The Sims is Evolving

For the past 25 years, The Sims franchise has had a monopoly on life simulation games. This has given EA the freedom to do whatever they want with The Sims. Unfortunately because of this many Sims fans have witness blatant corporate greed when it comes to The Sims in the last 10 years or so. Ruining a very much beloved game in the process. Recently with the emergence of new life simulation games such as Inzoi, Little Sim World, To Pixelia, and Paralives (coming soon), many life simulation enthusiast rejoiced! But as history has already told us from The SimCity franchise, this could also be the end of The Sims franchise. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you feel) The Sims isn't going anywhere. They're re-branding!

Project Rene which was first announced back on October 18th 2022, was originally the introduction to an upcoming Sims 5. Over the years many Sims fans have been excited and hopeful to "The Sims 5” only for the original purpose to be axed and re-branded. Project Rene still exists and will work along side The Sims 4. So basically they're using The Sims 4 as their foundation and will work on newer more “modern projects” using The Sims brand. EA's official website mentions their move towards cozy and mobile games. Using words like “modernization” to basically say that they want to expand and create new and different games outside of The Sims niche while still using The Sims brand. It's a very systematic and corporate move when it comes to EA's response to the new life simulation competition.

Their move does make sense. In an article, The Sims general manager, Kate Gorman Revelli, acknowledges in a way that they do depend on content creators for The Sims 4.

For most people, mods are a huge part of The Sims 4 playing experience. For years modders have been the first to fix bugs and add content that fans have been asking for in The Sims 4. Keeping The Sims 4 as their niche life simulation game while working and profiting off of content creators with their new Creator Kits. Would both help them keep their life simulation audience while focusing on newer games for the Sims franchise with the goal of obtaining a new audience.

The reason why I believe EA will no longer make any new games like The Sims 1-4, is because it's simply not worth it anymore. Both Inzoi and Paralives say that they will add weather, cars, and pets in their base game. I'm not sure how far they'll go with base game animals until they start adding dlc (if they do intend to add any). But in The Sims 4, they charge you on top of the base game (which is now free for new comers) $39.99 for weather, $39.99 for cats and dogs, $39.99 for horses, and $9.99 for lack luster rodent pets. That's $129.96 if you want all of those things in your Sims 4 game. You can get them on sale when that's an option. Still that's a lot of money lost when you consider that according to Wikipedia as of 2024, The Sims 4 has over 85million players. The whole separating animals into individual packs did piss me off personally because in The Sims 3 you got cats,dogs,horses, turtles birds, chipmunks, etc. as pets all for $39.99 on release (now $19.99). Someone in the company got greedy and knew they could downgrade pets and then piece them into separate packs for The Sims 4. They were right. Even though people were outraged by it, a lot of people still bought the packs. I'm sure for EA, constantly expanding and selling new Sims 4 content is more profitable than creating a whole new simulator game. To them, they already have their simulator games and now its time to focus on whats trending in the game industry using a brand that fits right into cozy games and mobile games with micro-transactions.

All in all despite the fact that that perfect Sims game that many fans have been hoping for will never happen. I believe that it's actually a good thing that EA has basically thrown in the towel. We all know how greedy EA is no matter what game they get their hands on. Since we already know EA's history, pinning hope on these new life simulation games over a new Sims 5 is a bit more realistic. They are companies that are new to Sims fans and we can only hope that they can follow through with what fans have been asking for for years.

Source links:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ea-turns-to-the-fans-to-keep-the-sims-relevant

https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/news/the-future-of-the-sims

https://www.polygon.com/the-sims/452618/project-rene-5-replacement-announcement

https://simscommunity.info/2024/10/03/the-sims-town-stories-first-leak/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_4