SimGuruTrev took some time to talk with The Sims community members on The Sims Reddit. One of the very long responses he wrote was about the community feedback and how The Sims Team is taking implementing Toddlers very seriously, meaning that they don’t want to rush something out the door just because everyone wants it.
Down below you’ll find his full response on this topic:
We do listen. We hear you, we listen and, more importantly, we take note of what the community is telling us. It’s tough for us because if we could give everyone what they want we’d do it. In a heartbeat. It’s not like we sit there going “They want X but who care, let’s give them Y instead.”
We release things in packs and we like those packs to have a theme. When we get a lot of little suggestions, it’s hard to find the right place for them. But, we have boat loads of little puzzle pieces of ideas that we’ve gathered from the community and from the development team. When we’re brainstorming ideas for a new pack, we’ll dig through our little puzzle pieces and see if any of them fit with our current idea. And hell, sometimes we’ll try and jam those pieces in even if they don’t quite fit (for instance, Aliens coming with Seasons in Sims 3). But, by and large, we want it to feel like one cohesive pack and not just a bunch of odds and ends stuck together.
On the flip-side of that, when people give us broad ideas, like “I’d like more family gameplay” or “we want toddlers”, we want to make sure we fill in all the those missing puzzle pieces in a way that everyone will enjoy. If we polled 100 different people about what they’d like to see with regard to toddlers, for example, we’d get 100 different answers. So we certainly don’t want to rush something out the door just because everyone wants it. If we tried to rush some sort of family pack out the door it might only satisfy 5% of the people that wanted more family gameplay. So we like to take our time with it. We have a lot of discussions about what it actually means to play with family, or what it meansto have a toddler. What new objects do we need? What interactions and socials would you have? Would there be new skills? Would there be any new careers? What sort of CAS parts and clothing do we want to add? These are the questions we ask ourselves about every feature. We don’t like to add a big feature to the game just for the sake of adding it. We want to take our time, make sure we do it right. And if we don’t think we can, then we hold off until we feel like we can.
So, long story short, we hear you. We listen to every idea we see. When it’s an idea we can get behind, or something everyone clearly wants, we write it down. It does not go unnoticed! We really do care about our community. Most people don’t realize it but these SimGuru accounts aren’t required. Random people on the team want to reach out to the community, so they make a SimGuru name. We’re never told what to say. We genuinely care about the experience our players have with the game. It matters to us. A lot.
Soooo toddlers and family pack and maybe even a supernatural theme pack (I got the vibe from when he was talking about the aliens being randomly thrown in and how they prefer a pack having one theme and also lack of life states lately) unofficially confirmed!
Everyone is saying toddlers and toddlers but I’m over here at the corner acting like one and repeating “Bu-but terain tools?? :(“
I think its fair what they are saying. Its better to have things when they are ready and worked through rather than rushed. This does give me hope though that we might get toddlers sooner than I thought : D
Thank you for the clarification on this. And my apologies, I’m one of the ones grumbling about toddlers lol (and weather, and more holiday stuff, appliances etc etc etc) I work with computers so I do know these things take time. I do enjoy my Sims games VERY frequently, so all of your collective hard work doesn’t go unappreciated. And I think in Sims 4 I use less custom content than in any other version I have, though even in the others I wished for more hairstyles. Thank you for everything you’ve given us, and keep up the good work! 🙂
So nice to actually hear something about this. Toddlers not being in game was my #1 issue with Sims 4, and while I still don’t understand why they didn’t implement them in the first place, I’m glad they’re putting so much thought into it.
I’ll be happy if they release a pack or expansion with toddlers, but adding nice features, like: nannys that actually work, preschool for toddlers (kindergarten), exclusive skills for toddlers, more interactions (maybe interactions between toddlers too!)
Look, you “hear” us, but it’s been 3 expansion packs I wouldn’t mind waiting for 2 but now that city living had been leaked toddlers are taking a back seat. I’m sure alot of summer would prefer an article like “Hey new drought coming up we’re gonna focus on toddlers or something like that and I can’t enjoy anything on Sims 4 cause when I have a baby I’m strapped down to my house, even doing a small thing for family players like letting us take out babies to parks and stuff and not making them an OBJECT. I love Sims but it seems EA is focusing more on singular players while their family players take the backseat.
I understood perfectly,and I’m very appreciative for the way he explained it,thanks
It’s cool that they reach out like this to let us know what’s kinda in the works. Personally, I don’t care much about toddlers. They’d be pretty cute, I guess, but I’m crossing my fingers for preteens! I know I’m in the minority with that opinion, though… ^^;
What I’m guessing is that the people who work on the game find the easiest thing to do, work on it, and sell it as a expansion or stuffor game pack. I’M SICK OF IT! I WANT TODDLERS IN MY GAME…IT HAS TO HAPPEN! No buts about it. I’m not just gonna sit around and get my damn hopes up. It has been two years since EA announced Sims 4 and I’m pissed with how it turned out! Don’t mess with us! We already freaked out with that picture of the family. Stop doing shit like that…it makes people uncomfortable! Sorry for the language, but I’m sick and tired of waiting for something that is never coming! I’m thinking about never buying another expansion, stuff, or game pack until I find out toddlers are coming. Please make this happen!
