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Polish fansite, DotSim, has released a transcript of the Q&A with SimGuruGrant at the Sims 4 City Living Event in Warsaw. When the interview was originally released on Monday, EA demanded that DotSim remove it from their website due to backlash regarding some of Grant’s comments about the game. The interview is available below.

• Why has there been almost a year’s time since the last expansion pack? So in the past like with The Sims 3, we used it for two expansions at a time, and we … it’s been interesting … in as a team, like to have a little bit more time because it gives us time to try to polish, even just thinking more about the pack and not just developing it, but thinking more about it, doing more prototyping. Having more time to polish also Means we do not have to have so many people crunching all the time. It is a very interesting balance because we sometimes assume That people will get angry if we try to put out too much stuff but sometimes the people get angry if we do not put out stuff fast enough. And we’re always trying to find the right mix to reach folks, but it has been really important in The Sims 4 That we make sure everything is really well supported, the want to release more polished packs, we’re trying to release more patches, and support the game with more content, and it seem crazy because most games end after just a few months but we’re two years on now. We’re going to keep going, we’re really trying to think about it and plan for the long term to make sure That it’s the right fit for the community and what you guys are looking for. So it’s weird because we’ve been doing it for so long, but we’re always learning new stuff to figure out what the market wants, what you guys want, and what’s the best way for us to develop it. I do not have a good answer.

• Do you work from home? I work, so I live in San Franciso, and every day I drive an hour South, it’s 24 miles, so I guess like 50 or 60 kilometers. It takes an hour because traffic is terrible, but I work in Redwood City and the whole team is there, it’s about 200 of us, and we’re making more stuff than we ever have before, cause we’re working on Game Packs Stuff Packs, we have a team patch, and then we have the expansion pack team. Plus we have prototype teams for the next stuff, like, it’s always weird because in my head I have to think about Things That are coming, that I’ve been working on in the past, and what I’m working on now, and what I’m going to be working on for the next two years. But yea, I work out of Redwood City at the main headquarters. Continue reading here…

As more conversations appeared on the official forums and online communities like Reddit, Global Community Manager, SimGuruDrake, took to the forums to discredit DotSim’s interview and state that they misled the community. Today, she continued to insist that Grant’s answers regarding Elevator Animations were not correctly quoted, and has been on a non-stop smear campaign against the credibility and reputation of DotSim.

Czech website DeliFreakyBoo has provided the audio recording of the interview at the Polish event. After hearing this audio, I provided a full English transcript of the interview with SimGuruGrant to Polish fansite, DotSim.

With regard to elevators and animation budgets, the audio proves that what was told to the group via professional translator, was not a “misleading interpretation of statements”, but instead, a direct statement made by Grant in plain English.

“Whenever we make a pack it always comes down to what we want to focus on, what we think we can do very well, and with the elevator, the elevator is actually one of the most complicated objects in The Sims 3, and it sort of scared us because one of the things is it has to both work with what we call shells which are the big structures in the buildings that we build stuff in, as well as it has to work with the build which is dynamic and the players can do it. We have limited animation budget, and it was one of those things that we chose to spend our time on Karaoke, Video Games, and new interactions, and apartment situations, and we thought that that actually added game play that actually made it fun, that actually added stories, whereas that elevators…its basically stairs, and so yes we knew that people would ask this and some people would be disappointed, but we though that the other stuff would more than make up for it.”

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Editor’s note: It would be appreciated if EA’s Community Manager would refrain from constantly trying to discredit fansites and tarnish the longstanding reputations of those who provide news to the community. Players who attended this event did not mislead anyone with their Q&A, even though she is trying to place blame. Fansites have no reason to lie about what a Guru said in a room full of people and official EA employees.

Also, stop the smear campaign. It was said, and it was reported accurately. Fansites from around the world have been attending these events for many years. These fansites have long standing credibility and great reputations in the international community. DotSim didn’t “paraphrase” for “convenience”. They reported the truth. Stop trying to dictate the news.