It strikes me that other franchises have been copied or redone many times by many companies but for some reason nobody really tried it with The Sims. Or not successfully, anyway. Which is a bit strange considering how big the franchise is.
I can very obviously point at Cities: Skylines as trying go into the SimCity market but there are actually quite a lot other city builders of various shapes and sizes. So we have that covered. Yet we don't see many attempts at The Sims itself where you control virtual people on rather mundane tasks. There are some games that did try it but, for some reason, they focused on the more "adult" aspects - Singles (and its sequel) tried to do dating and Playboy: The Mansion tried to do "less clothed Sims" but was rather boring from what I've heard.
Overall, it's a bit strange - as a genre The Sims is really popular, and yet, those games are almost the only ones in the genre. It's not even because they are that good - not saying they are bad, however, I can definitely see other developers being able to make something that rivals those. But they don't seem to be doing it. As I said - strange.
Any ideas, guesses, theories for why that would be?
It's strange, but maybe it's too frightening to compete against a well established game like The Sims.
I'd really like a The Sims esque game with a multiplayer feature though, I remember playing The Urbz back in the days with a friend and it was a lot of fun.
Theory 1: it's very difficult to make a life simulator where the player doesn't participate as an inhabitant without making it boring. That's why many more simulators games make the player to have an in-world avatar, or have some elements from more traditional game genres like combat or strategic building.
Theory 2: it's not popular enough to be worth the investment. Other big companies will prefer to invest their money on game genres that have sure sells (FPS, open-world action games, etc), than risk to compete with what appears to be a niche market already dominated by EA.
Theory 3: all the competitors went mobile and made Farmville clones.
There used to be back when The Sims was first released. I recall its biggest competitor at the time was the Creatures series but over time it as well as the other various Sims competitors just sort of... faded away.
Not sure why. If I had to guess the 'PC gaming is dead' fad that went on for a while around late 2000's and early 2010's made publishers hesitant to invest in a genre that traditionally never worked very well on consoles, all while The Sims just sorta kept chugging along making them an ever more imposing obstacle to go against.
Cities: Skylines wasn't. So, I don't see why a Sims like game would. Especially considering how many "clones" we already have in the industry - that's games that work like a different game, not necessarily being literally cloned. Diablo clones were big back in the day after Diablo 2 came out. We now know them as the ARPG genre. We've had a slew of modern military shooters, too but they don't get sued. And so on and so fort. I don't think this is a good reason to not make a game.
CaitSeith said:
Theory 1: it's very difficult to make a life simulator where the player doesn't participate as an inhabitant without making it boring. That's why many more simulators games make the player to have an in-world avatar, or have some elements from more traditional game genres like combat or strategic building.
I'm fairly sure Sims is still popular and people play it. Hence, it seems that it's not that boring. I've played it in the past and it's a game that sounds boring but you can really get into. I'd probably also play it today, but I've got lots of other things in my backlog, so it's not that much of a priority. Yet I think it's a nice game.
CaitSeith said:
Theory 2: it's not popular enough to be worth the investment. Other big companies will prefer to invest their money on game genres that have sure sells (FPS, open-world action games, etc), than risk to compete with what appears to be a niche market already dominated by EA.
Sure, maybe a big company won't really do it, but I can totally see a smaller studio making a decent game. For example, Banished was made by a single person and it's a very solid game. The guy even did fairly complex AI for the people in the village which is an interesting touch. At any rate, my point is, that an indie studio can do something decent without risking too much.
Also, remember that Sims has been out for over a decade - there was plenty of time for people to give it a go.
CaitSeith said:
Theory 3: all the competitors went mobile and made Farmville clones.
I guess, maybe but not sure. There do seem to be a fair bit of indie developers, talented ones, at that. It seems to me that they just...don't want to make a game like Sims. Not sure why that is.
Cities: Skylines wasn't. So, I don't see why a Sims like game would. Especially considering how many "clones" we already have in the industry - that's games that work like a different game, not necessarily being literally cloned. Diablo clones were big back in the day after Diablo 2 came out. We now know them as the ARPG genre. We've had a slew of modern military shooters, too but they don't get sued. And so on and so fort. I don't think this is a good reason to not make a game.
CaitSeith said:
Theory 1: it's very difficult to make a life simulator where the player doesn't participate as an inhabitant without making it boring. That's why many more simulators games make the player to have an in-world avatar, or have some elements from more traditional game genres like combat or strategic building.
