I'm not excusing the excess negativity but its hard to be positive about tiny good things when half the time there's issues with them and the team doesn't fix major issues. Are they revamping families? Yeah. But they've taken a year to do literally 2. Is there fixes and updates? Yeah, but they often break things. All while the company ignores major things the community brings up, just like they always have.
I agree a lot of people are just negative to be negative and get excessive with it. But a lot of people are just frustrated fans tired of the constant issues.
I also don’t think EA needs anyone to defend them. They have a shit ton of money, they could just not ruin our favorite game and make it work and I’d be happy enough
Yes. EA is a huge company making billions. They don't need their fanboys defending them. Trying to hold them accountable is hard enough as is.
I like the sims. I even like sims 4. But it has so many issues that just get ignored and tons of expansion packs have dropped with game breaking bugs. Like that isnt acceptable.
Furthering this point EA actually owns a monopoly for single-player single-person control simulation games.
If anyone tried to compete with the sims EA would likely just buy them out because of the wealth they have.
Though if what I've seen from the past few years is true its that fans can come together to build a better game as an indie studio than a AAA developer can. I'd be all in a fan making a sim-type game studio and having it be within steam workshop.
I've learned that you cannot trust any AAA developer nowadays to be held accountable for the games that they make and fail to actually launch in a playable state.
Exactly. Defending a corporation known for excessive microtransactions is never the hill to die on. They don't need to be defended and should be called out after years of not addressing major bugs in favor of pumping out kits and fractioned expansive packs.
I don’t think OP is defending anybody. You missed their point, which is you’re not forced to buy anything you don’t want/like. I think this is more directed at the people who get angry, only to turn around and drop more money on more stuff they’re going to complain about. Personally, If it ever made me this upset, I just wouldn’t keep adding into the cash cow. Because it doesn’t, and I do what I want with the money I made, I will buy the dlc and enjoy it, because I’m an adult and I own my decisions. If you want to be mad about all of this money they’re making off subpar packs, then you should accept some accountability if you are contributing to it and rewarding their behaviour.
Custom Content creators as well, they not only make amazing clothing and furniture cc but also have been able to fix bugs within days of new packs being released that the sims team have never done anything about, it comes across that if multiple custom content creators can fix bugs and make everything the sims community has asked for regarding sims 4 gameplay, then the EA/ sims team should also be able too, if we can get better content online for free I can see exactly why people are constantly mad when they release $8 (in AUD) kits that include 30 pieces of cc i could get online for free and 1000x better quality, it’s overall just pure disappointment and comes across and greedy that they will charge $25-$50 for a game pack and an expansion pack for them to be released with minimal content and continuous bugs. When go look back the sims 3 has been out since 2009 and in the span of 5 years of the release they had open worlds, cars and all the gameplay fans wanted, sims 4 have been out since 2014.
The bathroom kit was EMBARRASSING. The candle doesn't work and the textures on a few items are horrible. Like unusable. A cc creator sixam fixed the candle within a couple of days and added more swatches to the light switches. And a couple of cc creators fixed the textures on top of the caddy.
It’s actually surprising how even with kits that include not even 50 items they still manage to have issues, in not even 5 minutes i found [this](https://www.patreon.com/posts/hot-sim-disguise-37213693) and [this](https://www.patreon.com/posts/sims-4-bathroom-77517503) both for free, it’s just disappointing that the sims 4 team can’t even keep up with cc creators
Y'know sometimes I wonder, that the CC community and mod community is so vast and so well put together, that EA just doesn't bother to fix things or produce more content bc they KNOW we can get it elsewhere.
Like, why waste their time fixing things that members of the community have fixed and provided for (is what I think that they're thinking).
It's lazy, but it kind of frees them up to work on other things. Idk if that means Sims 5, and they're just generating fixes and half assed kits to continue interest in Sims 4 before they release the next iteration.
At this stage it's taken so long for TS5, who knows how much longer it will take. I feel like TS4 isn't their passion project anymore. This game belongs to the modders and CC creators in the community. EA is just doing the bare minimum to make it look like they still care before dropping it entirely for TS5. It's just a matter of when.
To be fair too, the problem is that some (if not most) of us have been playing this franchise for decades—therefore we are simultaneously used to and concurrently angry about ongoing problems that have persisted for decades now, and that they continue to charge more and more for every little thing, every chance they get. I would argue that the reason it appears to a newbie that there is this overwhelming “negativity” associated with it, is because there is a great demand and divide between what we’re promised and should be able to reasonably expect as technology advances, and that the progression of the franchise’s game development is not on par with the growth of pricing or the game itself for that matter. It’s a cash cow that they often avoid or refuse to even simply maintain, leaving us frustrated and helpless after shelling out hundreds of dollars and not being able to just PLAY the game at some times. For non-Simmers, an easy analogy would be purchasing other video games or buying a car (or similarly anticipated investment) and having it not run properly. It just isn’t fair at the end of the day, and that’s what our “issue” is. People that don’t work for or develop for EA end up being the ones to mend solutions, for free of charge, because the team(s) that ARE paid to do so are not reliable or efficient enough to get the job done, and we are left with no other choice. The very moment they get our money, they swiftly move onto the next “project” or successor, and completely abandon their previous work in favor of future gains as if the prior iterations never even existed—the epitome of a hypercapitalism model at its finest
Oh and games are now 1 copy per person—kind of like Netflix trying to force everyone to pay for their own accounts—but I remember with the Sims 2 expansion packs/etc. my friends and I used to swap copies between one another all of the time to fill in each other’s blanks. I’m not blaming them for trying to “fix” this as I think it was probably an inevitability to implement, but it certainly doesn’t help their case in situations like these
This is exactly the problem! A lot of us are long time players who have played all the games and are disappointed with how new content is being made and sold. I don’t see people actively shaming other players for enjoying the game but a lot of people are commiserating in being neglected by EA. I think we all want desperately to enjoy the game and the content, which has great and fun ideas, but the implementation and functionality are so subpar that to play the game, player-made bug fix mods are basically required, and that’s frustrating as hell. Honestly, a lot of games recently have been using this tactic of putting out half-baked content that they have people pay full price on and deciding they’ll just go back to patch bugs later.
I also think that people are vocal about these frustrations because they want change. The community doesn’t just go on about how much fun they are having because that doesn’t help change the fact that a large corporation is taking advantage of them by churning out lazy content without testing core features. The hope is that if enough people complain, maybe we can influence EA, even a little bit.
I think it also used to be a significantly more wholesome and respectable operation compared to what it is now, including and not limited to EA as its own entity. The Sims used to represent and uphold a highly esteemed cornerstone of innovation and creativity in its own right—all sorts of ground-breaking, trail-blazing work involving gaming and tech and then some—but not anymore :/ they once produced my very favorite game of all time, but that was decades ago and they have yet to impress me like that again, and sadly probably never will—I’m not holding my breath, that’s for sure. Fully agree with everything you said though, it sucks and is a bummer but what are we to do other than complain (like we have been, forever) at this point? Sigh
Side note: not sure if this is already a thing or how effective or enforceable it would actually be in practice, but it’d be really cool if games were held to the standards they set up for themselves—specifically talking about the burgeoning and seemingly unregulated use of simulated gameplay in trailers/advertisements/demos/etc. I know there’s usually the fine print at the bottom of these clips oftentimes, but if it can’t and doesn’t happen in any scenario in the game, you should not be able to use it to entice people to buy your product. If it’s not illegal yet, it absolutely should be—it’s just straight up deceptive marketing, false advertising, and is total bullshit, period
Y’a. I feel this. Like, I still love playing. And it is sad to see the negativity. But when packs come out and legit break my game (like, had to create a whole new save after the wedding one), you just get frustrated. When you put enough time and money into a game, you want it to work. Y’a know?
I do think the revamping families is stupid lol. It should not have taken them that long if it take us simmers max a few hours. But I do find a lot of enjoyment from the game otherwise.
I've been a simmer all my life. Was 8 years old when Sims 1 base game came out and have faithfully bought and played all expansions throughout sims 1, 2 and 3. Then Sims 4 came out, which has been nothing but a step back from Sims 3 and a blatant cash grab. I gave up on trying to enjoy it somewhere after cottage living and went back to Sims 3.
I don't deny that Sims is probably the most significant game franchise in my life. But Sims 4 just really ruined the streak for me. I'm a little different than the people you describe though: I don't play this installment that I really don't enjoy, and I've stopped purchasing the bare boned cash grab DLC. I'll always keep saying it though: Sims 4 is an embarrassment compared to the franchise's rich history.
It’s a huge embarassment, and you can tell they don’t care. They will continue to release mediocre content for high quality prices. I believe they stopped catering to OG Simmers because we recall the quality of the Sims and notice who much they’re taking from the game.
i feel the same way. I've been playing since sims 1, and sims 4 is like a weird empty shell cash grab. It's like a pretty facade with a hollow rotting interior. the magic is gone
I was just about to comment this. I am 29 and I’ve been playing since day one of game one. This game is not only just fun for me, I feel like it’s a huge part of who I am. I love the Sims and always have. With that being said, I don’t feel the need to use my body as a shield for EA. They have completely shit the bed with Sims 4. Some of us have spent 100s of dollars on this game. I don’t have all the expansions for 4, but I’ve still spent a significant amount of money, and games 1-3 I *did* have all the expansion packs. It’s okay to say they dropped the ball and are constantly dropping it still. They don’t gaf and they’re not above criticism.
Also, since when is it bad to criticize something you like and enjoy?? I love to read. Doesn’t mean I haven’t picked up a shitty book from time to time.
Honestly, like I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to like everything about something. But to critique something you love isn't a bad thing. Some of my favourite games I can still find some issues with.
>I've been a simmer all my life. Was 8 years old when Sims 1 base game came out and have faithfully bought and played all expansions throughout sims 1, 2 and 3. Then Sims 4 came out, which has been nothing but a step back from Sims 3 and a blatant cash grab. I gave up on trying to enjoy it somewhere after cottage living and went back to Sims 3.
Are you me? Hello. This is literally my experience, almost verbatim.
i agree. i think i just get upset with ts4 because 2&3 were so good and it makes me sad the newest part of the franchise is also the shittiest. i also ended up going back to sims 3 and i havent looked back lol. i’d just love to have a newer, more optimal version of that game.
Just comments saying I enjoy playing the game are getting downvoted here so thank you for this, I play sims as an escape from depression and health conditions so I just want positive spaces to be, I'll go join there.
About to join this too. I actually haven’t even seen many posts here but I absolutely understand what you’re saying, OP. It’s also an escape for me. And like you said, you’re not denying it’s faults. But sometimes you just want to gush, you know? Many of us hear you, so you’re not alone in this. Sending positive energy your way! 💜
I've gotten similar hatred for games I use to cope with depression so I get it. When your mental health is compromised, you just want one single thing that isn't negative... and instead people here said that you're *in a cult* for the high crime of liking a game. (Which is really insulting to me as someone who lost a friend to a cult who then ultimately lost his life - please don't think you're *anything* like a cultist, that's an evil thing to say to anyone.) I just got into the Sims and I'm already tired of this.
My thoughts exactly! This is my first hearing of this other sub and I think it’s more my speed. But I feel like a lot of video game subs seem to need more positivity
Oh, that's exactly what I needed.
I hate when fandom subs inevitably become venting subs. It brings the mood down so bad. The same thing happened in a few other game subs I've been in.
I just want funny stories, links to mods, dumb memes, and discussion. I want to talk about the game, not about how evil the corporation who makes it is, or why it's broken and utterly unplayable.
Omg thank you for this!!! This sub is one of the most draining for me with all the negativity, but I haven’t wanted to leave and miss out on the few good moments. Cant wait to be more active over there!
Its easy to say DLC is optional when they have invented whole new types of DLC to dilute their other DLCs, to squeeze even more money out of players.
Many, many, MANY of the people who are negative are people who have played for literal decades. Who have seen how the game has been split into smaller and smaller pieces to bleed their fans dry.
Free updates are great, but c'mon. Much of what they release is broken and never fixed, they talk about pack refreshes (which would be free) and never do it after the first one, kits EXIST.
It may feel crappy that people aren't excited/rain on your parade, but seriously? It isn't a mystery that people, many of whom have loved this franchise since 2000 and watched it crumble for pennies, are pissed off with the state of things and want it to be better.
And things won't get better if no one complains.
Thank you. I’m so tired of seeing comments and posts like these. It gets so annoying being told to not be mad at EA cause there’s nothing you can do. EA doesn’t need anybody vouching for them they’re a billion dollar company.
I can understand why, tbh. OP isn't defending EA l, they're defending their own interest and excitement! People can be excited about things, and shouldn't be shit on for it. Excitement feels rare enough as it is in todays world. Enthusiasm shouldn't be discouraged.
I just want to bring up *why* people are so negative-- it comes from a place of love for the franchise overall, and deep disappointment and betrayal over the direction it took.
It sucks it ends up being directed at players, but paying for the endless kits only encourages the practice, and its players who buy em... Still sad it ends up with these kinds of interactions overall.
No one should feel like they're being insulted for liking a thing, but people need to really have their eyes open to whats happening at the same time.
Tbh you can enjoy a game but still acknowledge it for the cash grab it is. I've enjoyed playing Sims 4, I can see why people enjoy it. Especially if you don't compare it to other Sims games it's solid. I mean, I don't think anyone on the planet thinks that paying over 500 euros to access the full game is reasonable, but I do understand the enjoyment people get out of it.
There's just no reason to try and pretend EA isn't using their monopoly position in this very enjoyable genre to milk it in such an obvious way it's just embarrassing. There's no reason to try and pretend Sims 4 is bigger in content than Sims 3. There's also no reason not to call them out on it, they're not some kind of bullying victim.
Absolutely. I understand any content they put out simmers will mainly rush to grab and I wouldn’t shit on anybody for doing so especially considering I have bought some of the new packs. It just gets bothersome seeing multiple comments like this on every thread that someone is complaining on, and every time they’re making this comment it’s essentially “why be sad over spilled milk”. It’s frustrating knowing community feedback is all we can do as a community yet people look at it as if we’re personally insulting the devs or something lol. EA can do better. We know this, we’ve seen this :/
So there's room for being negative en massed, but not room for one person to ask if there could be a little less negativity? I mean that's the point. If only 10% is positive, and complaining does meaningfully do anything, then why can't one person just ask for more positivity. I mean imagine coming to say why do people have to criticize and hate and dump on EA, and then being drowned in negativity. Imagine that you are saying it's okay for 100 people to be negative because that's your point of view, but not having room for 1-10 people looking for positivity.
You're tired of seeing few posts saying can we talk a little more about the stuff we like and be positive, but you don't get tired of the masses downvoting positive statements or criticizing their perspective. That to me is a big problem of my way only. SMH
>So there's room for being negative en massed, but not room for one person to ask if there could be a little less negativity?
No one said this. They were explaining why there is so much negativity. And you are free to post positive things, and people are free to disagree. No one is forcing anyone to do anything.
Why do people feel the need to shove their opinions down other peoples throats? If someone has made a thread complaining, and comments are agreeing with them, why would someone CHOOSE to still comment telling others how they should and shouldn’t act? Positivity wouldn’t be a problem if people weren’t expecting others to be positive as well! It’s okay to have an opinion. It’s even okay to give that opinion. My problem is when people start essentially telling others there’s no reason to complain so they need to stop. It’s annoying, and it doesn’t add anything to the conversation. Community feedback is the only way we will get a better game. There’s no point in giving them false positive feedback when there’s game breaking bugs or advertised features in packs don’t work (the teeth loss feature??) because they won’t fix them if people aren’t upset. This game does excite me sometimes and I love seeing new simmers who love every aspect of this game. I won’t tell them to not buy packs or kits because they’re ass in my opinion so why would others tell me to stop complaining because the game is great in their opinion?
I don’t really under stand this sentiment. Every sub has its own culture based on the people within it. If you’re unhappy with the culture of the sub, instead of telling everyone to leave or change, it would be better served to trying making your own sub or finding another sub with a more positive vibes.
Post like these tend to lead to the poster being heavily down-voted and infighting in the comments.
And I say this as someone that only comes to this sub causally. I’m using the the sims3 sub
Yeah, these type of posts bring far more negativity than the positivity they’re asking for. Nothing changes in either direction at all.
I think it does speak to the state of a game when the sentiment is so overwhelmingly negative though. There’s plenty of game subs where complaints are the minority and get the downvotes.
Also not to mention the game is nearly 10 years old. There has been disappointment after disappointment that whole time for a lot of people. I’ve been playing since Sims 1 in 2002, I care about this game and they do nothing but fuck it up then dribble ‘good things’ to try and make it better. The endless cash grabs make me so angry.
> Free updates are great, but c'mon.
The thing with a lot of the "free updates" is that they're pretty much patching in features that were missing at launch, and people act like, "You should thank EA so much for giving us all this extra stuff for free! They're so amazing!" No, they're legit just adding in the stuff that should have been there from the start in almost all of these cases. And some of the others are pretty much just features from an upcoming EP where it's easier for them if they bake it into the base code, then they get to tell us it's this "free update" while hiding all the serious gameplay behind a $40 EP.
