Write Song vs Write Books

[Dellena]

I have been in some discussions today with SimGuruDaniel regarding, in my opinion, a discrepancy between Write Songs and Write Books.

Here's the Twitter conversation:

Roxann Cogle:
@SimGuruDaniel I'm wondering a couple things about Write Song.  1. The reasoning for it taking days to Write Song. 2. The reasoning on only being able to license one song per instrument per week. Both compared to writing books.

Note: My reference to 'days to Write Song' takes into consideration the sim is not using a needs decay cheat and has a job.

Daniel Hiatt:
@lrcogle There were technical reasons we couldn't allow multiple because songs don't persist the same way books do.  And because you can have only one, we wanted it to pay highly, which meant it had to take a long time to get the money/time ratio right. But I agree, it feels awkward, especially when compared to writing books.

Roxann Cogle:
@SimGuruDaniel That's interesting.  Is there a reason why songs weren't handled like books?  There's as many different music styles as there are book genres.  It seems it would have been smarter to make them work similarly.

Daniel Hiatt:
@lrcogle I  don't disagree; this was something we realized too late to change.

So based on that conversation, I did an experiment today on Write Song vs. Write Books.

I created two separate sims, both with Creative, Active and Outgoing.  They also both had Creative aspirations.

Using cheats, I disabled needs decay and maxed Writing on the author.  I also maxed piano, guitar and violin on the musician.

Neither sim had a job.

With one sim 24 hour period, the author was able to complete 5 books and the musician was able to complete two songs.  The author 'Sold to Publisher all five books before 10 a.m. on Monday morning.  The musician licensed the two songs as well.

Over the course of one week (and not writing anything else), the books earned 7054 and the songs earned 5631.

I still don't think songs earn enough in comparison to books.  A book takes roughly 4.5 hours to write where a song takes nearly 8 hours to write.  I don't think making the song writing process so long is necessary since you're limited already by:

- You can earn royalties on a large number of books per week vs. 1 song per week per instrument (3 instruments) for a musician
- You can begin writing books at level 1 in the writing skill vs. level 8 to write songs on an instrument
- Sell to Publisher (the more lucrative book earner) is available at level 5 vs. level 9 on an instrument to license a song
- Writing books uses one skill vs. writing songs requires level 9 on three skills to maximise the potential

I'm still hopeful something can be done in the future to at least balance the issue a bit.  I'm sending SimGuruDaniel a link to this post.

[ManiSims]

I definitely agree, hopefully they can fix this discrepancy between songs and books in a patch or something? If that's possible. In fact, this is the reason why I tend to stay away from musical jobs for my creative Sims. Instruments are fun, but the reward isn't worth it compared to the Simoleans a creatively-inclined Sim can make writing books or painting.

[ClayMask]

I recently learned from Tixxis that if you do join the writing career with your Sim, your Sim can write books twice as fast.  So it's possible you could have doubled the royalties on books wrote in 24 hours.  You can keep rejoining and quitting the career with your Sim if you don't want to actually attend.  I don't know if joining the entertainer career has any affect on song writing speed.

[dodi90]

I think Instrument is nerfed too low while they make boost too much on writing. Even with perfectionist on, I could at least manage two books in one day while writing music takes ages and not to mention the interaction is buggy that you can't cancel it unless you make another different queue.

@ClayMask Even if the writing song speed is indeed increased while joining the musician career. Currently it would be useless because the fact that you can only license at max 3 per week from different instrument.

Here is at least my suggestion of better writing songs :
Option A
Keep the current speed of writing song but allow them to be licensed every 3 days instead of a full week.
Option B
Make the speed faster but boost the value of songs more. While technically a song is somewhat better valued than excellent books sold via publisher, the limitation of 1 song per instrument make it so poor money making wise.
Option C
Make the music made by Musician in Entertainer career worth more while still keeping all the old system intact. Maybe started at 25% and capped to 100% at Career level 10. It makes a lot more sense that a music made by famous musician worth a lot more than a indie nobody that never even come out of his home and give people more reason to join the career besides the ability to sell jingles.
Option D
Speaking of sell jingles, why don't they overhaul the system so it would be fun? Make sell jingles available for all instrument without joining career. Add in Write Single for moderate profit and finally let Write Song be the literary digest equivalent.

[Metropolis Man]

While technically a song is somewhat better valued than excellent books sold via publisher, the limitation of 1 song per instrument make it so poor money making wise.

Yeah, you're hitting a sore spot for me since day 1. It's completely unrealistic and not in touch with what a real life musician who licenses music would experience. "Sorry Billy Joel, you're at the one song cap."

[Steellace]

I have another complaint about the whole music writing thing, and that is that you can't actually write songs until level 8 (I think).  To get the most from writing music, you not only have to level multiple instruments but also to a higher level before you can start licensing anything.  Since you can start writing books the minute you sit at the computer, this makes it even more unbalanced.