I'm fairly sure Sims is still popular and people play it. Hence, it seems that it's not that boring. I've played it in the past and it's a game that sounds boring but you can really get into. I'd probably also play it today, but I've got lots of other things in my backlog, so it's not that much of a priority. Yet I think it's a nice game.
CaitSeith said:
Theory 2: it's not popular enough to be worth the investment. Other big companies will prefer to invest their money on game genres that have sure sells (FPS, open-world action games, etc), than risk to compete with what appears to be a niche market already dominated by EA.
Sure, maybe a big company won't really do it, but I can totally see a smaller studio making a decent game. For example, Banished was made by a single person and it's a very solid game. The guy even did fairly complex AI for the people in the village which is an interesting touch. At any rate, my point is, that an indie studio can do something decent without risking too much.
Also, remember that Sims has been out for over a decade - there was plenty of time for people to give it a go.
CaitSeith said:
Theory 3: all the competitors went mobile and made Farmville clones.
I guess, maybe but not sure. There do seem to be a fair bit of indie developers, talented ones, at that. It seems to me that they just...don't want to make a game like Sims. Not sure why that is.
My guess is because it's not a "flashy" game to make as an indie. A game like the Sims, when properly put together, very heavily relies upon a lot of algorithmic coding. It's very hard to write a "life simulator," and as pointed out above, it's not exactly a greatly in-demand genre. Basically, unless you're a hardcore Sims fan yourself, you would have no reason to jump off the deep end into that type of project when you're just trying to get noticed.
Theory 1: it's very difficult to make a life simulator where the player doesn't participate as an inhabitant without making it boring. That's why many more simulators games make the player to have an in-world avatar, or have some elements from more traditional game genres like combat or strategic building.
Theory 2: it's not popular enough to be worth the investment. Other big companies will prefer to invest their money on game genres that have sure sells (FPS, open-world action games, etc), than risk to compete with what appears to be a niche market already dominated by EA.
Theory 3: all the competitors went mobile and made Farmville clones.
Precisely.
Life sims are hard to make (especially the AI), and they often turn out to be unprofitable. Just look at what happened to The Sims Medieval. And that one had the Sims brand name to build on. Most other Sims clones have flopped completely, many went completely unnoticed.
There used to be back when The Sims was first released. I recall its biggest competitor at the time was the Creatures series but over time it as well as the other various Sims competitors just sort of... faded away.
Mmm, yeah, but Creatures didn't really take after The Sims. The first one came out three/four years before The Sims did.
OT: I do wonder that, actually. Maybe they're worried about getting sued. Because I think the game type could definitely be better done by other people.
As others have said, I think there's only really room for one big life Sim game on the market. That's not unusual with a lot of minor genres (just look at MMOs and WoW, although there the reasons are a bit more literal). A lot of people who play the Sims don't really play many games, and so wouldn't necessarily follow or trust a new competitor in the genre.
That said, there are a lot of games out there which have Sims-like elements. Crusader Kings 2 kind of scratches the Sims itch sometimes just as much as it is a complex strategy game (especially if you play in a region without easy access to CBs and have to use marriage and intrigue to advance).
I agree - the AI is really what drives the game a lot of the time and it does need to be above average, which is not exactly easy. At the same time, I don't think it's really near impossible. Again, I'll refer back to Banished - sure, the game was not about AI the same way Sims is but I was surprised at how complex it was. It's a village builder game and you give guidance to your villagers what tasks to do, yet they still have needs - they can get hungry, so if you start constructing far away it may take quite a while because the villagers will have to travel all the way there, do a bit of work then soon go back to eat. In the winter can get cold, so they would go to warm up. This means that you the correct strategy is to have "sub-villages" where people live near their work. And you have to place spread those sub-villages evenly around so you don't just have a bunch of farmers on one side of the map and a bunch of miners on the other side thus making resources very hard to ferry between them. There is also happiness to manage, families, too and similar but it's all rather natural, since the villagers behave as you would expect. The AI does manage to drive the game and it manages to be quite competent for what it is[footnote]Of course there are some mishaps here and there. I've heard reports of some families stockpiling food which leads to other families dying of hunger, for example. And I've myself had a bit of a funny AI hiccup - I sent a villager to build a bridge, but for some reason he WALKED all the way to the other side of the river to start it, decided that he wanted food and didn't want to work but also, since there was no bridge there, thought it's too far to walk back home, so finally died of hunger literally overlooking the village. If he had shouted somebody could have just tossed some bread to the other side or something.[/footnote]
I can see the potential here - this gives me confidence that it's indeed possible to have a decent AI for an actual Sims-like game. After all Banished was made by a single guy, similar to Dwarf Fortress which also includes some rather complex AI behaviour.