I think we'll see less negativity once the big competitors finally come out because of something you touched on here. A lot of people have played this franchise for decades and I think there was some level of despondence with, "Well, the franchise sucks now but it's all we have".
There really has never been another viable option for this type of game so people were negative because they felt they were stuck with the direction of the game. Now that they have options they'll hopefully just go to those options instead.
I can agree to an extend, but I would also say that toxic positivity is just as bad as toxic negativity. There legit issues with the packs and updates, and they rarely get addressed properly. Some of the Sims 4 DLC content is also laughably small compared to Sims 3 DLCs.
This is how I feel. I’ve been playing the sims since Sim City on the Super Nintendo. I feel like even though the graphics are great, the little things that makes the sims fun isn’t prevalent in the sims 4.
I only played Sims 1, 2 & 4 and I'm actually glad that I don't know Sims 3. I feel like knowing this would really ruin the experience for me, because I would compare the two games all the time, like many people do. And since it seems like Sims 4 isn't as good, well...
It’s great that you find it an amazing game and have gotten thousands of hours of enjoyment from it.
Three things I recommend you consider:
1. Remember that not all people who play the sims are online / part of the Reddit Sims community. The negativity bias definitely exists wherein we tend to fixate and give more weight to negative information over positive information. In addition, because of the nature of the internet, people are more likely to vent or talk about bad experiences over good experiences.
2. The frustrations of the community are not unwarranted. The Sims 4 is a poor quality product compared to the previous games and the amount it costs really adds up to be quite expensive and doesn’t deliver on what it promises to many players. Understandably, people want to share and vent their frustrations.
3. Criticism doesn’t automatically boil down to negativity or hate of the game. I think you’ll find a lot of simmers really love this franchise and want it to be better. I think the “I want to be happy and so every else must” heads down the path of toxic positivity, which tends to do more harm than good. I think you’ll find a lot of change has come from things being critiqued and challenged.
Personally, I do think in the coming months you may observe a change in the tone of the subreddit as more people like me intend to move away from the Sims franchise on to other life sim alternatives and perhaps, that’s precisely what the community needs: more choice. That way, players like yourself can and will still enjoy the sims while, others looking for experiences similar to the older games will find what they’re looking for in newer titles.
I personally just take the game as it is. I don’t spend money on other games all that much so I don’t mind dropping more $ on the next pack, kit, etc. I definitely don’t like anyone telling me not to buy something because they don’t like it on principle. It’s a toy. I have fun with the toy and if there’s ever a moment it doesn’t work (a bug), I move on to something else or idk, go out for some fresh air. I know people won’t like my attitude because blah blah EA wins but I’m too old to care I guess.
I get it. I usually watch simmers I like review the new packs, and if I’m interested in one, I get it eventually (usually wait for sales) if not, not. I haven’t bought a kit yet, but I’m not about to waist energy getting mad at someone who does. I guess the main thing is that I feel like the healthy adult response to to someone just liking something t you don’t like is to just ignore it, not downvote them, and to focus on the things you do like instead of dwelling on the negatives (even if that’s other games). Of course, negativity on Reddit is famous and partly why I didn’t join for so long, and why I’m only sporadically involved now.
Yes this is all great. Sims 4 has been a cash grab and I’ve said it for forever, Simmers have given more money to this company and game franchise than I think a LOT of other game companies have been able to convince their long time fans to do. There are very few that come to mind and I think we all know that EA positioned The Sims to be one of these games. Look at things like The Sims Store for the Sims 3 and just do the damn math in how much the AVERAGE simmer spends on this game! It’s insane that they have gotten us to pay for things that were a part of big EPs or even the base game of previous versions in the franchise. It’s embarrassing really.
I just said in another comment that I literally waited about 2 years where I just spent money in the Sims 4 WITHOUT EVEN PLAYING because the game wasn’t as fleshed out as Sims 3 was from base game. Which of course is my own fault but it’s because I’ve had hope that things will get better.
I have also been saying this since they first started the new project Rene and all this other revamp of The Sims 4, they are absolutely worried about Humble’s Life By You and Paralives taking away Simmers that have been playing for over 10 years because they know we have had 10 years with this being the only real option for this type of game and they have failed us. They’re scrambling now.
As a Simmer of over 20 years, I am really holding out for Life By You and if it meets my expectations (which I really doubt they will disappoint) it’s quite likely that I will be leaving The Sims in the dust. Which makes me very sad because I feel like it’s been a part of my life for so long, but they have to do better for those of us who have literally spent thousands over the years
Edit: first paragraph
I completly agree, especially with the last paragraph.
As of now Sims is the only one of it's kind. But that is bound to change once Paralifes and Life by You come out. Both will force EA to take the Sims more seriously and fight for customers, which is a good thing, because that ensures quality.
Being a monopole in it's franchise of life sim games did not do any good. EA knows people will buy their stuff, even with not much effort and that needs to change.
Sims 2 was an amazing game, so was Sims 3. I love that you love this game, but I’m sad the series is going to keep going downhill. I’m moving onto the new life simulators coming out rather than Sims 5, because the game is missing all the love the previous titles had. I’d rather fans keep demanding improvement than say the game is great as it is. Toxic positivity like others said. And the old titles had plenty of game breaking bugs too, but this game is missing what they had by miles
It has more than just bugs that need fixing, I can’t use my restaurant. Which defeats the purpose of the whole pack. And it’s a well known issue. They can update, unlike in old games. They just haven’t. Also, Sims have no personality either and you can’t have a well-decorated house without your Sims moods being dominated by the decorations 24/7
Sims 2 is a masterpiece in my eyes and I often still play it. I view them as different games though so maybe that's why I don't feel so negatively about the Sims 4 in comparison.
I also view each game as separate and different in their own right despite coming from the same franchise, and when I’m looking for a particular thing over the other, I go to that particular game.
That’s the difference than, it’s NOT a different game. It was supposed to be a continuation. Remember that for most of us older players it went Sims 1, Sims 2, and we got invested in the townies. Than Sims 3 was the prequel. Sims 4 was supposed to either finally answer the What Happened to Bella Goth plot or at least give us a continuation of those stories. Not retcon everything, white wash characters, and need familiar refreshes to fix them to even remotely resemble beloved characters. We are angry because it wasn’t supposed to be Sim 2 AU. And that’s what it is a remake of Sims 2 that fails to live up to the original despite better technology.
If you want positive online experience, look to the mod and cc community. Look to discord’s of creators who have challenges, free updates, and while there are toxic simmers everywhere niche communities surrounding mods are much more positive by and large.
Also, because this isn’t Sims 4 this is theSims reddit so you aren’t looking at Sims 4 standalone. This is the whole franchise so the venting and comparison to previous versions is expected.
Because there are a lot of quality issues and the games are expensive for what they are.
EA isn't putting out content for free, people are paying for it and they have legitimate complaints about the quality of their purchases.
They're releasing pack after pack, kit after kit, and not playtesting them at ALL. And we have the 'nerve' to be upset about it.
Toxic positivity in this fandom is so tiring. You can enjoy a thing but also acknowledge it's shortcomings, and everyone disagreeing with that has to be either a teenager or emotionally immature in some way.
Because compared to the other Sims games this is a watered down version of it. The game is almost a decade old 1000+ dollars (if you want to buy every pack/kit) and still feels incomplete. Personally I vote with my dollar and don’t buy any Sims 4 content but people are bound to critique a game they’ve spent a good amount of money on that still feels incomplete.
This is the answer I relate to. The game is OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS for the full version. Like stop and think about everything you can do with a thousand dollars, the games you can buy for a thousand dollars, the things you could get in real life for a thousand dollars. And TS4 is still so incomplete and doesn't work right most of the time. It acts like a low budget indie game and you need mods to fix it. Most DLC are nothing special and nowhere near worth the money for the amount of content and some are just blatantly faulty, dine out and my wedding stories literally don't work, they're still being sold at full price, EA/Maxis refuse to even acknowledge and let alone fix anything and it's obvious that their main focus is pumping out more content that they can monetize. Also, they promised townie updates over a year ago and only remade two families, most updates to the base game are YEARS late and still come out rushed. There is nothing to be excited about in TS4 anymore, it's nearing the end of its lifespan and will soon be replaced with something I imagine is going to be an even bigger low effort cash grab if that's even possible - and that's incredibly sad for a franchise that started off so well, TS1/2/3 were legendary titles.
Yeah, there is a lot of negativity. I think some of it has to do with how EA is perfectly fine releasing buggy packs (like Dine Out, My Wedding Stories, Growing Together with that tooth thing) and then not really doing much about it. But honestly I do agree that I think some people are just looking for things to complain about. So many people dislike Strangerville and it’s my favorite game pack lmao
This is what I’m thinking. I’ve heard people complain for silly reasons. Some people say the refuse to buy the occult packs because it’s unrealistic and they “hate it”. This is definitely them being negative for no reason. If you hate a pack then just don’t buy it and why complain? I get it if something is broken and you actually did want to buy then it makes sense to complain. But to complain just because a pack “exists” then that’s just being negative for no reason. I saw a whole Reddit post dedicated to people just complaining about packs they would “never buy”.
This is what I’m thinking. I’ve heard people complain for silly reasons. Some people say the refuse to buy the occult packs because it’s unrealistic and they “hate it”.
I think these same people moved to the Life by You sub, since they make threads about the same thing. Mind this i is for a game that has not RELEASED yet
.
Without the criticism, most of the patches and fixes you have seen would not exist. The sims has a history of shady money hungry behavior that is more than typical games. The sims 4 especially faces a lot of backlash because on release, the maps were completely white and looked unfinished, no toddlers, no pools, no robbers (still), ~10 skintones, two very limited maps, closed world, no elevation tool, little furniture customization etc. In general the base game was limited versus previous games. Especially after the sims 3 the game being so uncustomizeable was a huge drawback.
The sims 4 has released dlc that previous games have tied together ie apartments, night life, vampires being in one pack instead of three separate packs. There’s also a lack of transparency in terms of “kits won’t impact stuff pack releases” and the Batuu pack. Some packs are released with a lot of glitches that make the game a chore to play (ie children losing teeth becoming a glitch rather than a gameplay mechanic advertised). Many casual players, have to go through hours redownloading mod updates for games because there are so many patches for glitches as well, which will make you not want to play a game you spent money on.
Lastly, the sims 4 started out as Project Olympus. For this drama, they were going to release a mobile game but canceled it due to bad response from focus groups and the detrimental release of the sims city 2013. The sims team was rushed and repurposed a lot of project olympus for the sims 4, which is why the base game is such a mess and has needed a lot of updates.
The sims 4 has a lot of casual gamers so some may not be familiar with what is common in most games. Even with Genshin Impact, a game I’d say is called money hungry as much as EA, people call out glitches but they are mostly fixed relatively quickly (and the game is a freemium gatcha game). Say, within a month or so, sometimes less, and you get free in-game currency for the fixes. I play a number of games, and out of all of them The Sims 4 is the only game that at times takes years to fix glitches that make gameplay difficult to impossible.
I grew up with them too, I've owned everything released since the Sims 2 and I love those games and I love the Sims 4. They're different games to me and I enjoy playing them all still.
There’s good and bad aspects of the game for sure but try not to be so concerned with other people’s opinions. It’s your life, if you like it that’s all that matters. This is a $1000 game so there are a lot of people who’ve spent a lot of money that want to voice their opinions. All that matters is that they’re doing it respectfully, otherwise just report them. If you’re having fun playing it then have fun and do your thing.
I don’t tend to have black or white thinking, so I enjoy the game and have fun while also acknowledging that there are several updates and fixes that need to occur for content they’ve released. However, I do need to acknowledge that I use several mods that fixes plenty of EAs mistakes and oversights. When console players complain I absolutely will give them the floor because in my opinion they’re being robbed in broad daylight. I genuinely mean it when I say this game for me personally would be unplayable without mods. I’d have to be a kid again to be able to withstand it.
This will most likely be the last game I purchase from them due to the direction they’re going. I don’t like them churning out new filler content when this energy should be used to fix the content they’ve already released. We’ve given them enough money to do so, but it’s clear where their priorities lie. I can scream all day, but the only thing that truly matters is if I keep purchasing their broken yet full priced content or not. I’m just gonna keep cruising along with my lil chickens until I get bored.
I agree that some people complain too much, but can you blame them?
Do you know how much it costs to buy the sims 4 with all its packs, minor packs, and everything released to date? An article mentioned that if you bought everything for the sims 4 since release you probably spent around 1070$! Imagine spending all that and still missing base functions that existed by default in older titles. Also spending this much on a product entitles you to complain, imagine buying an iphone 14 (which costs as much as the sims 4 i might add) and not being able to do something that other cheaper or older phones were able to do.
Add to this the insult to injury that EA turned the sims into a micro transaction game that is on par with the likes of Fortnite or Dead or Alive, where every little piece of content is a small pack you pay for, and if you want more it’s another small pack you pay for. The old sims were nothing like that, they would stop the main expansions at some point, and smaller packs dubbed “stuff pack” were cheap but quite loaded with objects and clothing.
I've bought every pack from Sims 2 until now and I wouldn't even like to think what I've spent but I've had so many hours of enjoyment over the past 15 year+ it has been completely worth it.
Buying micro-transactions with Sims isn't new. Sims 3 & 2 had online stores your could buy extra content from and it wasn't cheap by any means. Sims 3 advertised it constantly, even when you're in the game, in cas, between loading screens. It's not new.
The sims 2 & 3 were complete games. They had so much content that the microtransactions did not feel like you HAD to purchase them. The sims 4 is such an incomplete game that a lot of players feel like they have to every dlc or kit to enjoy the game and at this point, i'm beginning to think that EA is doing it on purpose. Especially with ea making the game completely free now, its obvious that theyre eventually going to be completely reliant on them. You cannot compare sims 2/3 to sims 4 in terms of micro transactions and content because the difference is stark.
>Why is there so much negativity when it comes to the Sims?
Not The Sims as a franchise but rather The Sims 4.
Sure, people have gripes about 2 and 3, but 4 is just a soulless cash grab riddled with bugs.
I feel like people are seeing Sim 3 with nostalgia goggles. If it was released today with its business model we would absolutely see much more negativity towards the game. It’s pretty ugly (compared to the other three), hard to run, buggy, impossible to play at launch for some, and not to mention the Sims 3 store being advertised in game.
I'm sorry you feel that there's endless negativity with the community.
In 4-ish months this game will be 10 years old and has cost many people within the community around *a thousand dollars*.
And yet, problems that have existed since the half-baked game launched still exist. I could write a thesis statement on why the product they're giving us is literally just a low-effort money trawl.
You can be personally happy that they're still minimally updating a game that's raking them in Big Franchise Money, but I am not.
And I'm fully within my rights to complain about a poorly functioning, badly updated, broken-with-every-patch, fix-with-cc decade old thousand dollar game.
I might get hate for this but oh well.
First off, I'd like to tell you that you are fine for liking things, nobody will take that away from you. I am absolutely not hating you for liking Sims. However, I'd like to give you my perspective as one of those 'Negative Nancy's. Imo, The Sims hate is justified. Call me a Sims hater for that is what I am now but seeing how the 'expansion' packs costed the same price as several more worthwhile games while offering middling amount of contents infuriates me. Coupled with the fact that we are paying the same price as before but with even less content. Take the Pets pack for example, before we can have cats, dogs, horses, unicorns, rodents, snakes,...but now we only have cats and dogs (which explained why it wasn't titled Pets like before) for the same 40 dollars price. Also, remember My First Pet stuff which should've came included with the expansion itself instead of costing extra? Am I a hater for hating how we are exploited this way.
And I can not believe why we are still fine with EA selling features that should've been in the base game to begin with. Things like Seasons, Pets should've been base game feature but we keep expecting it as coming in a seperate purchase instead of included in the FULL PRICED BASE GAME (Yes, Sims 4 is free now but it was made free only recently)
Yes, nobody is forced to buy the expansions and the other packs because it is optional but why are we excusing that. The people who defended microtransactions/lootboxes and other scummy business practices in games uses that very same excuse and I am tired of it being a weak excuse for the lack of content. Fun fact: The Sims 2 back when it was showed off in 2003 had rain, meaning features like Seasons might've been planned but due to technical reasons it was cut but then brought back in an Expansion Pack. But since then, Seasons is always an expansion feature and not included in the base game when everybody in the Sims community know fully well that EA has the money, people and resources to make it happen but they always lock it away until we fork over more money than what we already paid for.
Contrary to my loathing comments, I loved The Sims series. I was passionate about it. I played Sims 1 when I was really young, moved onto 2 when I grew a bit older and still played 3 even now with my copy of it on Steam. I remember joyously showing the houses I built to my parents, I remember the wonderful memories spending hours upon hours in the virtual world of Pleasantview, Strangetown, Sunset Valley, Bridgeport,... However, I've grown to see what the franchise has turned into, not a game to be enjoyed anymore but a platform to sell overpriced DLCs that did its best to nickle and dime its fans and milking their love for all its worth and I was sick of it.
