Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!
Here we are again. Yet another Thursday with no new update in TSTO released the previous two days.
It’s been 50 days since the last new content update in TSTO, Classless Reunion (March 13th), and 22 days since the last in-game update…or whatever the hell that thing was…Marge at the Bat (April 10th), and I have some thoughts. So let’s get to them…
-First off, let me get this out of the way right now…I do not think the game is ending. I don’t think it’s on life support. It doesn’t make sense to me that last year, after 5 years of blogging, EA would reach out to sites to share information about updates in the game, just to shut everything down a year later. (Although it would be nice if they utilized those Community connections to help communicate what’s going on… but I digress) I think a lot of folks are just reading to much into things because something is different and it’s easier to speculate than figure out just what’s going on.
Plus, there’s this…Twitter is a powerful thing guys….
-I think the server issues are simply that, server issues. This game has had issues with servers for 7+ years…no reason why they’d stop now right? The fact that they’re coinciding with the lack of updates, I think, is causing some folks to read to much into it.
-This is purely speculation, because (as I’ve said over and over) I know no more than you guys do but I think a lot of the delays in the game right now are a result of a few things. For starters, I think they’re having a reshuffling/restructuring of development teams. I also think they’re working on some bugs that have gone awry.
-The lack of communication about it is frustrating, to say the least, but I don’t think this is the end. EA is a big, publicly traded, company and they have to answer to Stock Holders. Which means they have a little more to worry about when it comes to their reputation (unlike TinyCo/JamCity). False moves might cause stocks to tumble. So I think if they were planning on shutting down TSTO they wouldn’t be silent about it. They also wouldn’t continue to sell donuts…
I wrote a post yesterday about places you can share your frustration about the lack of communication with EA. Check out those links here.
-We’re working every possible connection to EA/the Simpsons that we have to find out any information on what’s going on. (Pat even asked Matt Groening himself) As soon as we find anything out we’ll share it, provided we’re allowed to.
-I’ve said this many times, but I’ll say it again…since some of you refuse to believe this is a reality…Disney has NOTHING to do with this game. Literally NOTHING. EA has a contract with the rights to The Simpsons, that contract didn’t expire when Disney purchased FOX. Just like the contract for Universal Studios didn’t expire.
Disney didn’t buy EA, they don’t make decisions for EA. They have zero to do with this game. ZERO. I don’t know how many times I can say it, we even heard it from Matt Groening. The Disney purchase of FOX has nothing to do with TSTO. That acquisition is not causing this delay. (not to mention Disney had an existing gaming contract with EA that doesn’t expire until 2023, and Disney’s CEO recently expressed confidence in EA’s ability in gaming (Star Wars in particular). So they already had a relationship, even before the acquisition)
-I’m not going to lie, the downtime kind of sucks…but it’s also kind of nice. It sucks because I’ve spent just about every day of the last 7ish years griding out this game. Tapping, collecting, earning that next big prize. And that’s a really hard habit to break. Especially when you do a lot of absentminded tapping.
But it’s kind of nice for the same reasons. I’ve been blogging about this game every day, several times a day, for the last 6ish years. 3,775 posts in about 2,086 days, just from me. That’s a lot of writing. And I’m kind of enjoying the downtime of not rushing to post something, figuring something out, or staying up late to make sure I’ve got a post finished for the next morning. With the lack of updates, posting has been pretty easy, and dare I say more creative.
It’s been a while since I last wrote a Should I Buy post and it’s kind of nice not to be stuck in that routine.
-This one is really important, TSTO Addicts isn’t going anywhere. I’ve said this a lot over the last (almost) 6 years, as long as you guys keep coming here we’ll keep writing. There’s a reason we’re one of the last TSTO Blogs left standing. We enjoy what we do, and we love this community. That doesn’t go away just because the game isn’t updating.
We’ll all navigate this chaos together. Just like we’ve been doing since 2013…
-Of course, the site will look a little different without the updates to cover. Obviously, we won’t be writing walkthroughs, prize guides, Should I buys, or other event centered posts…but that doesn’t mean it won’t still be worth checking out the site regularly.
We’ve got a bunch of stuff planned from a new bracket battle to the Sounds of TSTO, and a lot more! Plus, we’ll still be running Simpsons Trivia regularly! You may have found the site because of TSTO, but we hope you stayed around because of the community and there are no plans to change anytime soon.
-And of course…as soon as an update hits the server (or if we get an info packet from EA) we’ll share that info with you guys immediately. In the meantime, try not to lose your minds over this. Be part Bliss Ninny and follow the ride wherever it takes you…
Thoughts? Care to share your own musings? Any thoughts on regular posts you’d like us to run during downtime? Did you contact EA to tell them you’re mad as heck? Sound off below, you know we love hearing from you!