Zaltys said:
Most other Sims clones have flopped completely, many went completely unnoticed.
And I find this a bit strange - as I said, the only clones I could think of were Singles and Playboy: The Mansion. Those, however, tried to emphasise a different aspect of the genre, as well as, not being exactly good to begin with. I recall there being at least one or two more but I really cannot remember names or what they did - I suspect they were also rather sub-par. I wonder if a good game came out what would happen with it. Yeah, there was also Creatures and as far as I understand it did well, but it's also something that didn't hasn't had a follow-up recently.
Phasmal said:
OT: I do wonder that, actually. Maybe they're worried about getting sued. Because I think the game type could definitely be better done by other people.
Again, not sure they would be sued - not unless they literally try to copy stuff across, but there is plenty of room to have a Sims clone without infringing on anything. One part of why my question came about was because I recently started playing War for the Overworld - see, I knew it was supposed to be a spiritual successor of Dungeon Keeper but the guys who made it really went all out. Here is my experience - I had heard it's good and I had heard it represents Dungeon Keeper rather well, but I hadn't actually seen it. So I started the game and immediately felt immense familiarity wash over me:
- the interface was quite clearly and intentionally very similar to DK
- the cursor is an evil hand exactly as in DK
- the game works exactly as I'd expect from DK to
- even the creature AI responds in very similar ways as before
- the creatures look is changed but they are unmistakably analogues from before. The goblins (basic mellee units) are now "gnarlings", the warlocks (range combatants and they also research new spells) are now cultists, bile demons (grotesque, tanks, they construct stuff in the foundry, flatulent, they use the last thing in combat, they also have a weaponised head) are now "chunders", etc.
- very similar transformation for buildings
- even the narrator/mentor is literally voiced by the guy who did the same role in DK
- they even lifted a rather minor joke from DK2 into a full on game feature - in that game, if you've been sort of idle for a while, you would get some random remarks from the narrator [http://dungeonkeeper.wikia.com/wiki/Mentor#Humorous_2], one of them was "Micro-piglets stalk your dungeon - beware." and now micro-piglets are an actual source of food (analogous to chickens from before).
- heck, even the name goes there:
Transcribed: you see the Horned Reaper (sort of face of the series) apparently outside aboveground thus promising that the next game would be set in the overworld. The game was never technically made and yet now we have War for the Overworld.
Yes, there are differences between DK and WftO but the similarities are very prominent and unmistakable. I started the tutorial but I learned almost nothing, since I already knew the mechanics from before. And I don't think the developers were sued, much less can be sued. So you can definitely make a very similar game without a risk.
evilthecat said:
That said, there are a lot of games out there which have Sims-like elements. Crusader Kings 2 sometimes plays like a "hardcore" version of the Sims (especially if you play in a region without easy access to CBs and have to use marriage and intrigue to advance).
Interestingly, that's another part of the reason I was reminded of that. I've been playing with a merchant republic and I found that I spent a lot of my time on just managing my family and stuff. And making sure the other merchant families were having a bad time. In fact, one of the other patricians declared a family feud on me, so I took it as a personal project to very subtly wreck them - I took any daughter he had to offer, married her to people in my court and then sent any of her progeny to be married to his own family again, thus increasing the inbreeding. I know, not very Sims-like in general but just the managing of families and rather lower-key play did remind me a lot of that game.
evilthecat said:
As others have said, I think there's only really room for one big life Sim game on the market.
Here is the thing, I wonder if this is even true. We all know how some genres have been "dead" only because some people said so, and yet look at what happened with horror games or old school RPGs and so on. The genres were only dead until somebody actually tried making a game there and found out that the demand was there.
And yeah, I fully agree that WoW has a very prominent place in MMOs and it's unlikely to get dethroned but there still are other MMOs out there. Yeah, they aren't as profitable as WoW is, but they are still alive - Elder Scrolls Online, a game I thought died, is even getting an expansion [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169424-Morrowind-is-the-next-expansion-for-the-elder-scrolls-online].