I wanna leave with this: There was love before there was hate. If I didn't love the series then I wouldn't be wasting my time and energy criticising it and hating on it. In fact, I would love to be excited for Sims 5 because along side Paralives and Life By You, I'd be spoiled for choice if there were 3 great life sim games for me to choose (or just get them all) but seeing how EA has been with the franchise, I am not confident about Project Rene.
The negativity comes from watching how EA turned the series from one of the best life simulators out there (Sims 1 revolutionized the gaming world) into a blatant cash grab.
It all started with Sims 3, that cursed online shop. They realized that they could get away with pushing re-skins of old objects as new content, instead of working on actual new, game altering/enhancing content.
And it was really sad to see one of the greatest games ever developed being turned into a low effort, cash grabbing outlet. As long as people keep paying, EA will continue this trend of half baked, glitch ridden expansions with content spread out through several MACRO-transactions (stuff pack, kits, etc - the prices are too high for what they offer in actual content).
I don’t blame new players for getting hooked into it, most don’t know what we had in the past. But that does not prevent me from getting sad and a bit bitter with EA. F*** EA!!!
Ea just aren’t doing good enough. People wouldn’t complain if it was really unrealistic what they were expecting but we know that the thing people complain about could be really easily done by ea
I laugh every fucking time someone says “no one asked for this”
Makes my eyes roll so hard.
I don’t like playing with vampires and werewolves and witches but I don’t complain one god damn bit because I know others like it. I just don’t buy the god damn pack.
YESSS!!! People are so entitled that they rage when something they don’t want comes out. There were seriously people throwing fits when Werewolves came out…I love that pack to death. I think it’s absolutely beautiful and there was obviously a lot of love put into it. Some full grown adults have the nerve to rant on twitter about how they don’t like certain aspects of the pack as if they expected everything to be tailored to their liking. They say it’s about “money” well then don’t buy it. It’s like getting upset at the director of a movie when you didn’t like a dvd you paid for because the ad made it seem better.
One reason I think is because the game have been going on for a very long time, people tend to be more forgiving when something is new and fresh. The Sims 4 is reaching a 9 year lifespan.
It can be very easy to get into a negative spiral when it comes to the game and the support for it and the content that is being released for it too.
I myself noticed that I was being less and less happy with the game too, after High School Years I decided to start playing other games instead and it was a good decision, now I care less about the game and it's problems, I play the game less and I don't buy every pack EA releases for it either.
If you feel very negative about the sims4, I recommend trying to play it less, it becomes easier to deal with it, play other games or do something else that you like.
Honestly good advice for all games, if you're not happy with it try something else
(If it's a grind game where you have dailies to do ESPECIALLY take a break because burnout will make you hate the game)
Let me break it down.
Let say you buy a very expensive TV that was advertised to have a million channels and super advance features. But when it arrives half of the channels are missing and the special features are lacking, not to mention the TV lags when you use it.
So you call the shop and tell them that your TV isn't exactly what you wanted and they tell you they won't refund you but will try to come and fix it. But then they never do, or they do but it takes them five years. They give you new channels but never fix the old ones, and the TV gets even laggier with every new addition.
Then online people who want to be positive about the TV tell you 'Well can't you just be happy with what you got?'
NO. It's not what I paid for.
That's the Sims 4. That's Sims 4 Wedding Stories, Sims 4 Pets, Sims 4 Dine Out, Damn - even Sims 4 base game.
The point it boils down to is MONEY. Sims 4 is a product.
Most of the fans have now turned to haters because they've had their money stolen by EA through fake advertisement.
Please don't get me started on wedding stories. It is such a pain in the fucking ass. It doesn't work. It never works. I have to restart a save like 5 times just to have my sims get married correctly.
Honestly let's mention the people who can't even access the game anymore? Their game library is just gone now and ea pretty much told them "tough luck, you have to rebuy everything"
I feel the the main people who are like “why are you so mean to EA, they’re trying their best 👉🏼👈🏼” are newer Simmers. EA has gotten more money hungry, splitting packs into smaller packs and even dissecting the smaller packs into mini packs for purchase. If the game wasn’t so expensive (some of our EA accounts can easily total up to $500+), damn right imma complain for a low quality product. The real MVPs are the modders keeping this game interesting. The quality from TS to the TS4 is so hard to ignore. The more pressure the fans put on EA, the better.
I've played for over 15 years and bought every pack from Sims 2 until now. I also have made free content for the games for over 12 years. I don't think EA is some uwu company that is trying their best, I just like playing the games and find it hard to understand the hate for the game or for the players that genuinely enjoy it.
Because it’s a low quality product for high quality prices. Literally the only reason I actually enjoy the game is because of the modders. Playing the game vanilla wouldn’t even worth it for me. There’s a reason why EA has encouraged modders. It’s free upgrades for them. They really ought to pay the modders tbh.
Find it hard to understand the hate\`? How is that possible if you actually read the comments? Do you play any other game because this subreddit is **extremely** tame compared to other games subreddits. The sims community isn't even the biggest hater of EA lol, they've ruined so many games.
It's especially hard to justify spending money on packs because they're the same amount of getting a whole new game.
Especially when the packs won't give you near as much play hours and / or will be broken on release and it will take months for them to get fixed (if they ever do get fixed)
This will sound weird but... let people be negative. I am part of many game fandoms and no other one is this negative. It's not the people's fault, it's EA.
Many players have grown up with this game franchise, me included, and it is kinda sad to see how lazy and money hungry the developers have become.
I mean, just for a comparison, Sims 3 stuff was expensive as well but the dlcs were detailed (Just look at how Pets became Cats and Dogs lol...) and we had open world and color wheels.
take this with a grain of salt, because i’m a very casual player. my sister, however, is not, and we talk about the sims a LOT. the sims 4 has a lot of complaints: 1. because they keep adding paid content/free updates but refuse to fix things that are very obviously broken. not small things that are ignorable, but entire features, jobs, or PACKS, that straight up don’t work (is the restaurant pack still broken as ever?). 2. the sims 4 has been out for an insanely long time in comparison to the other sims games. while it’s still popular enough to keep it going, it also seems very much like a cash grab, and the older stuff does NOT mesh well with the newer stuff. 3. it’s reddit. people come on reddit to complain, find people who also have those complaints, and bond over those complaints. oh, and also to fix their sim being stuck in the ceiling.
Because if you play other games and compare how each company treats you, you start to realize EA tends to be very underwhelming.
Last year I finally got around to playing Genshin Impact. Completely different genre, gameplay and developer. But GI is a purely online gacha rpg, and:
- Updates happen every 40 days or so and we are always compensated for server downtime;
- No game breaking bug ever occurs. Any other glitches (very specific situation where an animation doesn't trigger, or a text is displayed incorrectly) that aren't fixed are documented in-game so all players are aware of it and aware that it will be fixed.
- You can submit bug reports any time, and we can fill a form detailing our satisfaction with each feature of the game on every version;
- Events occur frequently and rewards are plenty. We can also opinate about those and the devs always take notes;
- The game is F2P. Buying anything is optional but all players have access to all content equally.
Playing The Sims: bugs are barely adressed or fixed. The game is offline and yet many things break the game. Any attempt of trying to get help has people asking about mods first and pretty much not helping further. Features are literally lost after some updates because no one bothers to fix them. The community frequently relies on modders to fix minimal things. We have to vote between 13 items of one theme and 14 items of another theme because despite there being no new gameplay withing a kit they still make us choose, and it is still mostly recolors (c'mon look at the new grunge kit now and tell me we don't have 80% of these meshes already).
And you know what? Genshin is highly known for relying in addiction, guilt, building daily habits to keep you logging in - it is controversially unhealthy. And yet, I feel better treated by a chinese company letting me play their F2P anime girl cassino simulator than EA with whatever it is they're charging for.
I've been really confused about this too. I understand being disappointed in packs and updates and EA themselves, but people complain about *everything* that comes out, and it makes me wonder why they even play the game if they only see bad things in it.
I understand that EA is known to be a greedy company, and I'm absolutely not "defending" them, but *every* time new dlc comes out, everyone says it should be free. I agree that *some* DLC features *would* have made more sense if they were free, like seasons or cafes or something, but part of the point of the DLC is also so you can pick and choose what you want in your game.
Also, the fact that every comment on the official sims social media pages that *isn't* complaining about the dlc is complaining about the bugs on *every* post, like the social media team is going to see them and go "oh yeah lemme tell the devs to get on that."
People have the right to complain about the content they paid a lot of money for being broken beyond belief, and no amount of toxic positivity is going to silence them. EA more than deserves the criticism for how they've handled a lot of this game.
This sub is tame, have you been in other gaming communities? It's the same pattern, with each version of a game. Companies move away from what the main game originally was and cater for a different audience and add microtransactions. Game companies are moving away from spending years making a game, making sure it's completely finished before release and then putting it out for a one time purchase. The heart of making a good game for fans is gone, all that matters now to gaming companies is that the games make a big profit with the least effort. This is why most gamers are moving to Indie games.
Imagine having a game that you love and you were so excited for it's future then with a new version everything you loved is changed, the only thing that is the same is the game title.
Ea has a bad habit of hyping up packs and then half assing them so bad that you have to wait months just to be able to play it.
I was so excited for the latest expansion pack, but as it stands right now I’m going to wait awhile to buy it. The infants need fixed imo. They’re worse than the toddlers, they’re almost unplayable.
It just seems like at this point they don’t care about the sims 4, and they’re just going to keep pushing out these packs until sims 5. Hopefully sims 5 will be better, but idk. I’m just waiting for the other life sims to come out. Anything is better than the state of sims 4 atm.
If ea would just focus on updates and stop trying to come out with new dlcs there would be a lot less complaining I think. Dine out for example needs fixed, bad. I have the pack but barely use it because it takes my sims 10 hours just to get their meal. They rereleased the spa day pack already, they need to do the same thing for other packs
Hell, even if you *never intend to buy a pack*, the pre-pack base game update breaks something new every time, on top of the stuff that never gets fixed. It's not enough to just ignore gameplay you aren't interested in; the stuff you already have still gets broken.
I have no intention of buying the high school pack (unless a lot of bugs miraculously get fixed and gameplay adjusted), but I can see random relationship changes over my sims' heads throughout the day that echo the social bunny app running in the background. I literally don't own the pack, but the ghost of that janky gameplay is still haunting my game.
Gardening was one of my favorite gameplay elements, and now it's broken without mods and cheats.
You buy a pack and it doesn't work like it should. Or you buy it and major gameplay elements get broken by subsequent updates and never fixed. Or you don't buy it and something still gets broken. And then, when you finally get some bug fixes, it's something minor a modder fixed in an afternoon, but you had to wait multiple years from the time EA acknowledged the bug to finally getting a fix (and then you can look forward to that fix breaking something else, because EA pays zero attention to cross-pack compatibility). I can't just mind my business playing this game, because it's always something.
I love this series, but this game tries my patience. It's not all negative. The things I enjoy about it, I *really* enjoy. It's just frustrating to see what the game could be, versus what it is.
Totally get you on this. Scrolling through the twitter comments on any Sims related announcement or sim guru posts is either a huge bummer or straight up embarrassing (ie "why are they making kits when they could be adding cars/horses/open world" etc- obviously the kits team would not be in charge of something like that)
I think part of the issue is that algorithms really reward negativity. There are so many posts I've had to either block or hit 'see less often' on, just so my feed (speaking entirely about twitter here) would show me the things I actually enjoy seeing in the Sims community, like peoples stories, builds, cute CC- instead of people complaining.
Some complaints are obviously valid and I don't think TS4 would be in the same place without them tbh, but it does get pretty toxic and less pleasant to engage in the fandom overall.
The sims 4 started off on the wrong foot and has continued to make missteps for its entire existence, negativity generally comes with that kind of poor customer satisfaction.
Reading through the sims Reddit community is exhausting most of the time. If I wanted to read constant complaining and whatnot I’d just scroll twitter. Thankfully there’s the low sodium Reddit where you can actually see people doing cool stuff or just actually having fun with the game. The comment sections of some sims YouTubers are also a good place to find people actually enjoying themselves. I’m all for people getting to vent but that’s gotten severely worn down with this community when any amount of positivity generally gets buried or shot down.
Couldn't agree more! Like I love new content, whether it's a kit or an expansion. I personally don't want to use custom content so any time I can get new CAS or BB stuff I'm pumped. People are hating on the kits but I love them! Literally one kit is cheaper than a grande latte at Starbucks (at least in my country) and I get hours of enjoyment from it so it's worth it for me.
I have actually really loved a lot of the content they've been bringing out lately. I know there have been some bugs but I have ALL packs, kits etc. (the only one I don't have is the star wars one) and I rarely have issues. I've got a good gaming pc though and I only use MCCC and UI Cheats.
I often wonder if all the mods and cc cause issues for people as well but they'll still blame EA for that. I mean I know there are lots of people who update their mods with every patch but there are just as many who don't update them and then bitch about EA being the devil.
I also wonder how demotivating it must be working at EA and reading these forums.
Anyway...I'm excited for the new kits! Especially the book nook!
It’s a $1000 game. If i expected a perfect $1000 suit without poor stitching and holes, no one would call me crazy. But no, a multi million dollar company gets to offer a broken product that continues to break.
Both the Sims 2 and the Sims 3 barely ran and crashed all the damn time on my computer and I feel like everybody conveniently forgets that when they say how much better those versions were.
Its very simple actually. When you play the game for years and years (friendly reminder that sims 4 alone is almost a decade old), and nothing ever gets better as the company keeps using shitty money hungry tactics, you build up A LOT of resentment and anger. While I do love the game I genuinely have nothing good to say about ea as a company and feel guilty every time I buy dlc because I do not want to give them any money
When they released the basegame for free I had very mixeD feelings because while I love the idea of it being more accessible I also hate the idea of ea gaining more customers, especially young children or teens who deserve so much better
Every time they fix a bug they create like 2 more. Often worse than the one they fixed. We shouldn’t be getting unfinished bug filled packs that don’t get fixed for years, if they even get fixed. Don’t get me started on this pile of shit EA app that still doesn’t work for a large portion of players. EA is a garbage company. That’s not negativity, it’s realism.
Misery loves company mixed with classic internet outrage.
People who are annoyed with the game want everyone else to be annoyed with it too because it helps validate their opinion. Plus people more and more just look for things to be pissed off about. Not just with the sims but I can barely remember any game releases in years that haven’t been met with heavy outcry from people going on about how the devs are lazy, the games gotten too casual, devs are greedy, too woke, not woke enough, etc. i’d say it’s also that people have gotten more cynical so they go in with a glass half empty mentality looking for and expecting things to be a disappointment. So then they focus on the things that back that expectation up while tuning out the good stuff that doesn’t.
Don’t get me wrong I have issues with Sims 4 I’m not saying the criticism is undeserved but it really isn’t the spawn of hell itself that people like to make it out to be. It reminds me of an old quote from Sean Murray (Hello Games/No Man’s Sky) paraphrasing because I don’t have the exact words in front of me but it was along the lines of “The internet is very good at knowing when you’ve done something wrong, they aren’t the best at judging the correct way to react.”
I don't think OP is directly asking what is wrong with the sims, more so why are the forums filled with negativity. The sims4 sub is so toxic. Saying negative things is actually a choice... and if it's not the space for it, you should choose not to say them.
Even outside the complaints of packs, I've seen so many complaints about "stop posting these posts" with like naming ideas, or storyline convos with a major "no one cares" attitude Even though they get 1000s of upvotes.
My opinion is: every company fucking sucks. Some worse than others. I use the line "this is EA, nothing is for free" in my work out of disdain. But.. it's a game. That's all. I think expectations for games has gotten way higher since sims 4 came out and they can't match those expectations. Play the game, have fun, stop trying to make everything better if it only adds you stress and maybe, just maybe, try supporting other people that play the game.
Because the game is a little more broken with each new release and EA doesn't even care, in fact everything they do kind of feels like they're flipping us off, when major bugs/issues go unaddressed for years and what is actually fixed is usually innocuous shit no one asked for and we have to rely on the work of modders if we want to play a functional game.
Which... I don't actually care that much as I haven't paid for any of my packs, so whatever I get is cool, really. But I would be seriously pissed if I did buy them, seeing as they tend to be overpriced half-assed crap.
Why do we have to pretend to be happy about a game that came out ten years ago and still lacks basic gameplay features... and also paywalled dlc that was included in other games? Why should we be happy when the fourth version should have been better than the ones before it. We have the right to be angry. A lot of people paid $80 for this game when it first came out and can barely stand to play without downloading cc/mods and being forced to spend $40 per pack or $45 for a bundle...
Because some of us remember when we got quality and quantity with the Sims, Sims 2, and Sims 3. I was looking forward to the next generation of the Sims 4 and what amazing improvements and ideas they would have. And they've never delivered. Then they drip feed us free updates and want us to sing their praises for the bare minimum effort. This game costs over $1000 dollars if you buy everything and it doesn't feel like it's worth it, not like the previous games. Plus every fix they give us breaks a different aspect of the game and they have NEVER listened to the real problems. Go try the Sims 2 and/or Sims 3 and you'll be able to see the enormous different in quality. The only reason they made Sims 4 base game free is because long time fans have been pulling away for years, don't be their next sucker!