Many People didn’t start playing at the begining and it was released on android a few months after iphone. Whilst nothing else is happening why don’t they rerun the origional events and reward long standing members with donuts instead of buildings, characters etc.
Alissa, if anyone deserves a break it is you, you work tirelessly to meet our every TSTO need. I honestly don’t know where you find the energy especially with the wee ones and a job!
Thank you.
Started playing a couple weeks after this game started. Never gone more than a few hours without checking my Springfield. You site has been great over the years. I hadn’t checked it as often because having played so long, I’ve had less questions about this game. I have been checking a lot more since this slowdown. I cannot believe I missed your kem farming and even worse Golden Goose Realty. They should either offer that again or offer land at a price. My town cannot be designed it’s so crowded. This game will have to be completely turned off for me to quit. I’ve watched the Simpson’s from the first episode at age 12. I can even remember where I was. I’m 41 now. Just one episode behind on my dvr. The Simpson’s don’t end. That’s just part of what makes the Simpson’s the Simpson’s. So this slowdown will give me an opportunity to watch some of homers better tasks that take way too long during regular updates. Like his donut eating or rock and a hard place.
Maybe we should have a where we’re you when you seen the first Simpson’s episode. I first seen it when I was about 15 at my friend Colin Brooms house, they had a primitive sort of cable TV system and where able to get SKY channel ( the only place you could get it in the UK then )
To me, it was at my grandma’s place who had cable television. I stumbled upon the episode “The Old Man and the “C” Student”. I asked my parents what this show was and why all the characters in it were yellow and they told me it was a stupid show that I shouldn’t watch.
Haha, my mum still calls them, “The Yellow People.”
1. Love this site… it’s my daily reader! This site is the reason I love my game so much! It’s like checking in on long distance friends!
2. I’m enjoying the not urgent play atmosphere right now…. I’m not as much of a slave to my iPad!
3. At the end of the day it’s just a game…. I enjoy it, don’t think it’s ending any time soon but I would get over it if it did. I think there is still tons they could bring into the game. In my opinion I think EA has some big issues they are working on and tsto is a portion of it, but they have a whole catalogue in which they have fixes to do… sometimes the game we love could be stagnant because the effort needed to fix grand scale problems might need all hands on deck. They make a lot of money with tsto and have been trying different things to keep it interesting (event changes are an example, since I started playing the format has changed a few times). It’s hard to appease the masses so there also could be re-evaluation on how they go forward with all the information and requests they are receiving from sites like this. I’m not in a knowledgeable position to speculate but I just can’t see it being shut down anytime soon.
Cheers from 🇨🇦 😁
Life is just one crushing defeat after another, until you just wish Flanders was dead. But seriously, this down time is great to KEM farm lol. I was gonna quit in January after I got the rollback glitch. Then I read Safi and Patric’s articles on KEM farming : )
Bwahahaha! Welcome to the semi-dark side (Casual Donut Farming).
One of us! One of us!
A couple months ago I had 50 donuts. Now I have 554 donuts. I’ve been using the XP Multplier to earn donuts fast. I still have at least 112 units of land to earn. So I keep going. Waiting for the next event.
“ EA has a contract with the rights to The Simpsons, that contract didn’t expire when Disney purchased FOX.”
Any idea when that contract does expire? November will be 14 years since EA acquired exclusive gaming rights for The Simpsons. That contract was made between EA and Twentieth Century Fox Television, which Disney now owns.
I can’t find any information about the length or terms of the contract anywhere.
I don’t believe the details of that contract were ever specified. (2005 was a very different world than we live in now, in terms of public information) I would assume that the contract was renewed over the last 14+ years though (my guess is it was renewed 2014-2015). Generally, contracts like that are for 7-10 years. (an example would be the EA/Disney contract is 10 years in length)
why dont they do a game with trudum iam sure it would be alot of fun with homer bashing him
Sent from my Galaxy Tab® E
Thanks Alissa for all the posts your doing, to try to calm things down! Greatly appreciated!
Does that guy you posted about on Twitter who swears it is not over have anything to do with the game?
That’s Matt Selman. He’s an Exec. Producer on The Simpsons and has written/worked on multiple updates for TSTO on the Gracie Films side.
He’s tweeted things like this before…
https://tstoaddicts.com/2014/07/18/a-lil-hint-about-things-to-come/
Thanks, you are the best! This page is really what got me hooked in to TSTO probably even moreso than the game itself if that makes sense. I would hate to see them stop doing updates, though.