I’m glad they finally posted that and I’m glad they explained it to the people that didn’t understand. I always knew this and it makes perfect sense to me. We wouldn’t want an expansion pack of random crap. And I’m glad they’re taking their time on toddlers so we get the best results. Sadly everybody isn’t going to be happy all the time. There is always those few select people that are super negative when it comes to everything.
Oh come on, people have been clamouring for toddlers since before the base game was released. That was over 2 years ago. This is not something that has just come out. You’ve gotten plenty of time to market test and develop something that should have been included with the base game in the first place!
They’ve been saying this yet…after 2 years I haven’t seen them address a single issue brought up by the community. They were going to sell pools, ghosts, and extra careers as DLC, but scraped the idea and acted like it was made as free content. That was the last content released to flesh out the base game. Since than it has certainly looked like they have completely went off the rails and lost complete touch with their fans. They spent more time developing excuses than they do actually creating content. Not saying Sims 4 is bad, but to really enjoy the game you really have to buy every bit of content, and that makes it way too expensive.
Seems to me that all they do is keep releasing expansions with the same theme. Play based on their perception or some preteen fantasy of young adult single life. Its BORING to anyone over the age of 14. That type of play is fine as part of the larger picture. One which gives players a choice of the direction of game play. An awful lot of players enjoy family play. How complicated could toddlers be? Free Play HAS THEM! No. Truth is it Seems to me that this is their vision and they are determined to shove it down our throats. Its disappointing bc I been playing since sims 2 but unfortunately this is now a game for a different audience to the exclusion of everyone else. I guess EA believes that the preteen set has enough disposable income that they can ignore other players. They have turned the game into a monotonous, childish fantasy completely removing the variety which allowed the player never to get bored. Best thing now is just hope that maybe they will have realized how shortsighted they have been and sims 5 will be what we all loved about the game.
Obviously they need to get better themes. They’ve released a few that are really questionable.
Also.. it’s not like they haven’t done it before, multiple times. They’re not working in the dark, or exploring unknown territory. Going on 3 years, I’d say they’ve taken their time…
Can you guys fix the actions with the sims 4 toddlers? Everytime my sim puts the toddler in the high chair, the sim takes the toddler out right away without the toddler eating anything. And sometimes the actions just cancel when I want my sim to do something with the toddler. I get so frustrated about this and it makes me hate the toddler age. Please fix this it would really improve my sim experience. Thank you!
What I’m guessing is that the people who work on the game find the easiest thing to do, work on it, and sell it as a expansion or stuffor game pack. I’M SICK OF IT! I WANT TODDLERS IN MY GAME…IT HAS TO HAPPEN! No buts about it. I’m not just gonna sit around and get my damn hopes up. It has been two years since EA announced Sims 4 and I’m pissed with how it turned out! Don’t mess with us! We already freaked out with that picture of the family. Stop doing shit like that…it makes people uncomfortable! Sorry for the language, but I’m sick and tired of waiting for something that is never coming! I’m thinking about never buying another expansion, stuff, or game pack until I find out toddlers are coming. Please make this happen!
Oh come on, people have been clamouring for toddlers since before the base game was released. That was over 2 years ago. This is not something that has just come out. You’ve gotten plenty of time to market test and develop something that should have been included with the base game in the first place!
Can you guys fix the actions with the sims 4 toddlers? Everytime my sim puts the toddler in the high chair, the sim takes the toddler out right away without the toddler eating anything. And sometimes the actions just cancel when I want my sim to do something with the toddler. I get so frustrated about this and it makes me hate the toddler age. Please fix this it would really improve my sim experience. Thank you!
Seems to me that all they do is keep releasing expansions with the same theme. Play based on their perception or some preteen fantasy of young adult single life. Its BORING to anyone over the age of 14. That type of play is fine as part of the larger picture. One which gives players a choice of the direction of game play. An awful lot of players enjoy family play. How complicated could toddlers be? Free Play HAS THEM! No. Truth is it Seems to me that this is their vision and they are determined to shove it down our throats. Its disappointing bc I been playing since sims 2 but unfortunately this is now a game for a different audience to the exclusion of everyone else. I guess EA believes that the preteen set has enough disposable income that they can ignore other players. They have turned the game into a monotonous, childish fantasy completely removing the variety which allowed the player never to get bored. Best thing now is just hope that maybe they will have realized how shortsighted they have been and sims 5 will be what we all loved about the game.
They’ve been saying this yet…after 2 years I haven’t seen them address a single issue brought up by the community. They were going to sell pools, ghosts, and extra careers as DLC, but scraped the idea and acted like it was made as free content. That was the last content released to flesh out the base game. Since than it has certainly looked like they have completely went off the rails and lost complete touch with their fans. They spent more time developing excuses than they do actually creating content. Not saying Sims 4 is bad, but to really enjoy the game you really have to buy every bit of content, and that makes it way too expensive.
I’m glad they finally posted that and I’m glad they explained it to the people that didn’t understand. I always knew this and it makes perfect sense to me. We wouldn’t want an expansion pack of random crap. And I’m glad they’re taking their time on toddlers so we get the best results. Sadly everybody isn’t going to be happy all the time. There is always those few select people that are super negative when it comes to everything.
Obviously they need to get better themes. They’ve released a few that are really questionable.
Also.. it’s not like they haven’t done it before, multiple times. They’re not working in the dark, or exploring unknown territory. Going on 3 years, I’d say they’ve taken their time…