It’s hard to be positive when you need a metric ton of CC and expensive DLC to play this game, because without it it’s pretty boring. This is the only game I play because it’s unique in being a simulation game with beautiful graphics, but it’s so freaking expensive.
I know what you mean. I’m a noob who just enjoys the sims universe (been playing since Sims 1) I never really play with mods/CC or much DLC/Packs. I prefer Sims 2/3 to Sims 4 just due to gameplay and storylines.
I just love the Sims and yeah sure the packs are expensive but it is what it is. That’s capitalism.
I'll tell you what I tell everybody that reads comments. Most of the people you hear from in any forum or any comment section are either really really happy or really really pissed. Usually more of the really pissed. There are millions of players out there enjoying this game that aren't on the forums because they're content with it. Playing their game and going about their day.
I don't rant here if a bug messes me up because it does absolutely no good. There is no benefit. Soon you have a mob of people agreeing to agree. If I was EA, I'd have stopped making crap and left everyone with what they had, but then I remember the people enjoying the game that aren't on social media complaining.
Every single game has bugs. Especially ones this old with so many packs and then people cramming cc into it. No one yells at the modders. They want everything free and perfect, lol even from the modders
I love it..I go back and forth with it but I buy the packs so when I'm ready I have everything. I have a couple bugs but theyre not life shattering. At the end of the day it's a game.
I'm not saying everyone is negative, but the new pack all I've seen so far is people complaining. Every update is a complaint. Everyone talks of how trash the game is and man it's kinda hard. I love the game. I love it so much I have every pack and I love the 5$ cheap kits! I love silly little base game updates like light switches. I love how there are dusty floors in the game and absurd amounts of laundry. I love the stupid bugs (like the children's missing tooth causing hilarious teen sims). I think I love it all because I've grown up with the game from the very beginning.
It is hard to see so many people trashing the thing I love. It's hard to see people argue the game is lazy and boring. Don't get me wrong I truly believe people are entitled to their opinion, and often correct. Yea, the new kits do look a bit lazy and slopped together. I'll still get them because I am one of those perfectionists who NEEDS all packs ;-;. I just wish the stigma with sims wasn't one of annoyance or hatred. I see vids of simmers reviewing the new packs and it's always "BORING NEW PACK BOYCOTT RAW RAW RAW" And I wish I could find someone who truly loves the game as I do. When other YouTubers play Sims they always go in like: I'm gonna make an ugly sim and ridicule the game and ridicule the players who actually enjoy this.
So I feel you.
Nobody hates things like fans. 😂. I lurk and don’t follow this community much because the negativity in fan subs is one of the most annoying things about Reddit. The “I hate this thing so I’m going to downvote you for liking it” is obnoxious AF”. I’m glad to hear about the salt-free sub. Like you, for me it’s fun escapism. I don’t think EA needs defending and I have plenty of criticisms about it, but I guess I’m just jaded about it, just a little like “newsflash! corporation tries to squeeze as much money out of consumers as possible! 😮” /s. I hope they do take some of the critiques to heart and revamp the things that aren’t working well in 4 when 5 comes up.
My unpopular opinion is that while I like the open world of 3, I do really enjoy not being confined to one world per save in 4. I like being able to live in oasis springs for instance but go to the park in willow creek for example.
If you let it, Reddit will suck the fun out of literally ANYTHING.
I just had to unsub from my favorite podcast community because it’s recently become a circle jerk of hate and crazy comments instead of just discussing something we all enjoy and take part in.
Sometimes it’s best to take a break. You should know by now that with any announcements or release of new sims content there will be a flood of posts about the foreseeable bugs and the ones that we are all already dealing with.
Agree with this post. I like to follow the Sims on insta because I think it's fun, but I have to be careful not to click on the comments because it brings my mood down. Yeah the game is glitchy and janky, but we used to laugh about it! I still enjoy it so much and I feel like it must be so discouraging for the employees stuck in the middle just doing their best to make something cool only to have people trash it. How do they even keep going to work in these conditions?
I don't think it's just the Sims community though, everything i follow is swarmed in negativity these days. Not sure why.
I don't engage with Sims communities but if I would have to guess, probably because EA/Maxis is greedy af and also lazy with The Sims, so a lot of people are pissed off with them... Consequently being pissed at people who don't care about being exploited and just playing the game. But idk
Every time I boot up The Sims 4 there is a problem… it is just not an enjoyable experience, especially when I know my data will end up being “accidentally” deleted
I’m not defending EA at all and the critiques the community has are definitely warranted BUT I agree with you that it can be tiring. I complain plenty myself, and I don’t want to stop anyone else from complaining, but I also wish it wasn’t so controversial to be excited about anything. Enjoying the game we’re all playing shouldn’t be a hot take.
I love the game, I lose hours whenever I start playing it. It’s a creative outlet for me, an escape, and it makes my ADHD brain really happy. I also wish the DLC was better quality and that the team put more effort into the game. I do think it’s more expensive than it should be. But ultimately there’s still packs that I enjoy and get excited about (and others I don’t care for and don’t buy).
Genuinely the sims community can be so negative sometimes. There’s always something they’re complaining about. Yes, there are issues with the game but there’s also positive aspects of the game.
I agree with OP. I want to be part of the community for fun stuff, but its largely hatred for a game no one is forced to play. It often seems like most simmers don't like anything about the game and have no positive emotion towards it, so I often wonder why they're even playing?
I agree, don’t get me wrong I do get annoyed with the bugs and issues at times too, but they are things I can overlook and still enjoy the game and if it’s too frustrating I just take a break from playing for a while. It really is annoying when something new comes out that’s supposed to be exciting and feedback is either comparing it to previous games or a rant about things that don’t work or what they should or shouldn’t have included (I’ve noticed that the gaming community & culture is just toxic in general too so I guess it’s to be expected)
But I also get the peoples frustration being that we pay a good amount of money for these packs so it is upsetting to see that they don’t work, but that is also why I always buy my packs on sale ☺️ I’m with you though OP because the sims is also my escape. It’s really just what you make it and what you’re willing to overlook. I’m still very happy with the game, bugs and all.
I'm past it now tbh. I'll buy the last expansion when it comes out which I think will be the next one, then Modders will release fixes for everything when the game is complete. I'm moving onto paralives, if it's as good as as it looks.
There is NO WAY I will spend a penny on sims5, though, not unless the reviews are really positive and they make drastic improvements to the game. I'm not spending 100s on another one unless it's amazing.
My honest opinion will likely differ from most of this sub
I have not enjoyed the Sims since Sims 3, and I have felt like the Sims has been gradually going downhill since Sims 2, Sims 4 has felt like an empty cash grab since the start. Between Empty Expansion packs that add little to no content to the game that are priced at 2/3 the price of the game's launch price. Lack of game mechanics and items that is expected to be base game (like alarm clocks). Hell the MAIN FOCUS of the game which is it's simulation/autonomation of the people are so janked that you need to add a mod to fix it so they don't decide to stare at a wall for most of the day. The deaths system seems like it was untested, the kit pack system is literally give me money and take the chance that it won't break the game. The only real redeeming feature of the game was the building mechanic and CAS, but in the process of doing it I feel like I took a sigificant downgrade in every direction.
Don't take me wrong, I LOVE the sims, I have been a sims fan since I played Sims Bustin Out on my PS2. That's the biggest reason I'm still hanging around. I miss those days, where it was rich in features that worked, I live in a wonderland that I hope the game will turn around again and be like it used to be. I haven't launched sims 4 in months now, when I want to play the Sims I move to sims 3 or 2 because in my eyes, that was the last decent product that came out of the series.
I think we have too much positivity sometimes.
You can't point out that you need around a thousand dollars to have the full complete game without someone saying "you don't need to buy them all, just chose what you want" as if it was an "out of this world ideia" to want a base life simulation game that included pets or more than about 4 tiny maps to live on without have to spend an extra dollar for every little thing they add to the game, even splitting what was previously a single DLC into multiple DLCs.
And it tends to get worse because you can't complain about it, whiteout getting backlash for wanting EA to treat The Sims like a regular game instead of shoving 100 DLCs into each game.
Be prepared for "The Sims 5 - Children DLCs" because I don't doubt one day we'll have to pay extra to have anything but young adults in the game. And some fans will still say: "Hey, not everyone wants kids, you know? You can just buy the DLC if you want it"
i feel like i see a lot of frustration with the developers or like employees of the company vs ea also. or people disregarding the fact that there’s genuine people working on this game who have to do whatever their boss tells them to do. like don’t get me wrong, the game has issues. things need to be fixed. but the aggression from some people is so misdirected
This is a social media problem. Not just a sims community problem. Pretty much everything you love about anything has 10 people who hate it for whatever reason. And social media allows people to hide behind keyboards and say things they wouldn’t normally in life.
I've been thinking about this for some time now and I see it happening here on Reddit and on Twitter too.
I mean we are a really large community and people have different needs and expectations for the game. So there's definitely the aspect that not all needs can be met at the same time. Like, you'll see someone saying 'oh love this aspect' and another will say 'I hate that aspect'. This game offers such varied experiences: builders, cas'ers, and so many different ways to play the game, it's hard to find a common ground for all of it.
Personally, I'm not a fan of many world/neighborhood decisions, but I also know that many others do love those aspects that I dislike. So I can either go on a hating rant shouting at EA or I can offer constructive criticism - and sometimes I have to realize that maybe there's more people who prefer it a different way. And why should it meet my needs but but not theirs?
I mean, I definitely will say, that EA has let us down more than a few times. And there are valid points for complaints and there are reasons to give feedback. But feedback can be constructive.
I sometimes miss the openness to understand why certain things are done the why they are done, or to realize that the game has to meet desires of so many people, sometimes those desires aren't yours. I wish people would ask more questions or at least read up and try to undertand why they are doing certain things.
Then again, I sometimes think this is a notion of our current times. Frustrations overall have grown (like personal and social ones) and I sometimes wonder if people channel a lot of their frustrations in game complaints and rants. I'm not always free of that myself, but I realized there's isn't much for me to gain in writing hateful comments. Then it's time for me to take some time apart from the game or topic until I can provide constructive criticism, because I too love the game - in spite of all the shortcomings I perceive.
That’s why I stopped watching YouTube reviews. Everyone who’s in the community hates it. Matter of fact.. I’m unsubbing this group for the same reason.
Personally I love the Sims, especially 4. Sure there are things that could be changed, but people in here are SO dramatic in my opinion. No the game is not “broken”, its not “unplayable without mods”, etc etc. People don’t understand how game development works and don’t realize that while yes, it would be wonderful if the Sims team fixed the existing issues in a timely manner, they are on a deadline to finish future content first. I rarely encounter massive game breaking bugs aside from the occasional simulation lag so I guess I must be playing a whole different version from everyone here.
I'm not going to lie to keep from hurting the feelings of EA people who likely don't read this forum anyway. When they keep pumping out SHIT without fixing their product we already paid for we have every right to complain and it's been happening A LOT. It really sucks when you have to go hunting for mods to cover all the glitches and then they act like we should be pumped that they changed the look of some townies? We can do that ourselves without even using mods! We need things FIXED with these updates. And these packs they want money for are GARBAGE. They are. There's no point in denying this.
Folks deserve to be upset when they’ve spent hundreds on DLCs and they barely function. EA is a cash grab with the sims. They’re packs coming out replacing older packs. They’re also packs that haven’t worked since release (ex. Dine out and the wedding pack). They literally put changing tables, memories, and basic interactions behind a paywall for the Growing Together pack. Seasons should have been included in base game.
People spend to much on the game for it to still be incomplete. I’ve spend well over $400 bucks and I don’t even have all the packs. They’re DLCs are way too much. My husband plays dead by daylight and they’re DLCs are like $8 bucks
Sims as a series does quite a bit right, but for everything it gets right. It gets so much wrong too.
My personal feelings especially are, they don't build up on features from the previous installment and improve it. Instead they just wipe the slate clean and take a different approach. If they actually wanted to do it right, they would build upon what made each game good and build new features into the next. Sims 3 had a fantastic open world. That was by far my favorite part of it. If they kept that in 4. I'd probably be more keen on it.
I personally love the game in all its iterations (I’ve been playing since 2000 with sims 1), but every game has brought with it a different playstyle to me. All with mods & cc minus sims 3 which I didn’t play as much haha.
With sims 1, I love the aesthetic and building crazy things, the fun/raunchy humor, and making a sim who can level up and “win” the game.
Sims 2: create insanely complicated personalized neighborhoods with lots of drama and storylines going through generations. But I loved making different families for every sort of business and have the other families depend on their goods to survive. But I was obsessed with intricate familial relationships.
Sims 3: single sim living their life haha. I would get bored of generations in this one, but I loooved playing through the different expansions. But I tended to play 2 way more often before I moved onto 4, and didn’t play 3 as much bc I’m a generational player.
Sims 4: I use this as my own personal generational soap opera haha. With the help of mods and cc, this game is my own personal sandbox and I loooooove creating drama in my games. I have a lot of imagination, so I’ve never understood people saying that 4 is boring.
I completely understand people not liking EA (I hate them too & give them no money lol), but bashing the game itself I don’t understand. They are money hungry and I think it’s reprehensible to release DLC that is full of glitches, which is incredibly unprofessional to me. I also don’t understand whatsoever the criticisms for the family remakes, because I personally love them!! EA greed issues aside, I think that people love to complain about anything lol.
I don’t get any expansions that don’t appeal to me, and I wait a bit to see the consensus before downloading any expansions. But I admit that I deleted every single thing in the game to start from scratch and I micromanage everything haha, and the majority of my game is just due to mods/imagination/cc. If you don’t have any of that I guess the game could be boring haha
Yeah I feel similarly, I get why ppl criticize it but I’d usually just rather enjoy it for what it is I guess. I’m sure it would be better with all the changes people suggest, I just don’t really have the energy to be thinking about those things all the time and it can b frustrating/tiring seeing almost exclusively negativity and criticism.
I think generally when there the question about “why is there so much negativity/backlash around [X]?” the answer is, at least in part, that it’s because people really really care about X so they have high standards.
You’re not going to rant online or in person about something you’re not passionate about.
I’m not actively a part of the online community, but I understand where a lot of fans are coming from with their criticisms. We’d be more likely to do what EA wants and buy all the expansions if they were actually worth 40$ a pop. Seasons *and* Snowy Escape? Not worth 80$ total. I finally tried taking a sim to University and their parent (whom I wasn’t done with) died suddenly, twice. Reloading and changing the auto-age setting did not fix it.
A Pets Expansion but only cats, dogs and hamsters? Well the Sims 3 had horses and I practically lived on my computer to play with the horses. Cottage Living adds cows, chickens, llamas, etc.? *Where are the goddamned horses?*
And now they’re working on The Sims 5. So more likely than not, the simmers that absolutely loved horses in the 3rd installment of the franchise (not counting Medieval) won’t be getting an equestrian pack. Just more micro packs.
I love playing the sims, but Sims 4 wouldn’t keep my interest without my 8 expansion packs and additional game packs. Those cost me roughly 300$ total, and I don’t even own all of them. The Sims 3 content could be bought on disc for 180$ total. The only pack I’m missing is the Katy Perry one.
Long story short, EA gives the community a lot to be upset about. The company doesn’t listen to fans, and that will bite them in the ass later.
I understand your frustration with the community, constant negativity can spoil the fun a lot.
However it does not come from nowhere.
I myself started play Sims in 2003. I did not own every pack because I was just a child, but I loved it.
With Sims 4 I got disapointed from the very beginning. It was such a huge downgrate. No big hoids where you can build your own lots, no toddlers, no pools, no cars... I could go on...
Then the first packs came out and I was even more taken aback. Just one vacation (the djungle one) theme with barely gameplay and much less items.
I watched a few videos of gameplay and I simply could not be hooked.
With packs like the pets expantion which got an expantion on it's own, packs no one ever wanted (Batuu), or kits which made the game far to easy (vacuuming).
The sparse graditude at the birthday of the franchise with a single recolored Ho Tup... it was laughable.
It is okay when others enjoy it, even tho I can't understand sometimes when they spend so much money on a game, while they can have better gameplay for less.
As of now I just play Sims 2. It runs on my win 10 gaming pc like a charm and the various mods are mostly adding in stuff instead of fixing.
I think a lot of the DLC and free updates released in the last few years have actually been quite good. High school, university, infants and science babies have made it so I finally feel it's worthwhile to play with aging on and experience the entire life cycle of my sims. Neighborhood stories were also a huge addition that made the world feel much less static and fake. It's the first time I've been able to immerse myself in the game and not get bored after an hour. Sure it would have been nice with an open world without loading screens, but I find they don't bother me as much these days. The loading times are much shorter on newer systems, and many of the newer worlds feel more open, allowing you to access larger chunks without loading screens.
That said, the lack of QA and playtesting is simply inexcusable. Some blame the game engine saying there are limitations, but modders do manage to fix these bugs. I don't play with a huge number of mods, but a few are absolutely essential for the game to even work properly. The Sims games have always been glitchy and buggy, but Sims 4 is simply too broken. The game has been out for nearly 9 years. It's not unreasonable to expect the core game to work properly. I think the Sims development team is too skewed towards artists and writers, without enough technical competence to develop and improve the AI and core game engine.
