment was sarcasm tbh 😛

This list suggests to me that mermaids and witches are likely and popular choices to go into the game – every other occult is not.

And when you look at the supernatural polls they used to do on Twitter, that reflects that. As werewolves were surprisingly low on the list, and witches and mermaids always came first and second respectively. 😛

So, yeah. based on the information I’d say we’re WAY more likely to get witches and mermaids than we are werewolves.

Most simmers gave their feelings at that time on a superheros pack as a feeling that it didn’t “fit the sims” to them. This is ironically sometimes echoed by some of the sim gurus as well I noticed.