I have long held the opinion that a game which relies on such frequent expansions to maintain relevancy is a game built around a fundamentally flawed design.
There are many games that are spoken of in tones of reverence and are often replayed, and they have never once been so much as updated or expanded upon since their inception. Early console games come to mind, but there are many PC titles which follow that course. Deus Ex comes immediately to mind.
Nevertheless, while The Sims has undoubtedly done well, I contend that it succeeds on the backs of the undiscerning, rather than on quality.
If the quality wasn't there, the chances of any success at all are slim. The Sims success stems from embracing consumerism on all levels. It's the first franchise to capitalize on the idea that people like to buy crap.
"Lets make a game about buying crap," someone said. "We'll sell some crap with some crap so you can have crap in your crap!"
While it may be flawed conceptually and I've never understood the appeal of it, it's hard to argue that it hasn't been a pretty huge success commercially. Perhaps it's not flawed, just targeted to a completely different audience then most of us?
I enjoyed the game when I tried it. I haven't played since the first one, but I remember having only one real complaint, and that was that my characters didn't have enough real freetime because the weekends were only one day long, and I could never manage to get in all the socializing that they needed in just one day.
It is not only the expansions but also the moddabilty what makes the Sims a replayable game, my wife spends several hours a day looking for downloadable stuff on the net (new furniture, walls, decoration, roofs, floors...). Not paid stuff but stuff designed by gamers who post them in forums, blogs, etc.
She doesn't really give a flip about all the expansions and the only reason why she has them is because some of the modded stuff relies on these expansions (ie: a modded object was created from another object that comes in an expansion), otherwise she would still play with the vanilla game.
I think that the reason it was so successful was because of the many expansions. IT made so much money because once you got bored of one set of furniture you could go out, spend REAL money to buy more for your pretend sims. I will admit though that it was an awesome game and incredibly addictive... I'm gonna miss it
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There are many games that are spoken of in tones of reverence and are often replayed, and they have never once been so much as updated or expanded upon since their inception. Early console games come to mind, but there are many PC titles which follow that course. Deus Ex comes immediately to mind.
Nevertheless, while The Sims has undoubtedly done well, I contend that it succeeds on the backs of the undiscerning, rather than on quality.
"Lets make a game about buying crap," someone said. "We'll sell some crap with some crap so you can have crap in your crap!"
Profits ensued.
She doesn't really give a flip about all the expansions and the only reason why she has them is because some of the modded stuff relies on these expansions (ie: a modded object was created from another object that comes in an expansion), otherwise she would still play with the vanilla game.