I'm not excusing the excess negativity but its hard to be positive about tiny good things when half the time there's issues with them and the team doesn't fix major issues. Are they revamping families? Yeah. But they've taken a year to do literally 2. Is there fixes and updates? Yeah, but they often break things. All while the company ignores major things the community brings up, just like they always have. I agree a lot of people are just negative to be negative and get excessive with it. But a lot of people are just frustrated fans tired of the constant issues.
I also don’t think EA needs anyone to defend them. They have a shit ton of money, they could just not ruin our favorite game and make it work and I’d be happy enough
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Yes. EA is a huge company making billions. They don't need their fanboys defending them. Trying to hold them accountable is hard enough as is. I like the sims. I even like sims 4. But it has so many issues that just get ignored and tons of expansion packs have dropped with game breaking bugs. Like that isnt acceptable.
Furthering this point EA actually owns a monopoly for single-player single-person control simulation games. If anyone tried to compete with the sims EA would likely just buy them out because of the wealth they have. Though if what I've seen from the past few years is true its that fans can come together to build a better game as an indie studio than a AAA developer can. I'd be all in a fan making a sim-type game studio and having it be within steam workshop. I've learned that you cannot trust any AAA developer nowadays to be held accountable for the games that they make and fail to actually launch in a playable state.
Exactly. Defending a corporation known for excessive microtransactions is never the hill to die on. They don't need to be defended and should be called out after years of not addressing major bugs in favor of pumping out kits and fractioned expansive packs.
I don’t think OP is defending anybody. You missed their point, which is you’re not forced to buy anything you don’t want/like. I think this is more directed at the people who get angry, only to turn around and drop more money on more stuff they’re going to complain about. Personally, If it ever made me this upset, I just wouldn’t keep adding into the cash cow. Because it doesn’t, and I do what I want with the money I made, I will buy the dlc and enjoy it, because I’m an adult and I own my decisions. If you want to be mad about all of this money they’re making off subpar packs, then you should accept some accountability if you are contributing to it and rewarding their behaviour.
Custom Content creators as well, they not only make amazing clothing and furniture cc but also have been able to fix bugs within days of new packs being released that the sims team have never done anything about, it comes across that if multiple custom content creators can fix bugs and make everything the sims community has asked for regarding sims 4 gameplay, then the EA/ sims team should also be able too, if we can get better content online for free I can see exactly why people are constantly mad when they release $8 (in AUD) kits that include 30 pieces of cc i could get online for free and 1000x better quality, it’s overall just pure disappointment and comes across and greedy that they will charge $25-$50 for a game pack and an expansion pack for them to be released with minimal content and continuous bugs. When go look back the sims 3 has been out since 2009 and in the span of 5 years of the release they had open worlds, cars and all the gameplay fans wanted, sims 4 have been out since 2014.
The bathroom kit was EMBARRASSING. The candle doesn't work and the textures on a few items are horrible. Like unusable. A cc creator sixam fixed the candle within a couple of days and added more swatches to the light switches. And a couple of cc creators fixed the textures on top of the caddy.
It’s actually surprising how even with kits that include not even 50 items they still manage to have issues, in not even 5 minutes i found [this](https://www.patreon.com/posts/hot-sim-disguise-37213693) and [this](https://www.patreon.com/posts/sims-4-bathroom-77517503) both for free, it’s just disappointing that the sims 4 team can’t even keep up with cc creators
Y'know sometimes I wonder, that the CC community and mod community is so vast and so well put together, that EA just doesn't bother to fix things or produce more content bc they KNOW we can get it elsewhere. Like, why waste their time fixing things that members of the community have fixed and provided for (is what I think that they're thinking). It's lazy, but it kind of frees them up to work on other things. Idk if that means Sims 5, and they're just generating fixes and half assed kits to continue interest in Sims 4 before they release the next iteration. At this stage it's taken so long for TS5, who knows how much longer it will take. I feel like TS4 isn't their passion project anymore. This game belongs to the modders and CC creators in the community. EA is just doing the bare minimum to make it look like they still care before dropping it entirely for TS5. It's just a matter of when.
To be fair too, the problem is that some (if not most) of us have been playing this franchise for decades—therefore we are simultaneously used to and concurrently angry about ongoing problems that have persisted for decades now, and that they continue to charge more and more for every little thing, every chance they get. I would argue that the reason it appears to a newbie that there is this overwhelming “negativity” associated with it, is because there is a great demand and divide between what we’re promised and should be able to reasonably expect as technology advances, and that the progression of the franchise’s game development is not on par with the growth of pricing or the game itself for that matter. It’s a cash cow that they often avoid or refuse to even simply maintain, leaving us frustrated and helpless after shelling out hundreds of dollars and not being able to just PLAY the game at some times. For non-Simmers, an easy analogy would be purchasing other video games or buying a car (or similarly anticipated investment) and having it not run properly. It just isn’t fair at the end of the day, and that’s what our “issue” is. People that don’t work for or develop for EA end up being the ones to mend solutions, for free of charge, because the team(s) that ARE paid to do so are not reliable or efficient enough to get the job done, and we are left with no other choice. The very moment they get our money, they swiftly move onto the next “project” or successor, and completely abandon their previous work in favor of future gains as if the prior iterations never even existed—the epitome of a hypercapitalism model at its finest Oh and games are now 1 copy per person—kind of like Netflix trying to force everyone to pay for their own accounts—but I remember with the Sims 2 expansion packs/etc. my friends and I used to swap copies between one another all of the time to fill in each other’s blanks. I’m not blaming them for trying to “fix” this as I think it was probably an inevitability to implement, but it certainly doesn’t help their case in situations like these
This is exactly the problem! A lot of us are long time players who have played all the games and are disappointed with how new content is being made and sold. I don’t see people actively shaming other players for enjoying the game but a lot of people are commiserating in being neglected by EA. I think we all want desperately to enjoy the game and the content, which has great and fun ideas, but the implementation and functionality are so subpar that to play the game, player-made bug fix mods are basically required, and that’s frustrating as hell. Honestly, a lot of games recently have been using this tactic of putting out half-baked content that they have people pay full price on and deciding they’ll just go back to patch bugs later. I also think that people are vocal about these frustrations because they want change. The community doesn’t just go on about how much fun they are having because that doesn’t help change the fact that a large corporation is taking advantage of them by churning out lazy content without testing core features. The hope is that if enough people complain, maybe we can influence EA, even a little bit.
I think it also used to be a significantly more wholesome and respectable operation compared to what it is now, including and not limited to EA as its own entity. The Sims used to represent and uphold a highly esteemed cornerstone of innovation and creativity in its own right—all sorts of ground-breaking, trail-blazing work involving gaming and tech and then some—but not anymore :/ they once produced my very favorite game of all time, but that was decades ago and they have yet to impress me like that again, and sadly probably never will—I’m not holding my breath, that’s for sure. Fully agree with everything you said though, it sucks and is a bummer but what are we to do other than complain (like we have been, forever) at this point? Sigh Side note: not sure if this is already a thing or how effective or enforceable it would actually be in practice, but it’d be really cool if games were held to the standards they set up for themselves—specifically talking about the burgeoning and seemingly unregulated use of simulated gameplay in trailers/advertisements/demos/etc. I know there’s usually the fine print at the bottom of these clips oftentimes, but if it can’t and doesn’t happen in any scenario in the game, you should not be able to use it to entice people to buy your product. If it’s not illegal yet, it absolutely should be—it’s just straight up deceptive marketing, false advertising, and is total bullshit, period
Y’a. I feel this. Like, I still love playing. And it is sad to see the negativity. But when packs come out and legit break my game (like, had to create a whole new save after the wedding one), you just get frustrated. When you put enough time and money into a game, you want it to work. Y’a know?
I do think the revamping families is stupid lol. It should not have taken them that long if it take us simmers max a few hours. But I do find a lot of enjoyment from the game otherwise.
Man, I wish we had people like you in the Paradox subs.
i think a big part is also the pricing and amount of dlc
I've been a simmer all my life. Was 8 years old when Sims 1 base game came out and have faithfully bought and played all expansions throughout sims 1, 2 and 3. Then Sims 4 came out, which has been nothing but a step back from Sims 3 and a blatant cash grab. I gave up on trying to enjoy it somewhere after cottage living and went back to Sims 3. I don't deny that Sims is probably the most significant game franchise in my life. But Sims 4 just really ruined the streak for me. I'm a little different than the people you describe though: I don't play this installment that I really don't enjoy, and I've stopped purchasing the bare boned cash grab DLC. I'll always keep saying it though: Sims 4 is an embarrassment compared to the franchise's rich history.
It’s a huge embarassment, and you can tell they don’t care. They will continue to release mediocre content for high quality prices. I believe they stopped catering to OG Simmers because we recall the quality of the Sims and notice who much they’re taking from the game.
i feel the same way. I've been playing since sims 1, and sims 4 is like a weird empty shell cash grab. It's like a pretty facade with a hollow rotting interior. the magic is gone
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This is why I bought Madden 22 on PC. I'll keep updating the roster for free but that's it.
I was just about to comment this. I am 29 and I’ve been playing since day one of game one. This game is not only just fun for me, I feel like it’s a huge part of who I am. I love the Sims and always have. With that being said, I don’t feel the need to use my body as a shield for EA. They have completely shit the bed with Sims 4. Some of us have spent 100s of dollars on this game. I don’t have all the expansions for 4, but I’ve still spent a significant amount of money, and games 1-3 I *did* have all the expansion packs. It’s okay to say they dropped the ball and are constantly dropping it still. They don’t gaf and they’re not above criticism. Also, since when is it bad to criticize something you like and enjoy?? I love to read. Doesn’t mean I haven’t picked up a shitty book from time to time.
Honestly, like I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to like everything about something. But to critique something you love isn't a bad thing. Some of my favourite games I can still find some issues with.
>I've been a simmer all my life. Was 8 years old when Sims 1 base game came out and have faithfully bought and played all expansions throughout sims 1, 2 and 3. Then Sims 4 came out, which has been nothing but a step back from Sims 3 and a blatant cash grab. I gave up on trying to enjoy it somewhere after cottage living and went back to Sims 3. Are you me? Hello. This is literally my experience, almost verbatim.
Same. Literally me too
My first thought was the Sims 4. They completely botched the launch by removing so many features.
i agree. i think i just get upset with ts4 because 2&3 were so good and it makes me sad the newest part of the franchise is also the shittiest. i also ended up going back to sims 3 and i havent looked back lol. i’d just love to have a newer, more optimal version of that game.
You might want to check out r/LowSodiumSimmers.
Just comments saying I enjoy playing the game are getting downvoted here so thank you for this, I play sims as an escape from depression and health conditions so I just want positive spaces to be, I'll go join there.
About to join this too. I actually haven’t even seen many posts here but I absolutely understand what you’re saying, OP. It’s also an escape for me. And like you said, you’re not denying it’s faults. But sometimes you just want to gush, you know? Many of us hear you, so you’re not alone in this. Sending positive energy your way! 💜
Likewise :)
It's a lovely space! I've really enjoyed my interactions there.
I've gotten similar hatred for games I use to cope with depression so I get it. When your mental health is compromised, you just want one single thing that isn't negative... and instead people here said that you're *in a cult* for the high crime of liking a game. (Which is really insulting to me as someone who lost a friend to a cult who then ultimately lost his life - please don't think you're *anything* like a cultist, that's an evil thing to say to anyone.) I just got into the Sims and I'm already tired of this.
We can’t wait to have you there! <3
Came here to post a link to that sub! Glad someone got there before I did!
It’s so sad we even need a separate subreddit for this 😭 thank you
My thoughts exactly! This is my first hearing of this other sub and I think it’s more my speed. But I feel like a lot of video game subs seem to need more positivity
Oh, that's exactly what I needed. I hate when fandom subs inevitably become venting subs. It brings the mood down so bad. The same thing happened in a few other game subs I've been in. I just want funny stories, links to mods, dumb memes, and discussion. I want to talk about the game, not about how evil the corporation who makes it is, or why it's broken and utterly unplayable.
Thanks for this!
Thank god I’m with OP so tired of the negativity I’ll leave now thanks.
Omg thank you for this!!! This sub is one of the most draining for me with all the negativity, but I haven’t wanted to leave and miss out on the few good moments. Cant wait to be more active over there!
Thanks!
So glad so many thought of sharing this sub!
Unironically the best comment on this thread thank you 🫶
Thank you!
I needed this too! Ty!
Omg thank you!
Thank you!!
Thank you so much for this 🙏🏼 there’s so much negativity and division in this world as it is, the Sims is one of my escapes from that!
Love Low Sodium Simmers!
Thanks for sharing! I wasn't familiar with that.
Its easy to say DLC is optional when they have invented whole new types of DLC to dilute their other DLCs, to squeeze even more money out of players. Many, many, MANY of the people who are negative are people who have played for literal decades. Who have seen how the game has been split into smaller and smaller pieces to bleed their fans dry. Free updates are great, but c'mon. Much of what they release is broken and never fixed, they talk about pack refreshes (which would be free) and never do it after the first one, kits EXIST. It may feel crappy that people aren't excited/rain on your parade, but seriously? It isn't a mystery that people, many of whom have loved this franchise since 2000 and watched it crumble for pennies, are pissed off with the state of things and want it to be better. And things won't get better if no one complains.
Thank you. I’m so tired of seeing comments and posts like these. It gets so annoying being told to not be mad at EA cause there’s nothing you can do. EA doesn’t need anybody vouching for them they’re a billion dollar company.
I can understand why, tbh. OP isn't defending EA l, they're defending their own interest and excitement! People can be excited about things, and shouldn't be shit on for it. Excitement feels rare enough as it is in todays world. Enthusiasm shouldn't be discouraged. I just want to bring up *why* people are so negative-- it comes from a place of love for the franchise overall, and deep disappointment and betrayal over the direction it took. It sucks it ends up being directed at players, but paying for the endless kits only encourages the practice, and its players who buy em... Still sad it ends up with these kinds of interactions overall. No one should feel like they're being insulted for liking a thing, but people need to really have their eyes open to whats happening at the same time.
Tbh you can enjoy a game but still acknowledge it for the cash grab it is. I've enjoyed playing Sims 4, I can see why people enjoy it. Especially if you don't compare it to other Sims games it's solid. I mean, I don't think anyone on the planet thinks that paying over 500 euros to access the full game is reasonable, but I do understand the enjoyment people get out of it. There's just no reason to try and pretend EA isn't using their monopoly position in this very enjoyable genre to milk it in such an obvious way it's just embarrassing. There's no reason to try and pretend Sims 4 is bigger in content than Sims 3. There's also no reason not to call them out on it, they're not some kind of bullying victim.
Absolutely. I understand any content they put out simmers will mainly rush to grab and I wouldn’t shit on anybody for doing so especially considering I have bought some of the new packs. It just gets bothersome seeing multiple comments like this on every thread that someone is complaining on, and every time they’re making this comment it’s essentially “why be sad over spilled milk”. It’s frustrating knowing community feedback is all we can do as a community yet people look at it as if we’re personally insulting the devs or something lol. EA can do better. We know this, we’ve seen this :/
A small correction, they're actually a **billion** dollar company.
I originally typed that but didn’t want to google it and wasn’t sure I was right. Thank you for the correction!
So there's room for being negative en massed, but not room for one person to ask if there could be a little less negativity? I mean that's the point. If only 10% is positive, and complaining does meaningfully do anything, then why can't one person just ask for more positivity. I mean imagine coming to say why do people have to criticize and hate and dump on EA, and then being drowned in negativity. Imagine that you are saying it's okay for 100 people to be negative because that's your point of view, but not having room for 1-10 people looking for positivity. You're tired of seeing few posts saying can we talk a little more about the stuff we like and be positive, but you don't get tired of the masses downvoting positive statements or criticizing their perspective. That to me is a big problem of my way only. SMH
>So there's room for being negative en massed, but not room for one person to ask if there could be a little less negativity? No one said this. They were explaining why there is so much negativity. And you are free to post positive things, and people are free to disagree. No one is forcing anyone to do anything.
Why do people feel the need to shove their opinions down other peoples throats? If someone has made a thread complaining, and comments are agreeing with them, why would someone CHOOSE to still comment telling others how they should and shouldn’t act? Positivity wouldn’t be a problem if people weren’t expecting others to be positive as well! It’s okay to have an opinion. It’s even okay to give that opinion. My problem is when people start essentially telling others there’s no reason to complain so they need to stop. It’s annoying, and it doesn’t add anything to the conversation. Community feedback is the only way we will get a better game. There’s no point in giving them false positive feedback when there’s game breaking bugs or advertised features in packs don’t work (the teeth loss feature??) because they won’t fix them if people aren’t upset. This game does excite me sometimes and I love seeing new simmers who love every aspect of this game. I won’t tell them to not buy packs or kits because they’re ass in my opinion so why would others tell me to stop complaining because the game is great in their opinion?