Wow Patric, it was so cool to hear you were involved with the Will Vinton Christmas show. I remember watching it on television when it was first created, and kind of heartbroken that it doesn’t reappear every year like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph and all the others…
But I was so happy to find it as a DVD, and it remains a show to watch every year at Christmas time, with the other DVDs I’ve collected, from other shows that don’t seem to come back to TV every year. Thanks for you’re participation, I love all the segments, especially the walrus ice skater and the carol of the bells. Happy Wassailing to you!!
Thanks! Yep…it is a bummer that it disappeared after Disney bought the show. But, it seems to be mired in copyright issues. Hoping to get the music onto Apple Music and Spotify this year.
Thank you Alissa. You’re appreciated. You’re the stable ship in turbulent waters.
Aw thanks Sillyboy. 🙂
Alissa….you’re the level-headed friend i never had.
🤣🤣🤣
I am enjoying the downtime, not so much pressure, but please EA do not end the game! That would be soooo sad 😞
Thanks for the updates. I have played three other games that specifically met their demise due to server issues. I have to say, they were really fun games too, one was Cityville which was very similar to TSTO. If the TSTO coders are unable to fix these issues, the game will die. One thing TSTO has going for it is that it is still under the same company (EA). They have all the code change data and history.
That being said, they could clear the entire problem up with another “BIG BANG” and have us start over again….
More sense being spoken by our hosts here!
No info is rarely a good thing, but I understand from experience before I retired that there are times when folks simply -can’t- say whats going on, as much as they might like to (and I’m thinking of EA here, honest!)
Trouble is, in these days of instant intertubular communication, rumours are one of the few things reliably faster than my new Jag 😀
We’ll find out what is happening eventually, but one of the things we can be sure of is that -someone- will complain, whatever happens!
Sorry, I’m sure you know more “behind the scenes” but… just smells like death is in the air! 😢
Nah… not the end. But hey, everything comes to an end. But it’s not time yet.
If you’re smelling things, maybe you should see an ENT… 😉
I want to know whom the Stock Broker is for our hosts.
Then,
I want to know if our hosts are Short Selling EA Stock.
Uh-huh, Uh-huh???
Just my paranoid MBA Chicken Little personality raising its head.
😇
You should find that the smell of death clears now that the long night is over! 😉
I don’t know if this is the end or not, but if it is I probably wouldn’t be that sad. I’ve gotten several years of enjoyment out of game, but honestly it sometimes feels like a chore to have to go play every four hours to get everything. I’m also not sure how much they could change the event format to make it more interesting and it seems like people complain about events either being too long or too short no matter which way EA goes.
My guess is that they’re continue to do “events” like Marge at Bat with recycled content for awhile before winding things down. That would give newer players a chance to get items they missed before and the diehard players could still play just for the questlines if they really wanted to.
„You may have found the site because of TSTO, but we hope you stayed around because of the community…“ – excellent, indeed! Keep up the great work because its very motivating for going on and on! And who knows, maybe ones you guys will be featured as characters in Simpsons, or Tsto at least. Would sooo coool and well deserved! 🙂
In all the confusion, and lack of communication with TSTO from EA is disheartening. However, I remain resolute to the hopes that we will continue to enjoy further updates with new content, or at the very least, patches to fix bugs, or make gameplay easier.
It is my belief that making past content easily obtainable is EA’s way of allowing the fans to get some of what they want without merely lumping in old items and characters with new content. Fans have been complaining for some time that they wish they could have all the cool stuff that they may have missed or been able to purchase. Now they have that ability, yet they perceive it as EA giving up everything before the game is cast aside. I remain optimistic that the new tools we’ve been given; with all the returning content and characters, is just EA throwing fans a bone while they work on new stuff for the future. Don’t lose hope everyone!
If the game does wind to an end, however, I will be okay. My life will go on. And I know, in the end, another addictive game will catch my attention. The loss of TSTO would be bittersweet, nonetheless. To be honest, I have been playing since 2014, and it has always been my goal to complete a creative, cohesive, and finished Springfield. Now, with the “Capture” tool; I plan to grind over my town to create aweaome visuals and comical situations while looking like what someone might expect if they actually visited Springfield. Once that is complete, I plan to capture the whole of my town and immortalize it by having it turned into a puzzle. My wife and I love puzzles, so yhis would be our way of letting TSTO giving us some final hours of enjoyment. For TSTO to keep stretching on and on, I would never be able to accomplish this. I would continue to fall prey to new content and updates that would continue to grow my town. I would never finish and never have my puzzle. All great things must come to an end. With everything gained so far, and more than enough words; I am fully prepared for the game to wind to an end, or continue playing as the game picks back up. I thank everyone here and everyone at EA, regardless of what the future holds.
