The Sims - Ripoff?

[22Phoenix22]

I've been thinking about the whole Sims franchise. I used to play the sims 1 (now the sims 2, yeah i'm lagging a bit) and I always hated the fact that there were such an incredible amount of expansions. I always felt that paying 30 bucks for an expansion was a ripoff, especially since there were so many of them to buy. Nowadays however comparing to a game like World of Warcraft I have to say that the Sims handles expansions a lot better. Let me explain.

In the Sims you can play from kid to senior in the basic game. You can do quite a few things fromm the start and it feels like a complete game (E.G. nothing in the game requires you to buy an expansion first). When you buy an expansion to the game you open up some extra stuff, or more importantly a side path for your sims to use. Look at vacation or university, it doesn't destroy anything of the original game, it just adds an extra layer in between it.

If we look at WoW however, we can see this is completely different. In WoW the original game with the latest patch is 'broken'. Now when I say broken, I mean the pvp element is partially gone because some guys are a lot higher level then you are. Also since everyone else has bought the expansions, you will find even less people doing the original content like you do. Also when an expansion is released the level cap also increases. This means it completely destroys the economy since the top tier items are now pretty much worthless at the highest levels.

While I do think the Sims expansions are too expensive for me (I can't pay 30 a pop), they do a better job than most other expansions.

That was my rant, what are your ideas?

 

[Kiefer13]

A couple of the full expansion packs for the Sims games are usually worth buying, since they often add new elements to the game. The others are just glorified item packs though, and those are rip-offs for the price they ask for them. Especially when there is a wealth of similar quality (or better) user-created custom content available for free online.

I'm not a fan of the World of Warcraft model either though. While I can appreciate the extra content that each expansion pack adds, that should already be paid for by the player's continuing payment of the subscription fee. It's in the publisher/developers interest to keep adding new content to keep the player interested and paying. That's why I like the EVE Online system. You download the client and get an initial 14-day free trial, and then can start paying the subscription fee (plus an initial extra cost), then aside from that, that's it. All additional content added to the game after that requires no additional payment beyond the subscription fee. That's how MMOGs should work.

 

[Daffy F]

This is quite interesting actually... I never really thought about it. I haven't played the Sims since the original, but I remember the expansion would focus around a particular element, like, say, the ability to go downtown or whatever. I also remembe rthat you could ahve more or less any combination of expansions.

 

[Littaly]

Being a simsaholic I've asked myself that quite a few times ^^

Honestly, I think it's bordering on overpriced, but it depends a little on which expansion,and regardless, you still get a fair amount of content in each, so it's far from a scam. If you're a casual gamer and the only game you ever play is The Sims, I can see it being worth it, personally I like to wait for it to drop to ~$20 before I buy it.

I can't say I'm a fan of the "stuff-packs" and online store. Back in the days of The Sims 1 we used to get that included in the expansion, now we have to pay extra Not that that's different from any other video game out there -.-

 

[Vampire cat]

Yeah, forced pay-for updates are really annoying... It's a bit cruel really, to force everyone to buy this. You simply cannot play WoW without all the expansions. They could at least allow everyone to reach the max lvl regardless of number of expansions they owned, and only make certain gear and races limited to the various expansions. And on top of this the 8 EURO's or what it is now a month to play it.

As for the SIMS way: Fair concept, but not enough content in the individual packs to justify the price.