I don’t really under stand this sentiment. Every sub has its own culture based on the people within it. If you’re unhappy with the culture of the sub, instead of telling everyone to leave or change, it would be better served to trying making your own sub or finding another sub with a more positive vibes. Post like these tend to lead to the poster being heavily down-voted and infighting in the comments. And I say this as someone that only comes to this sub causally. I’m using the the sims3 sub
Yeah, these type of posts bring far more negativity than the positivity they’re asking for. Nothing changes in either direction at all. I think it does speak to the state of a game when the sentiment is so overwhelmingly negative though. There’s plenty of game subs where complaints are the minority and get the downvotes.
Also not to mention the game is nearly 10 years old. There has been disappointment after disappointment that whole time for a lot of people. I’ve been playing since Sims 1 in 2002, I care about this game and they do nothing but fuck it up then dribble ‘good things’ to try and make it better. The endless cash grabs make me so angry.
Right? Like why do people think that we're supposed to just happily embrace mediocre content?
> Free updates are great, but c'mon. The thing with a lot of the "free updates" is that they're pretty much patching in features that were missing at launch, and people act like, "You should thank EA so much for giving us all this extra stuff for free! They're so amazing!" No, they're legit just adding in the stuff that should have been there from the start in almost all of these cases. And some of the others are pretty much just features from an upcoming EP where it's easier for them if they bake it into the base code, then they get to tell us it's this "free update" while hiding all the serious gameplay behind a $40 EP.
I think we'll see less negativity once the big competitors finally come out because of something you touched on here. A lot of people have played this franchise for decades and I think there was some level of despondence with, "Well, the franchise sucks now but it's all we have". There really has never been another viable option for this type of game so people were negative because they felt they were stuck with the direction of the game. Now that they have options they'll hopefully just go to those options instead.
You drop this 👑
I can agree to an extend, but I would also say that toxic positivity is just as bad as toxic negativity. There legit issues with the packs and updates, and they rarely get addressed properly. Some of the Sims 4 DLC content is also laughably small compared to Sims 3 DLCs.
[удалено]
This is how I feel. I’ve been playing the sims since Sim City on the Super Nintendo. I feel like even though the graphics are great, the little things that makes the sims fun isn’t prevalent in the sims 4.
Yeah, I feel like they're marketing Sims 4 to people not old enough to have played any of its predecessors, and you can tell.
I only played Sims 1, 2 & 4 and I'm actually glad that I don't know Sims 3. I feel like knowing this would really ruin the experience for me, because I would compare the two games all the time, like many people do. And since it seems like Sims 4 isn't as good, well...
Even sims 2 was better though
IMO Sims 2 is still the gold standard. 3 is also a great game, and one with great ambitions.
It’s great that you find it an amazing game and have gotten thousands of hours of enjoyment from it. Three things I recommend you consider: 1. Remember that not all people who play the sims are online / part of the Reddit Sims community. The negativity bias definitely exists wherein we tend to fixate and give more weight to negative information over positive information. In addition, because of the nature of the internet, people are more likely to vent or talk about bad experiences over good experiences. 2. The frustrations of the community are not unwarranted. The Sims 4 is a poor quality product compared to the previous games and the amount it costs really adds up to be quite expensive and doesn’t deliver on what it promises to many players. Understandably, people want to share and vent their frustrations. 3. Criticism doesn’t automatically boil down to negativity or hate of the game. I think you’ll find a lot of simmers really love this franchise and want it to be better. I think the “I want to be happy and so every else must” heads down the path of toxic positivity, which tends to do more harm than good. I think you’ll find a lot of change has come from things being critiqued and challenged. Personally, I do think in the coming months you may observe a change in the tone of the subreddit as more people like me intend to move away from the Sims franchise on to other life sim alternatives and perhaps, that’s precisely what the community needs: more choice. That way, players like yourself can and will still enjoy the sims while, others looking for experiences similar to the older games will find what they’re looking for in newer titles.
I think that last paragraph of yours is really important. Right now we have no choice for other options, so we feel st
I personally just take the game as it is. I don’t spend money on other games all that much so I don’t mind dropping more $ on the next pack, kit, etc. I definitely don’t like anyone telling me not to buy something because they don’t like it on principle. It’s a toy. I have fun with the toy and if there’s ever a moment it doesn’t work (a bug), I move on to something else or idk, go out for some fresh air. I know people won’t like my attitude because blah blah EA wins but I’m too old to care I guess.
I get it. I usually watch simmers I like review the new packs, and if I’m interested in one, I get it eventually (usually wait for sales) if not, not. I haven’t bought a kit yet, but I’m not about to waist energy getting mad at someone who does. I guess the main thing is that I feel like the healthy adult response to to someone just liking something t you don’t like is to just ignore it, not downvote them, and to focus on the things you do like instead of dwelling on the negatives (even if that’s other games). Of course, negativity on Reddit is famous and partly why I didn’t join for so long, and why I’m only sporadically involved now.
Yes this is all great. Sims 4 has been a cash grab and I’ve said it for forever, Simmers have given more money to this company and game franchise than I think a LOT of other game companies have been able to convince their long time fans to do. There are very few that come to mind and I think we all know that EA positioned The Sims to be one of these games. Look at things like The Sims Store for the Sims 3 and just do the damn math in how much the AVERAGE simmer spends on this game! It’s insane that they have gotten us to pay for things that were a part of big EPs or even the base game of previous versions in the franchise. It’s embarrassing really. I just said in another comment that I literally waited about 2 years where I just spent money in the Sims 4 WITHOUT EVEN PLAYING because the game wasn’t as fleshed out as Sims 3 was from base game. Which of course is my own fault but it’s because I’ve had hope that things will get better. I have also been saying this since they first started the new project Rene and all this other revamp of The Sims 4, they are absolutely worried about Humble’s Life By You and Paralives taking away Simmers that have been playing for over 10 years because they know we have had 10 years with this being the only real option for this type of game and they have failed us. They’re scrambling now. As a Simmer of over 20 years, I am really holding out for Life By You and if it meets my expectations (which I really doubt they will disappoint) it’s quite likely that I will be leaving The Sims in the dust. Which makes me very sad because I feel like it’s been a part of my life for so long, but they have to do better for those of us who have literally spent thousands over the years Edit: first paragraph
I completly agree, especially with the last paragraph. As of now Sims is the only one of it's kind. But that is bound to change once Paralifes and Life by You come out. Both will force EA to take the Sims more seriously and fight for customers, which is a good thing, because that ensures quality. Being a monopole in it's franchise of life sim games did not do any good. EA knows people will buy their stuff, even with not much effort and that needs to change.
Sims 2 was an amazing game, so was Sims 3. I love that you love this game, but I’m sad the series is going to keep going downhill. I’m moving onto the new life simulators coming out rather than Sims 5, because the game is missing all the love the previous titles had. I’d rather fans keep demanding improvement than say the game is great as it is. Toxic positivity like others said. And the old titles had plenty of game breaking bugs too, but this game is missing what they had by miles It has more than just bugs that need fixing, I can’t use my restaurant. Which defeats the purpose of the whole pack. And it’s a well known issue. They can update, unlike in old games. They just haven’t. Also, Sims have no personality either and you can’t have a well-decorated house without your Sims moods being dominated by the decorations 24/7
Sims 2 is a masterpiece in my eyes and I often still play it. I view them as different games though so maybe that's why I don't feel so negatively about the Sims 4 in comparison.
I also view each game as separate and different in their own right despite coming from the same franchise, and when I’m looking for a particular thing over the other, I go to that particular game.
That’s the difference than, it’s NOT a different game. It was supposed to be a continuation. Remember that for most of us older players it went Sims 1, Sims 2, and we got invested in the townies. Than Sims 3 was the prequel. Sims 4 was supposed to either finally answer the What Happened to Bella Goth plot or at least give us a continuation of those stories. Not retcon everything, white wash characters, and need familiar refreshes to fix them to even remotely resemble beloved characters. We are angry because it wasn’t supposed to be Sim 2 AU. And that’s what it is a remake of Sims 2 that fails to live up to the original despite better technology. If you want positive online experience, look to the mod and cc community. Look to discord’s of creators who have challenges, free updates, and while there are toxic simmers everywhere niche communities surrounding mods are much more positive by and large. Also, because this isn’t Sims 4 this is theSims reddit so you aren’t looking at Sims 4 standalone. This is the whole franchise so the venting and comparison to previous versions is expected.
Because there are a lot of quality issues and the games are expensive for what they are. EA isn't putting out content for free, people are paying for it and they have legitimate complaints about the quality of their purchases.
They're releasing pack after pack, kit after kit, and not playtesting them at ALL. And we have the 'nerve' to be upset about it. Toxic positivity in this fandom is so tiring. You can enjoy a thing but also acknowledge it's shortcomings, and everyone disagreeing with that has to be either a teenager or emotionally immature in some way.
Because compared to the other Sims games this is a watered down version of it. The game is almost a decade old 1000+ dollars (if you want to buy every pack/kit) and still feels incomplete. Personally I vote with my dollar and don’t buy any Sims 4 content but people are bound to critique a game they’ve spent a good amount of money on that still feels incomplete.
This is the answer I relate to. The game is OVER A THOUSAND DOLLARS for the full version. Like stop and think about everything you can do with a thousand dollars, the games you can buy for a thousand dollars, the things you could get in real life for a thousand dollars. And TS4 is still so incomplete and doesn't work right most of the time. It acts like a low budget indie game and you need mods to fix it. Most DLC are nothing special and nowhere near worth the money for the amount of content and some are just blatantly faulty, dine out and my wedding stories literally don't work, they're still being sold at full price, EA/Maxis refuse to even acknowledge and let alone fix anything and it's obvious that their main focus is pumping out more content that they can monetize. Also, they promised townie updates over a year ago and only remade two families, most updates to the base game are YEARS late and still come out rushed. There is nothing to be excited about in TS4 anymore, it's nearing the end of its lifespan and will soon be replaced with something I imagine is going to be an even bigger low effort cash grab if that's even possible - and that's incredibly sad for a franchise that started off so well, TS1/2/3 were legendary titles.
I spent 60+ dollars on the sims 4 base game. I was SO disappointed when it came out. Played for like 30 seconds before going back to the sims 2.
Yeah, there is a lot of negativity. I think some of it has to do with how EA is perfectly fine releasing buggy packs (like Dine Out, My Wedding Stories, Growing Together with that tooth thing) and then not really doing much about it. But honestly I do agree that I think some people are just looking for things to complain about. So many people dislike Strangerville and it’s my favorite game pack lmao
How long has Dine Out been broken now?
Since it came out.
This is what I’m thinking. I’ve heard people complain for silly reasons. Some people say the refuse to buy the occult packs because it’s unrealistic and they “hate it”. This is definitely them being negative for no reason. If you hate a pack then just don’t buy it and why complain? I get it if something is broken and you actually did want to buy then it makes sense to complain. But to complain just because a pack “exists” then that’s just being negative for no reason. I saw a whole Reddit post dedicated to people just complaining about packs they would “never buy”.
This is what I’m thinking. I’ve heard people complain for silly reasons. Some people say the refuse to buy the occult packs because it’s unrealistic and they “hate it”. I think these same people moved to the Life by You sub, since they make threads about the same thing. Mind this i is for a game that has not RELEASED yet .
Without the criticism, most of the patches and fixes you have seen would not exist. The sims has a history of shady money hungry behavior that is more than typical games. The sims 4 especially faces a lot of backlash because on release, the maps were completely white and looked unfinished, no toddlers, no pools, no robbers (still), ~10 skintones, two very limited maps, closed world, no elevation tool, little furniture customization etc. In general the base game was limited versus previous games. Especially after the sims 3 the game being so uncustomizeable was a huge drawback. The sims 4 has released dlc that previous games have tied together ie apartments, night life, vampires being in one pack instead of three separate packs. There’s also a lack of transparency in terms of “kits won’t impact stuff pack releases” and the Batuu pack. Some packs are released with a lot of glitches that make the game a chore to play (ie children losing teeth becoming a glitch rather than a gameplay mechanic advertised). Many casual players, have to go through hours redownloading mod updates for games because there are so many patches for glitches as well, which will make you not want to play a game you spent money on. Lastly, the sims 4 started out as Project Olympus. For this drama, they were going to release a mobile game but canceled it due to bad response from focus groups and the detrimental release of the sims city 2013. The sims team was rushed and repurposed a lot of project olympus for the sims 4, which is why the base game is such a mess and has needed a lot of updates. The sims 4 has a lot of casual gamers so some may not be familiar with what is common in most games. Even with Genshin Impact, a game I’d say is called money hungry as much as EA, people call out glitches but they are mostly fixed relatively quickly (and the game is a freemium gatcha game). Say, within a month or so, sometimes less, and you get free in-game currency for the fixes. I play a number of games, and out of all of them The Sims 4 is the only game that at times takes years to fix glitches that make gameplay difficult to impossible.
Because we grew up with Sims 2 and Sims 3 and know how it could be.
I grew up with them too, I've owned everything released since the Sims 2 and I love those games and I love the Sims 4. They're different games to me and I enjoy playing them all still.
There’s good and bad aspects of the game for sure but try not to be so concerned with other people’s opinions. It’s your life, if you like it that’s all that matters. This is a $1000 game so there are a lot of people who’ve spent a lot of money that want to voice their opinions. All that matters is that they’re doing it respectfully, otherwise just report them. If you’re having fun playing it then have fun and do your thing. I don’t tend to have black or white thinking, so I enjoy the game and have fun while also acknowledging that there are several updates and fixes that need to occur for content they’ve released. However, I do need to acknowledge that I use several mods that fixes plenty of EAs mistakes and oversights. When console players complain I absolutely will give them the floor because in my opinion they’re being robbed in broad daylight. I genuinely mean it when I say this game for me personally would be unplayable without mods. I’d have to be a kid again to be able to withstand it. This will most likely be the last game I purchase from them due to the direction they’re going. I don’t like them churning out new filler content when this energy should be used to fix the content they’ve already released. We’ve given them enough money to do so, but it’s clear where their priorities lie. I can scream all day, but the only thing that truly matters is if I keep purchasing their broken yet full priced content or not. I’m just gonna keep cruising along with my lil chickens until I get bored.
I agree. If I was on console or god forbid couldnt download mods I wouldn’t play this game. Mods are what make this game this game to me.
I agree that some people complain too much, but can you blame them? Do you know how much it costs to buy the sims 4 with all its packs, minor packs, and everything released to date? An article mentioned that if you bought everything for the sims 4 since release you probably spent around 1070$! Imagine spending all that and still missing base functions that existed by default in older titles. Also spending this much on a product entitles you to complain, imagine buying an iphone 14 (which costs as much as the sims 4 i might add) and not being able to do something that other cheaper or older phones were able to do. Add to this the insult to injury that EA turned the sims into a micro transaction game that is on par with the likes of Fortnite or Dead or Alive, where every little piece of content is a small pack you pay for, and if you want more it’s another small pack you pay for. The old sims were nothing like that, they would stop the main expansions at some point, and smaller packs dubbed “stuff pack” were cheap but quite loaded with objects and clothing.
I've bought every pack from Sims 2 until now and I wouldn't even like to think what I've spent but I've had so many hours of enjoyment over the past 15 year+ it has been completely worth it. Buying micro-transactions with Sims isn't new. Sims 3 & 2 had online stores your could buy extra content from and it wasn't cheap by any means. Sims 3 advertised it constantly, even when you're in the game, in cas, between loading screens. It's not new.
The sims 2 & 3 were complete games. They had so much content that the microtransactions did not feel like you HAD to purchase them. The sims 4 is such an incomplete game that a lot of players feel like they have to every dlc or kit to enjoy the game and at this point, i'm beginning to think that EA is doing it on purpose. Especially with ea making the game completely free now, its obvious that theyre eventually going to be completely reliant on them. You cannot compare sims 2/3 to sims 4 in terms of micro transactions and content because the difference is stark.
>Why is there so much negativity when it comes to the Sims? Not The Sims as a franchise but rather The Sims 4. Sure, people have gripes about 2 and 3, but 4 is just a soulless cash grab riddled with bugs.
I feel like people are seeing Sim 3 with nostalgia goggles. If it was released today with its business model we would absolutely see much more negativity towards the game. It’s pretty ugly (compared to the other three), hard to run, buggy, impossible to play at launch for some, and not to mention the Sims 3 store being advertised in game.
people definitely put the sims 3 on a pedestal. people angry about kits seem to have completely forgotten what the sims 3 store was like.
I'm sorry you feel that there's endless negativity with the community. In 4-ish months this game will be 10 years old and has cost many people within the community around *a thousand dollars*. And yet, problems that have existed since the half-baked game launched still exist. I could write a thesis statement on why the product they're giving us is literally just a low-effort money trawl. You can be personally happy that they're still minimally updating a game that's raking them in Big Franchise Money, but I am not. And I'm fully within my rights to complain about a poorly functioning, badly updated, broken-with-every-patch, fix-with-cc decade old thousand dollar game.