Love that idea!!
Best. Comment. Ever.
very well said!
1. EA will continue to sell donuts up until and maybe after the game dies because they’re a business and that’s what they do. That’s their job.
2. Disney is a VERY VERY controlling company that goes crazy over any messing with their brands. My guess is that’s the lag here. EA must deal with them now. Disney owns the rights to the Simpsons and EA will have to conform to what Disney wants. I know Disney intimately from what I do for a living and I dont much care for them.
3. If they can work it out, TSTO will continue. If they cant, it wont.
4. I look for The Simpsons writing style to change. Both the show and the game. Disney doesnt do irreverance very well. In fact, it doesnt do it at all.
You all at the blog should discuss how to move forward in the case of both scenarios.
You’ve done an outstanding job.
Thanks for all the fish.
Regarding part 1, it’s a mixed bag. Some are saying they’ve done this with other games PRIOR to TSTO, but in more recent history we have examples of them cutting off donut sales. For example, when they shut the game down in Asia (I can’t remember the specific country) they cut off donut sales well before the final end date. And they gave plenty of warning that they were shutting down the game in that country.
2. Again, they have a contract and an existing GOOD relationship with EA. I don’t expect anything to change until that contract runs out.
4. This goes to the same as part 2. I don’t expect anything to change show wise. I think Disney knows if they start restricting the writers of the simpsons there will be a massive backlash.
The acquisition of FOX was about the intellectual property for their Disney + app more than anything. I don’t expect them do anything different with the brands they acquired in the acquisition other than to boost their streaming catalog.
I wonder if the game did end – would there be a way for all of us to download our game from there server? It seems to me like we should be able too.
Two thoughts.
First: “in the absence of information people tend to fill in the blanks with bad news”
Second: I hope the game lives on as I enjoy playing it. But it is a game. When it ends, like all games do, it won’t diminish the fun I had.
Im wondering if you can help me.. i had a software update on my phone s10 and now i cant load my simpsons tapped out game.. ive uinstalled it several times and it gets as far as 17/699 updates then crashes..?
Get Outlook for Android
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What was the update? I’ve got an S10 and i’m not having issues, nor did i get an update.
I do have an s10 and did the update last night on my phone. Now I’m also stuck getting as far as update 17/699. Anyone else had this issue?
This post is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise toxic scenario 😊
Thanks Alissa ❤
I used to play Pet Society and Restaurant City, both games by EA that were shut down to much public outcry and petitions. They were selling premium currency to players in both games up to the day they turned off the servers which upset an awful lot of people. Because EA treated long-term players so badly, I refused to play TSTO when it first launched. I did not want to play another EA game for it to be closed down to make way for the next big thing.
In my humble opinion I think this game is going to go the same way. I sincerely hope not after the many hours I have put into it, like the other two but the mystery box has been in the shop for ages now. I think EA are letting people get a lot of premium items for fewer doughnuts so the can have them in their game for a little while before they finally admit that this game will be finishing.
Again, I really hope I’m wrong but if this happens, I will absolutely NEVER play another EA game again. Third time unlucky.
Thanks for all you do for as players, it’s so very much appreciated.
The passion you have for the site and the game is very evident in your musings. You and the others put a lot of work into what you do, and I appreciate the end result. I’ve been a fan of The Simpsons since Tracy Ulman, not sure of spelling, and have been playing this game for about 3 years. I’ve only been visiting this site for 8 months or so, and now find myself here multiple times per day. Great resource, great content, and of course, humor. The effort everyone here puts forth is appreciated. Thank you. Oh….are you sure this isn’t Disney’s fault? Just kidding. Have a good day.
I don’t think this is the end, and although i agree the downtime s&cks, i also kinda like it. I have used the time to get a lot of the yearbook stuff and rearranging things in my town from time to time. So i don’t mind the downtime that much, although a little clarity would be nice.
Thanks Alissa for breathing some common sense back into this discussion. I do not think the game will end soon, maybe over the next two to three years, but not sooner.
I understand everyone’s frustration, the server issues were really bad yesterday, but I still have lots to do and lots more to get from the yearbook, so I am good for awhile.
Plus, with the weather getting nicer, I am spending more time hiking and doing things outside. ( I live near a National Park and the hummingbirds have just returned, so gotta start feeding them.)
Finally, this really is a great community, good discussions, and everyone seems to get along.
Thanks a lot, Alissa. I also don’t think the game is going to end. We’ll just have to wait patiently for some event to come 🙂