Many's the time when I used to come here and post some thousand-word complaint about Electronic Arts' The Sims division... it became commonplace, in fact.
For a while, I thought I'd covered all the main points about The Sims 3 -- uncustomisable community lots, substandardly-textured objects, insufficient quantity of hairstyles, no piano, blah-blah-blah. But, it seems as though a new issue has arisen since my last "Sims 3 is worthless" post. In fact, it's an issue which I never thought in my ten years as a Sim geek would ever become a problem...
Corporate takeover.
It would appear to me that Electronic Arts has totally taken over The Sims franchise, transforming it from Will Wright's long-time project for a people simulator into a corporate monolith. A monument, if you will, to high profits by selling a fundamentally substandard product to unsuspecting consumers, who are lured in by shiny new graphics and the names of iconic bands.
That's really what I wanted to address here: the music issue.
Back in the early days of The Sims Classic, no one at EA was particularly certain that this new game, which primarily was about house-building, was going to be any good. So, Jerry Martin, Robi Kauker, Kent Jolly, and Michael Cormier were the game's entire music team. In-game songs were written entirely by them and performed at one of EA's studios. The singers who performed the stereo songs were not well-known -- downright obscure, in fact. Just people who were looking for work in California.
So, a few months later, the game is released and, hey presto, it's a million-seller!
The Sims 2 -- it started out innocuously enough. Just a ragtag group of TV and cinema composers, headed by the Mothersbaugh brothers, late of Devo. Then, about halfway through the series, good old Rod Humble comes onboard and insists they start using local bands. Y'know, people who were not yet household names whose posters could be found on bulletin boards and lampposts all over L.A. So, The Sims 2 turns out to be a great success, too!
The Sims 3 -- in this case, we start out with the original score taking a backseat to the bands who make the "music" (feh -- anti-music is more like it) for the stereo. Let me repeat that...
The stereo! A single object in the Electronics sort of the Buy Mode catalogue. One which most people aren't going to get for their Sims.
This single object has works from the likes of Nelly Furtado, Leanne Rimes, and Lady Antebellum. Now, as I don't typically listen to anything composed after 1899, unless it was written by Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Koji Kondo, or Jerry Martin, I don't claim to have a great deal of knowledge on this point... but, you've got to figure that, if even I've heard of them, they must be famous enough to demand a six-figure paycheque.
If the price of the stereo object in The Sims 3 accurately reflected the amount of money spent to have the music made for it, Malcolm Landgraab, himself, wouldn't be able to afford it! A cheater would have to type "motherlode + Enter" so much, the keys involved would stop working! An honest player would have to play the game nonstop for 700 years to have their Sims earn enough!
Of course, one cannot forget Steve Jablonsky's contribution to The Sims 3... or can one? Let's face it -- he'll never be Jerry Martin. His original score for this game seems to have been engineered for total ignorance. It's just a cacophony you have to get through in order to hear the stereo stuff.
Speaking strictly as a composer, Jablonsky's Sims 3 BGM is half-remixes of Mutato Muzika's Sims 2 score, half-Desperate Housewives. It's easily the weakest OST in franchise history.
An extrapolation. Assuming Sims division remain on their present course, the fourth Sims installment will have no original score at all, relying completely on jam-bands and pop groups for the background noise.
And, you know what? That's fine with me. The Sims 3 isn't nifty. I'd go so far as to say that it's right on the borderline between "not nifty" and "complete rubbish". I used to fantasise about what kind of OST I'd write for The Sims series. Hell, I've got an entire flashdrive full of Sims-inspired piano improvs!
Now, though... I wouldn't compose for The Sims if a hot girl with a suitcase full of money begged me to.
The Sims is a corporate sell-out. One wonders how Will Wright feels about it. I mean, it must be gratifying to see one's own idea become a multi-million-dollar franchise... but, at the same time, to see the company responsible for it taking the shortest path to money, even if it means squashing game quality like an insect in the process.