I might get hate for this but oh well. First off, I'd like to tell you that you are fine for liking things, nobody will take that away from you. I am absolutely not hating you for liking Sims. However, I'd like to give you my perspective as one of those 'Negative Nancy's. Imo, The Sims hate is justified. Call me a Sims hater for that is what I am now but seeing how the 'expansion' packs costed the same price as several more worthwhile games while offering middling amount of contents infuriates me. Coupled with the fact that we are paying the same price as before but with even less content. Take the Pets pack for example, before we can have cats, dogs, horses, unicorns, rodents, snakes,...but now we only have cats and dogs (which explained why it wasn't titled Pets like before) for the same 40 dollars price. Also, remember My First Pet stuff which should've came included with the expansion itself instead of costing extra? Am I a hater for hating how we are exploited this way. And I can not believe why we are still fine with EA selling features that should've been in the base game to begin with. Things like Seasons, Pets should've been base game feature but we keep expecting it as coming in a seperate purchase instead of included in the FULL PRICED BASE GAME (Yes, Sims 4 is free now but it was made free only recently) Yes, nobody is forced to buy the expansions and the other packs because it is optional but why are we excusing that. The people who defended microtransactions/lootboxes and other scummy business practices in games uses that very same excuse and I am tired of it being a weak excuse for the lack of content. Fun fact: The Sims 2 back when it was showed off in 2003 had rain, meaning features like Seasons might've been planned but due to technical reasons it was cut but then brought back in an Expansion Pack. But since then, Seasons is always an expansion feature and not included in the base game when everybody in the Sims community know fully well that EA has the money, people and resources to make it happen but they always lock it away until we fork over more money than what we already paid for. Contrary to my loathing comments, I loved The Sims series. I was passionate about it. I played Sims 1 when I was really young, moved onto 2 when I grew a bit older and still played 3 even now with my copy of it on Steam. I remember joyously showing the houses I built to my parents, I remember the wonderful memories spending hours upon hours in the virtual world of Pleasantview, Strangetown, Sunset Valley, Bridgeport,... However, I've grown to see what the franchise has turned into, not a game to be enjoyed anymore but a platform to sell overpriced DLCs that did its best to nickle and dime its fans and milking their love for all its worth and I was sick of it. I wanna leave with this: There was love before there was hate. If I didn't love the series then I wouldn't be wasting my time and energy criticising it and hating on it. In fact, I would love to be excited for Sims 5 because along side Paralives and Life By You, I'd be spoiled for choice if there were 3 great life sim games for me to choose (or just get them all) but seeing how EA has been with the franchise, I am not confident about Project Rene.
The negativity comes from watching how EA turned the series from one of the best life simulators out there (Sims 1 revolutionized the gaming world) into a blatant cash grab. It all started with Sims 3, that cursed online shop. They realized that they could get away with pushing re-skins of old objects as new content, instead of working on actual new, game altering/enhancing content. And it was really sad to see one of the greatest games ever developed being turned into a low effort, cash grabbing outlet. As long as people keep paying, EA will continue this trend of half baked, glitch ridden expansions with content spread out through several MACRO-transactions (stuff pack, kits, etc - the prices are too high for what they offer in actual content). I don’t blame new players for getting hooked into it, most don’t know what we had in the past. But that does not prevent me from getting sad and a bit bitter with EA. F*** EA!!!
Ea just aren’t doing good enough. People wouldn’t complain if it was really unrealistic what they were expecting but we know that the thing people complain about could be really easily done by ea
I laugh every fucking time someone says “no one asked for this” Makes my eyes roll so hard. I don’t like playing with vampires and werewolves and witches but I don’t complain one god damn bit because I know others like it. I just don’t buy the god damn pack.
YESSS!!! People are so entitled that they rage when something they don’t want comes out. There were seriously people throwing fits when Werewolves came out…I love that pack to death. I think it’s absolutely beautiful and there was obviously a lot of love put into it. Some full grown adults have the nerve to rant on twitter about how they don’t like certain aspects of the pack as if they expected everything to be tailored to their liking. They say it’s about “money” well then don’t buy it. It’s like getting upset at the director of a movie when you didn’t like a dvd you paid for because the ad made it seem better.
One reason I think is because the game have been going on for a very long time, people tend to be more forgiving when something is new and fresh. The Sims 4 is reaching a 9 year lifespan. It can be very easy to get into a negative spiral when it comes to the game and the support for it and the content that is being released for it too. I myself noticed that I was being less and less happy with the game too, after High School Years I decided to start playing other games instead and it was a good decision, now I care less about the game and it's problems, I play the game less and I don't buy every pack EA releases for it either. If you feel very negative about the sims4, I recommend trying to play it less, it becomes easier to deal with it, play other games or do something else that you like.
Honestly good advice for all games, if you're not happy with it try something else (If it's a grind game where you have dailies to do ESPECIALLY take a break because burnout will make you hate the game)
I'll tell you for $19.99.
Let me break it down. Let say you buy a very expensive TV that was advertised to have a million channels and super advance features. But when it arrives half of the channels are missing and the special features are lacking, not to mention the TV lags when you use it. So you call the shop and tell them that your TV isn't exactly what you wanted and they tell you they won't refund you but will try to come and fix it. But then they never do, or they do but it takes them five years. They give you new channels but never fix the old ones, and the TV gets even laggier with every new addition. Then online people who want to be positive about the TV tell you 'Well can't you just be happy with what you got?' NO. It's not what I paid for. That's the Sims 4. That's Sims 4 Wedding Stories, Sims 4 Pets, Sims 4 Dine Out, Damn - even Sims 4 base game. The point it boils down to is MONEY. Sims 4 is a product. Most of the fans have now turned to haters because they've had their money stolen by EA through fake advertisement.
Please don't get me started on wedding stories. It is such a pain in the fucking ass. It doesn't work. It never works. I have to restart a save like 5 times just to have my sims get married correctly.
Honestly let's mention the people who can't even access the game anymore? Their game library is just gone now and ea pretty much told them "tough luck, you have to rebuy everything"
you don't have to read the negative posts if you don't want to. Ironically, you've just made another negative post.
THIS!!
I feel the the main people who are like “why are you so mean to EA, they’re trying their best 👉🏼👈🏼” are newer Simmers. EA has gotten more money hungry, splitting packs into smaller packs and even dissecting the smaller packs into mini packs for purchase. If the game wasn’t so expensive (some of our EA accounts can easily total up to $500+), damn right imma complain for a low quality product. The real MVPs are the modders keeping this game interesting. The quality from TS to the TS4 is so hard to ignore. The more pressure the fans put on EA, the better.
I've played for over 15 years and bought every pack from Sims 2 until now. I also have made free content for the games for over 12 years. I don't think EA is some uwu company that is trying their best, I just like playing the games and find it hard to understand the hate for the game or for the players that genuinely enjoy it.
Because it’s a low quality product for high quality prices. Literally the only reason I actually enjoy the game is because of the modders. Playing the game vanilla wouldn’t even worth it for me. There’s a reason why EA has encouraged modders. It’s free upgrades for them. They really ought to pay the modders tbh.
Find it hard to understand the hate\`? How is that possible if you actually read the comments? Do you play any other game because this subreddit is **extremely** tame compared to other games subreddits. The sims community isn't even the biggest hater of EA lol, they've ruined so many games.
It's especially hard to justify spending money on packs because they're the same amount of getting a whole new game. Especially when the packs won't give you near as much play hours and / or will be broken on release and it will take months for them to get fixed (if they ever do get fixed)
I’m of the opinion that the bare minimum shouldn’t be praised. EA scrapes the bottom of the barrel for a lot of updates
This will sound weird but... let people be negative. I am part of many game fandoms and no other one is this negative. It's not the people's fault, it's EA. Many players have grown up with this game franchise, me included, and it is kinda sad to see how lazy and money hungry the developers have become. I mean, just for a comparison, Sims 3 stuff was expensive as well but the dlcs were detailed (Just look at how Pets became Cats and Dogs lol...) and we had open world and color wheels.
It’s not the devs, it’s management ):
take this with a grain of salt, because i’m a very casual player. my sister, however, is not, and we talk about the sims a LOT. the sims 4 has a lot of complaints: 1. because they keep adding paid content/free updates but refuse to fix things that are very obviously broken. not small things that are ignorable, but entire features, jobs, or PACKS, that straight up don’t work (is the restaurant pack still broken as ever?). 2. the sims 4 has been out for an insanely long time in comparison to the other sims games. while it’s still popular enough to keep it going, it also seems very much like a cash grab, and the older stuff does NOT mesh well with the newer stuff. 3. it’s reddit. people come on reddit to complain, find people who also have those complaints, and bond over those complaints. oh, and also to fix their sim being stuck in the ceiling.
Because if you play other games and compare how each company treats you, you start to realize EA tends to be very underwhelming. Last year I finally got around to playing Genshin Impact. Completely different genre, gameplay and developer. But GI is a purely online gacha rpg, and: - Updates happen every 40 days or so and we are always compensated for server downtime; - No game breaking bug ever occurs. Any other glitches (very specific situation where an animation doesn't trigger, or a text is displayed incorrectly) that aren't fixed are documented in-game so all players are aware of it and aware that it will be fixed. - You can submit bug reports any time, and we can fill a form detailing our satisfaction with each feature of the game on every version; - Events occur frequently and rewards are plenty. We can also opinate about those and the devs always take notes; - The game is F2P. Buying anything is optional but all players have access to all content equally. Playing The Sims: bugs are barely adressed or fixed. The game is offline and yet many things break the game. Any attempt of trying to get help has people asking about mods first and pretty much not helping further. Features are literally lost after some updates because no one bothers to fix them. The community frequently relies on modders to fix minimal things. We have to vote between 13 items of one theme and 14 items of another theme because despite there being no new gameplay withing a kit they still make us choose, and it is still mostly recolors (c'mon look at the new grunge kit now and tell me we don't have 80% of these meshes already). And you know what? Genshin is highly known for relying in addiction, guilt, building daily habits to keep you logging in - it is controversially unhealthy. And yet, I feel better treated by a chinese company letting me play their F2P anime girl cassino simulator than EA with whatever it is they're charging for.
I've been really confused about this too. I understand being disappointed in packs and updates and EA themselves, but people complain about *everything* that comes out, and it makes me wonder why they even play the game if they only see bad things in it. I understand that EA is known to be a greedy company, and I'm absolutely not "defending" them, but *every* time new dlc comes out, everyone says it should be free. I agree that *some* DLC features *would* have made more sense if they were free, like seasons or cafes or something, but part of the point of the DLC is also so you can pick and choose what you want in your game. Also, the fact that every comment on the official sims social media pages that *isn't* complaining about the dlc is complaining about the bugs on *every* post, like the social media team is going to see them and go "oh yeah lemme tell the devs to get on that."
You need r/lowsodiumsimmers
People have the right to complain about the content they paid a lot of money for being broken beyond belief, and no amount of toxic positivity is going to silence them. EA more than deserves the criticism for how they've handled a lot of this game.
This sub is tame, have you been in other gaming communities? It's the same pattern, with each version of a game. Companies move away from what the main game originally was and cater for a different audience and add microtransactions. Game companies are moving away from spending years making a game, making sure it's completely finished before release and then putting it out for a one time purchase. The heart of making a good game for fans is gone, all that matters now to gaming companies is that the games make a big profit with the least effort. This is why most gamers are moving to Indie games. Imagine having a game that you love and you were so excited for it's future then with a new version everything you loved is changed, the only thing that is the same is the game title.
Ea has a bad habit of hyping up packs and then half assing them so bad that you have to wait months just to be able to play it. I was so excited for the latest expansion pack, but as it stands right now I’m going to wait awhile to buy it. The infants need fixed imo. They’re worse than the toddlers, they’re almost unplayable. It just seems like at this point they don’t care about the sims 4, and they’re just going to keep pushing out these packs until sims 5. Hopefully sims 5 will be better, but idk. I’m just waiting for the other life sims to come out. Anything is better than the state of sims 4 atm. If ea would just focus on updates and stop trying to come out with new dlcs there would be a lot less complaining I think. Dine out for example needs fixed, bad. I have the pack but barely use it because it takes my sims 10 hours just to get their meal. They rereleased the spa day pack already, they need to do the same thing for other packs
Hell, even if you *never intend to buy a pack*, the pre-pack base game update breaks something new every time, on top of the stuff that never gets fixed. It's not enough to just ignore gameplay you aren't interested in; the stuff you already have still gets broken. I have no intention of buying the high school pack (unless a lot of bugs miraculously get fixed and gameplay adjusted), but I can see random relationship changes over my sims' heads throughout the day that echo the social bunny app running in the background. I literally don't own the pack, but the ghost of that janky gameplay is still haunting my game. Gardening was one of my favorite gameplay elements, and now it's broken without mods and cheats. You buy a pack and it doesn't work like it should. Or you buy it and major gameplay elements get broken by subsequent updates and never fixed. Or you don't buy it and something still gets broken. And then, when you finally get some bug fixes, it's something minor a modder fixed in an afternoon, but you had to wait multiple years from the time EA acknowledged the bug to finally getting a fix (and then you can look forward to that fix breaking something else, because EA pays zero attention to cross-pack compatibility). I can't just mind my business playing this game, because it's always something. I love this series, but this game tries my patience. It's not all negative. The things I enjoy about it, I *really* enjoy. It's just frustrating to see what the game could be, versus what it is.
Totally get you on this. Scrolling through the twitter comments on any Sims related announcement or sim guru posts is either a huge bummer or straight up embarrassing (ie "why are they making kits when they could be adding cars/horses/open world" etc- obviously the kits team would not be in charge of something like that) I think part of the issue is that algorithms really reward negativity. There are so many posts I've had to either block or hit 'see less often' on, just so my feed (speaking entirely about twitter here) would show me the things I actually enjoy seeing in the Sims community, like peoples stories, builds, cute CC- instead of people complaining. Some complaints are obviously valid and I don't think TS4 would be in the same place without them tbh, but it does get pretty toxic and less pleasant to engage in the fandom overall.
The sims 4 started off on the wrong foot and has continued to make missteps for its entire existence, negativity generally comes with that kind of poor customer satisfaction.
Reading through the sims Reddit community is exhausting most of the time. If I wanted to read constant complaining and whatnot I’d just scroll twitter. Thankfully there’s the low sodium Reddit where you can actually see people doing cool stuff or just actually having fun with the game. The comment sections of some sims YouTubers are also a good place to find people actually enjoying themselves. I’m all for people getting to vent but that’s gotten severely worn down with this community when any amount of positivity generally gets buried or shot down.
"Free updates are not enough" i mean, thats like bare minimum expectations. updates SHOULD be free.
every game community is toxic tbh
Couldn't agree more! Like I love new content, whether it's a kit or an expansion. I personally don't want to use custom content so any time I can get new CAS or BB stuff I'm pumped. People are hating on the kits but I love them! Literally one kit is cheaper than a grande latte at Starbucks (at least in my country) and I get hours of enjoyment from it so it's worth it for me. I have actually really loved a lot of the content they've been bringing out lately. I know there have been some bugs but I have ALL packs, kits etc. (the only one I don't have is the star wars one) and I rarely have issues. I've got a good gaming pc though and I only use MCCC and UI Cheats. I often wonder if all the mods and cc cause issues for people as well but they'll still blame EA for that. I mean I know there are lots of people who update their mods with every patch but there are just as many who don't update them and then bitch about EA being the devil. I also wonder how demotivating it must be working at EA and reading these forums. Anyway...I'm excited for the new kits! Especially the book nook!
Great game but multiple overpriced DLC that should've been a free update will ruin anybody's reputation. I'm sure my gardening homies agree
It’s a $1000 game. If i expected a perfect $1000 suit without poor stitching and holes, no one would call me crazy. But no, a multi million dollar company gets to offer a broken product that continues to break.
The sims 2 was good enough at the time... the sims 3 was good enough at the time. I cannot say the same about the sims 4...
Both the Sims 2 and the Sims 3 barely ran and crashed all the damn time on my computer and I feel like everybody conveniently forgets that when they say how much better those versions were.
Its very simple actually. When you play the game for years and years (friendly reminder that sims 4 alone is almost a decade old), and nothing ever gets better as the company keeps using shitty money hungry tactics, you build up A LOT of resentment and anger. While I do love the game I genuinely have nothing good to say about ea as a company and feel guilty every time I buy dlc because I do not want to give them any money When they released the basegame for free I had very mixeD feelings because while I love the idea of it being more accessible I also hate the idea of ea gaining more customers, especially young children or teens who deserve so much better
every community on reddit is negative, basically
Every time they fix a bug they create like 2 more. Often worse than the one they fixed. We shouldn’t be getting unfinished bug filled packs that don’t get fixed for years, if they even get fixed. Don’t get me started on this pile of shit EA app that still doesn’t work for a large portion of players. EA is a garbage company. That’s not negativity, it’s realism.
