Sims boss Lindsey Pearson says “leaks are inevitable” and “you’ll get crossed wires from time to time” as EA remains silent on Project Rene
Last year, The Sims 4 team took it upon itself to go back and work on the game’s large lists of unresolved issues (which it does a good job of addressing), but an equally serious flaw in the system is EA’s communication with players – or lack thereof. I don’t really think anything will change on that front any time soon, but the message we got in a recent interview with franchise VP of Creative Lindsay Pearson is that the team is at least aware that This is a pain point for players. .
Over the past six months, EA and Maxis:
- Completely upended our perception of Project Rene by announcing The Sims Hub during a public investor presentation without even explaining the announcement language intended for fans.
- Leaked screenshots from a playtest were ignored that were very different from what players expected, making it unclear whether it was Project Rene or some other test.
- This week, in his Behind The Sims news post, he gave a mildly scathing dismissal of the above, stating that “what you can see are pieces of the experience that are in the very early stages of development.”
A little over two years ago, Pearson announced Project Rene, saying at the time that the studio would be sharing information about the game in development earlier than The Sims ever before, with periodic updates and private playtests.
This has continued to share news, but each Behind The Sims presentation gets shorter, leaving insatiable fans desperately searching for information on what to expect. It was on this Wednesday last September that EA’s Investor Day kicked off, letting players know that Project Rene wasn’t actually The Sims 5 as we’d assumed, and that The Sims 4 would continue to receive new DLC even after Rene’s eventual launch. .
“That definitely happens in franchises like The Sims, where there’s a lot going on and you’re going to get crossed wires from time to time,” Pearson said during our conversation. “I think we’re constantly evolving our communications strategy to try to figure out how to share the right information at the right time without being confusing or misleading.”
Learning about EA’s vision for The Sims Hub as the basis for several different Sims games on PC in an investor presentation was quite confusing, especially when no further explanation was forthcoming. Pearson wasn’t able to answer questions about The Sims Hub during our chat, but I think if I could ask if this was the way the team wanted this announcement to reach players, the answer would have been a (politely phrased) “no.” What Pearson told us about this was, yes, quite diplomatic.
“What you saw us do last fall at EA’s big investor day – and around the same time we announced a whole bunch of things in Behind the Sims – is symbolic of the things you can see, like how we give more , a broader message about what the franchise is about?”
This broad message left a lot unanswered as the studio continued to carry on as usual, failing to provide players with any version of the same message in a way that actually felt clear. If this set of ads was a hot pot of grease, then subsequent leaks from testers in October were cold water, and as a reminder to anyone in the room with level 1 cooking skills prone to starting fires while making grilled cheese is dangerous combine .
“Unfortunately, leaks are inevitable,” Pearson said. “So this is also a difficult question because sometimes it happens before we are ready to share anything. And you say, “I’m not really buttoning up this message because it was an experiment. , on the contrary, when it was something a year ago, and you were like, “How did this become known now?”
Ultimately, major publishers struggle to communicate with players in the way we want them to, and EA isn’t alone in this. To begin with, we see a similar struggle from Blizzard and Ubisoft. From the outside it is difficult to say who is calling, what to share, when and how information gets clogged in the pipes, contrary to the hopes of the developers.
“We’re always trying to learn and iterate and grow and use all these buzzwords,” Pearson told us. “But it’s true. We’re always trying to say: How can we do this a little differently, a little better?”
For all that Pearson mentions about the desire to learn and iterate, the recent “just a reminder to all the Simmers who helped us with our playtests,” in addition to the Behind The Sims blog post, that “what you can see are pieces of the experience , which are in the very early stages of development and we’re still refining the final product” doesn’t really inspire much confidence that the studio isn’t going to just continue to retreat to secrecy rather than communication.
Rene’s project wasn’t mentioned directly at all in the Behind The Sims presentation, and before we spoke we were told that Pearson wouldn’t be answering questions about it, which doesn’t seem like a step in the right direction either.
Despite all this, I’m pretty positive about what Maxis is actually doing with The Sims 4 over the past few months, if not how it’s communicating with players. I think the new main menu is actually great, as are the updates to the townspeople’s homes and the limited-time in-game quests it completes, as well as other Sims 4 anniversary update plans. I was initially excited about Project Rene. appears to be reviving the Create-A-Style tool as well.
Rene’s project could turn out great, despite the secrecy and uncertainty that EA subjects us to during development. I just wish he would stop claiming he is going to share more information while constantly shutting us down.