At any rate, MMOs are a bit of a flawed comparison here, since they require constant maintenance, which leads to a lot of WoW competitors to just eventually be killed - not something of a concern for a single-player game, though.
---
OK, I know it may seem like I'm "baiting" for people's thoughts only to shoot them down but that's genuinely not my intention. I have been thinking of reasons myself and I have come up with some of those or similar. But then upon closer inspection I wasn't sure they are really good reasons. To recap some:
- threat of suing could be there but then again "clone" games have existed in the past and haven't had that problem.
- perhaps the Sims games aren't popular (I really don't know how they perform) but the fact that there are four main instalments out there with a large number of expansions and some spin-offs suggests to me that there is a market for these sort of games.
- the games won't be easy to make (say, compared to a shooter or something) but it shouldn't be impossible. And we've seen some really marvellous games coming out from the indie community, hence I believe there is enough talent out there.
So, overall any reasons I've thought of and any that were brought up to me seem to be pointing at an underlying problem - people just don't want to make such a game. But I'm just not sure why that is the actual reason for that, so I'm probably missing something. And if people actually have made Sims "clones" (that weren't bad or "adult") then I have most likely missed them. If that's the case and the games really didn't do well, then perhaps it's really down to the consumers, rather than the developers.
Interestingly, that's another part of the reason I was reminded of that. I've been playing with a merchant republic and I found that I spent a lot of my time on just managing my family and stuff. And making sure the other merchant families were having a bad time. In fact, one of the other patricians declared a family feud on me, so I took it as a personal project to very subtly wreck them - I took any daughter he had to offer, married her to people in my court and then sent any of her progeny to be married to his own family again, thus increasing the inbreeding. I know, not very Sims-like in general but just the managing of families and rather lower-key play did remind me a lot of that game.
It's also pretty funny when you go back to playing the Sims after a long time playing CK2, and suddenly you're thinking "Hmm, my cousin is third in line for the throne of 13 Skyborough Blvd. Perhaps if I invite the heir around for a swim in my pool.."
I'm not saying CK2 made me a psychopath or killed my ability to enjoy the simple pleasures of making fictional characters wee themselves, but those are both things that happened.
Interestingly, that's another part of the reason I was reminded of that. I've been playing with a merchant republic and I found that I spent a lot of my time on just managing my family and stuff. And making sure the other merchant families were having a bad time. In fact, one of the other patricians declared a family feud on me, so I took it as a personal project to very subtly wreck them - I took any daughter he had to offer, married her to people in my court and then sent any of her progeny to be married to his own family again, thus increasing the inbreeding. I know, not very Sims-like in general but just the managing of families and rather lower-key play did remind me a lot of that game.
It's also pretty funny when you go back to playing the Sims after a long time playing CK2, and suddenly you're thinking "Hmm, my cousin is third in line for the throne of 13 Skyborough Blvd. Perhaps if I invite the heir around for a swim in my pool.."
I'm not saying CK2 made me a psychopath or killed my ability to enjoy the simple pleasures of making fictional characters wee themselves, but those are both things that happened.
A year or so ago I did that sims 3 challenge where you make one character and make them move into the most expensive empty plot of land and play there for 10 generations. And I remember my founder was flirting with his love interest and they fell in love and she moved in. But then I noticed she was 2 days away from becoming elderly. So I broke them up immediately and forced him to find a woman of child bearing age. I then after that would force other family members to brake up with their partner when I realised that partner had traits I didnt like and refused to bring them in to my house hold.
The sims tends to be a game popular with nongamers more so than with typical hardcore gamers from what I understand so despite it being popular it isn't so with the demographic that would be the target of people who like to create derivative copies of games that are popular. The core audience of the sims seems to be the one that the mobile industry is getting at so of course proper games wouldn't be trying to compete with something that the mobile industry has set their sights on, they would just keep to their own side and that entails not competing with the sims.
I think it's because the Sims games are just good
Cities: Skylines and Stardew Valley came out because the big guys in the genre were making shitty games.
Sims 3 was pretty much the peak, Sims 4 stumbled out of the gate but is passable now
Think about how you would improve Sims 3, compared to how Cities: Skylines improved upon the SimCity formula.
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