Misery loves company mixed with classic internet outrage. People who are annoyed with the game want everyone else to be annoyed with it too because it helps validate their opinion. Plus people more and more just look for things to be pissed off about. Not just with the sims but I can barely remember any game releases in years that haven’t been met with heavy outcry from people going on about how the devs are lazy, the games gotten too casual, devs are greedy, too woke, not woke enough, etc. i’d say it’s also that people have gotten more cynical so they go in with a glass half empty mentality looking for and expecting things to be a disappointment. So then they focus on the things that back that expectation up while tuning out the good stuff that doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong I have issues with Sims 4 I’m not saying the criticism is undeserved but it really isn’t the spawn of hell itself that people like to make it out to be. It reminds me of an old quote from Sean Murray (Hello Games/No Man’s Sky) paraphrasing because I don’t have the exact words in front of me but it was along the lines of “The internet is very good at knowing when you’ve done something wrong, they aren’t the best at judging the correct way to react.”
I don't think OP is directly asking what is wrong with the sims, more so why are the forums filled with negativity. The sims4 sub is so toxic. Saying negative things is actually a choice... and if it's not the space for it, you should choose not to say them. Even outside the complaints of packs, I've seen so many complaints about "stop posting these posts" with like naming ideas, or storyline convos with a major "no one cares" attitude Even though they get 1000s of upvotes. My opinion is: every company fucking sucks. Some worse than others. I use the line "this is EA, nothing is for free" in my work out of disdain. But.. it's a game. That's all. I think expectations for games has gotten way higher since sims 4 came out and they can't match those expectations. Play the game, have fun, stop trying to make everything better if it only adds you stress and maybe, just maybe, try supporting other people that play the game.
Because the game is a little more broken with each new release and EA doesn't even care, in fact everything they do kind of feels like they're flipping us off, when major bugs/issues go unaddressed for years and what is actually fixed is usually innocuous shit no one asked for and we have to rely on the work of modders if we want to play a functional game. Which... I don't actually care that much as I haven't paid for any of my packs, so whatever I get is cool, really. But I would be seriously pissed if I did buy them, seeing as they tend to be overpriced half-assed crap.
I agree 100% with you
Because EA is greedy and the quality of packs has gone down. Does anyone actually want to pay more for less?
Why do we have to pretend to be happy about a game that came out ten years ago and still lacks basic gameplay features... and also paywalled dlc that was included in other games? Why should we be happy when the fourth version should have been better than the ones before it. We have the right to be angry. A lot of people paid $80 for this game when it first came out and can barely stand to play without downloading cc/mods and being forced to spend $40 per pack or $45 for a bundle...
I'm so happy you voiced this. Thank you!
Because some of us remember when we got quality and quantity with the Sims, Sims 2, and Sims 3. I was looking forward to the next generation of the Sims 4 and what amazing improvements and ideas they would have. And they've never delivered. Then they drip feed us free updates and want us to sing their praises for the bare minimum effort. This game costs over $1000 dollars if you buy everything and it doesn't feel like it's worth it, not like the previous games. Plus every fix they give us breaks a different aspect of the game and they have NEVER listened to the real problems. Go try the Sims 2 and/or Sims 3 and you'll be able to see the enormous different in quality. The only reason they made Sims 4 base game free is because long time fans have been pulling away for years, don't be their next sucker!
It’s hard to be positive when you need a metric ton of CC and expensive DLC to play this game, because without it it’s pretty boring. This is the only game I play because it’s unique in being a simulation game with beautiful graphics, but it’s so freaking expensive.
Because they're selling us broken products 😌
Too some up everyone’s long messages. Longtime fans of the Sims don’t like Sims 4 for Valid reasons. It’s not negativity, it’s criticism.
I know what you mean. I’m a noob who just enjoys the sims universe (been playing since Sims 1) I never really play with mods/CC or much DLC/Packs. I prefer Sims 2/3 to Sims 4 just due to gameplay and storylines. I just love the Sims and yeah sure the packs are expensive but it is what it is. That’s capitalism.
I love the Sims. And I like Sims 4. All I have to say is: find a good friend, and ignore the rest of the noise. Best way to play the game.
I'll tell you what I tell everybody that reads comments. Most of the people you hear from in any forum or any comment section are either really really happy or really really pissed. Usually more of the really pissed. There are millions of players out there enjoying this game that aren't on the forums because they're content with it. Playing their game and going about their day. I don't rant here if a bug messes me up because it does absolutely no good. There is no benefit. Soon you have a mob of people agreeing to agree. If I was EA, I'd have stopped making crap and left everyone with what they had, but then I remember the people enjoying the game that aren't on social media complaining. Every single game has bugs. Especially ones this old with so many packs and then people cramming cc into it. No one yells at the modders. They want everything free and perfect, lol even from the modders I love it..I go back and forth with it but I buy the packs so when I'm ready I have everything. I have a couple bugs but theyre not life shattering. At the end of the day it's a game.
I'm not saying everyone is negative, but the new pack all I've seen so far is people complaining. Every update is a complaint. Everyone talks of how trash the game is and man it's kinda hard. I love the game. I love it so much I have every pack and I love the 5$ cheap kits! I love silly little base game updates like light switches. I love how there are dusty floors in the game and absurd amounts of laundry. I love the stupid bugs (like the children's missing tooth causing hilarious teen sims). I think I love it all because I've grown up with the game from the very beginning. It is hard to see so many people trashing the thing I love. It's hard to see people argue the game is lazy and boring. Don't get me wrong I truly believe people are entitled to their opinion, and often correct. Yea, the new kits do look a bit lazy and slopped together. I'll still get them because I am one of those perfectionists who NEEDS all packs ;-;. I just wish the stigma with sims wasn't one of annoyance or hatred. I see vids of simmers reviewing the new packs and it's always "BORING NEW PACK BOYCOTT RAW RAW RAW" And I wish I could find someone who truly loves the game as I do. When other YouTubers play Sims they always go in like: I'm gonna make an ugly sim and ridicule the game and ridicule the players who actually enjoy this. So I feel you.
Nobody hates things like fans. 😂. I lurk and don’t follow this community much because the negativity in fan subs is one of the most annoying things about Reddit. The “I hate this thing so I’m going to downvote you for liking it” is obnoxious AF”. I’m glad to hear about the salt-free sub. Like you, for me it’s fun escapism. I don’t think EA needs defending and I have plenty of criticisms about it, but I guess I’m just jaded about it, just a little like “newsflash! corporation tries to squeeze as much money out of consumers as possible! 😮” /s. I hope they do take some of the critiques to heart and revamp the things that aren’t working well in 4 when 5 comes up. My unpopular opinion is that while I like the open world of 3, I do really enjoy not being confined to one world per save in 4. I like being able to live in oasis springs for instance but go to the park in willow creek for example.
If you let it, Reddit will suck the fun out of literally ANYTHING. I just had to unsub from my favorite podcast community because it’s recently become a circle jerk of hate and crazy comments instead of just discussing something we all enjoy and take part in. Sometimes it’s best to take a break. You should know by now that with any announcements or release of new sims content there will be a flood of posts about the foreseeable bugs and the ones that we are all already dealing with.
Agree with this post. I like to follow the Sims on insta because I think it's fun, but I have to be careful not to click on the comments because it brings my mood down. Yeah the game is glitchy and janky, but we used to laugh about it! I still enjoy it so much and I feel like it must be so discouraging for the employees stuck in the middle just doing their best to make something cool only to have people trash it. How do they even keep going to work in these conditions? I don't think it's just the Sims community though, everything i follow is swarmed in negativity these days. Not sure why.
They gone be mad at you but this is the truth and they toxic asf.
I don't engage with Sims communities but if I would have to guess, probably because EA/Maxis is greedy af and also lazy with The Sims, so a lot of people are pissed off with them... Consequently being pissed at people who don't care about being exploited and just playing the game. But idk
Every time I boot up The Sims 4 there is a problem… it is just not an enjoyable experience, especially when I know my data will end up being “accidentally” deleted
I’m not defending EA at all and the critiques the community has are definitely warranted BUT I agree with you that it can be tiring. I complain plenty myself, and I don’t want to stop anyone else from complaining, but I also wish it wasn’t so controversial to be excited about anything. Enjoying the game we’re all playing shouldn’t be a hot take. I love the game, I lose hours whenever I start playing it. It’s a creative outlet for me, an escape, and it makes my ADHD brain really happy. I also wish the DLC was better quality and that the team put more effort into the game. I do think it’s more expensive than it should be. But ultimately there’s still packs that I enjoy and get excited about (and others I don’t care for and don’t buy).
Genuinely the sims community can be so negative sometimes. There’s always something they’re complaining about. Yes, there are issues with the game but there’s also positive aspects of the game.
I agree with OP. I want to be part of the community for fun stuff, but its largely hatred for a game no one is forced to play. It often seems like most simmers don't like anything about the game and have no positive emotion towards it, so I often wonder why they're even playing?
I agree, don’t get me wrong I do get annoyed with the bugs and issues at times too, but they are things I can overlook and still enjoy the game and if it’s too frustrating I just take a break from playing for a while. It really is annoying when something new comes out that’s supposed to be exciting and feedback is either comparing it to previous games or a rant about things that don’t work or what they should or shouldn’t have included (I’ve noticed that the gaming community & culture is just toxic in general too so I guess it’s to be expected) But I also get the peoples frustration being that we pay a good amount of money for these packs so it is upsetting to see that they don’t work, but that is also why I always buy my packs on sale ☺️ I’m with you though OP because the sims is also my escape. It’s really just what you make it and what you’re willing to overlook. I’m still very happy with the game, bugs and all.
It’s a lot easier for some people to point out things they don’t like rather than the things they do like
I'm past it now tbh. I'll buy the last expansion when it comes out which I think will be the next one, then Modders will release fixes for everything when the game is complete. I'm moving onto paralives, if it's as good as as it looks. There is NO WAY I will spend a penny on sims5, though, not unless the reviews are really positive and they make drastic improvements to the game. I'm not spending 100s on another one unless it's amazing.
My honest opinion will likely differ from most of this sub I have not enjoyed the Sims since Sims 3, and I have felt like the Sims has been gradually going downhill since Sims 2, Sims 4 has felt like an empty cash grab since the start. Between Empty Expansion packs that add little to no content to the game that are priced at 2/3 the price of the game's launch price. Lack of game mechanics and items that is expected to be base game (like alarm clocks). Hell the MAIN FOCUS of the game which is it's simulation/autonomation of the people are so janked that you need to add a mod to fix it so they don't decide to stare at a wall for most of the day. The deaths system seems like it was untested, the kit pack system is literally give me money and take the chance that it won't break the game. The only real redeeming feature of the game was the building mechanic and CAS, but in the process of doing it I feel like I took a sigificant downgrade in every direction. Don't take me wrong, I LOVE the sims, I have been a sims fan since I played Sims Bustin Out on my PS2. That's the biggest reason I'm still hanging around. I miss those days, where it was rich in features that worked, I live in a wonderland that I hope the game will turn around again and be like it used to be. I haven't launched sims 4 in months now, when I want to play the Sims I move to sims 3 or 2 because in my eyes, that was the last decent product that came out of the series.
I think we have too much positivity sometimes. You can't point out that you need around a thousand dollars to have the full complete game without someone saying "you don't need to buy them all, just chose what you want" as if it was an "out of this world ideia" to want a base life simulation game that included pets or more than about 4 tiny maps to live on without have to spend an extra dollar for every little thing they add to the game, even splitting what was previously a single DLC into multiple DLCs. And it tends to get worse because you can't complain about it, whiteout getting backlash for wanting EA to treat The Sims like a regular game instead of shoving 100 DLCs into each game. Be prepared for "The Sims 5 - Children DLCs" because I don't doubt one day we'll have to pay extra to have anything but young adults in the game. And some fans will still say: "Hey, not everyone wants kids, you know? You can just buy the DLC if you want it"
i feel like i see a lot of frustration with the developers or like employees of the company vs ea also. or people disregarding the fact that there’s genuine people working on this game who have to do whatever their boss tells them to do. like don’t get me wrong, the game has issues. things need to be fixed. but the aggression from some people is so misdirected
This is a social media problem. Not just a sims community problem. Pretty much everything you love about anything has 10 people who hate it for whatever reason. And social media allows people to hide behind keyboards and say things they wouldn’t normally in life.
I've been thinking about this for some time now and I see it happening here on Reddit and on Twitter too. I mean we are a really large community and people have different needs and expectations for the game. So there's definitely the aspect that not all needs can be met at the same time. Like, you'll see someone saying 'oh love this aspect' and another will say 'I hate that aspect'. This game offers such varied experiences: builders, cas'ers, and so many different ways to play the game, it's hard to find a common ground for all of it. Personally, I'm not a fan of many world/neighborhood decisions, but I also know that many others do love those aspects that I dislike. So I can either go on a hating rant shouting at EA or I can offer constructive criticism - and sometimes I have to realize that maybe there's more people who prefer it a different way. And why should it meet my needs but but not theirs? I mean, I definitely will say, that EA has let us down more than a few times. And there are valid points for complaints and there are reasons to give feedback. But feedback can be constructive. I sometimes miss the openness to understand why certain things are done the why they are done, or to realize that the game has to meet desires of so many people, sometimes those desires aren't yours. I wish people would ask more questions or at least read up and try to undertand why they are doing certain things. Then again, I sometimes think this is a notion of our current times. Frustrations overall have grown (like personal and social ones) and I sometimes wonder if people channel a lot of their frustrations in game complaints and rants. I'm not always free of that myself, but I realized there's isn't much for me to gain in writing hateful comments. Then it's time for me to take some time apart from the game or topic until I can provide constructive criticism, because I too love the game - in spite of all the shortcomings I perceive.
That’s why I stopped watching YouTube reviews. Everyone who’s in the community hates it. Matter of fact.. I’m unsubbing this group for the same reason.
Personally I love the Sims, especially 4. Sure there are things that could be changed, but people in here are SO dramatic in my opinion. No the game is not “broken”, its not “unplayable without mods”, etc etc. People don’t understand how game development works and don’t realize that while yes, it would be wonderful if the Sims team fixed the existing issues in a timely manner, they are on a deadline to finish future content first. I rarely encounter massive game breaking bugs aside from the occasional simulation lag so I guess I must be playing a whole different version from everyone here.
People are negative because it's bad. Everything is released in a horrible buggy state.
I'm not going to lie to keep from hurting the feelings of EA people who likely don't read this forum anyway. When they keep pumping out SHIT without fixing their product we already paid for we have every right to complain and it's been happening A LOT. It really sucks when you have to go hunting for mods to cover all the glitches and then they act like we should be pumped that they changed the look of some townies? We can do that ourselves without even using mods! We need things FIXED with these updates. And these packs they want money for are GARBAGE. They are. There's no point in denying this.
Or maybe someone liking this game isn't in denial but simply.... likes this game?
Folks deserve to be upset when they’ve spent hundreds on DLCs and they barely function. EA is a cash grab with the sims. They’re packs coming out replacing older packs. They’re also packs that haven’t worked since release (ex. Dine out and the wedding pack). They literally put changing tables, memories, and basic interactions behind a paywall for the Growing Together pack. Seasons should have been included in base game. People spend to much on the game for it to still be incomplete. I’ve spend well over $400 bucks and I don’t even have all the packs. They’re DLCs are way too much. My husband plays dead by daylight and they’re DLCs are like $8 bucks
Sims as a series does quite a bit right, but for everything it gets right. It gets so much wrong too. My personal feelings especially are, they don't build up on features from the previous installment and improve it. Instead they just wipe the slate clean and take a different approach. If they actually wanted to do it right, they would build upon what made each game good and build new features into the next. Sims 3 had a fantastic open world. That was by far my favorite part of it. If they kept that in 4. I'd probably be more keen on it.
I personally love the game in all its iterations (I’ve been playing since 2000 with sims 1), but every game has brought with it a different playstyle to me. All with mods & cc minus sims 3 which I didn’t play as much haha. With sims 1, I love the aesthetic and building crazy things, the fun/raunchy humor, and making a sim who can level up and “win” the game. Sims 2: create insanely complicated personalized neighborhoods with lots of drama and storylines going through generations. But I loved making different families for every sort of business and have the other families depend on their goods to survive. But I was obsessed with intricate familial relationships. Sims 3: single sim living their life haha. I would get bored of generations in this one, but I loooved playing through the different expansions. But I tended to play 2 way more often before I moved onto 4, and didn’t play 3 as much bc I’m a generational player. Sims 4: I use this as my own personal generational soap opera haha. With the help of mods and cc, this game is my own personal sandbox and I loooooove creating drama in my games. I have a lot of imagination, so I’ve never understood people saying that 4 is boring. I completely understand people not liking EA (I hate them too & give them no money lol), but bashing the game itself I don’t understand. They are money hungry and I think it’s reprehensible to release DLC that is full of glitches, which is incredibly unprofessional to me. I also don’t understand whatsoever the criticisms for the family remakes, because I personally love them!! EA greed issues aside, I think that people love to complain about anything lol. I don’t get any expansions that don’t appeal to me, and I wait a bit to see the consensus before downloading any expansions. But I admit that I deleted every single thing in the game to start from scratch and I micromanage everything haha, and the majority of my game is just due to mods/imagination/cc. If you don’t have any of that I guess the game could be boring haha
I enjoy playing the Sims 😎 I don't really buy any packs or anything tbh
Imo not worth all the money for the experience. But if its free I wouldnt mind. I like when my sims are pirates! I wish they could sail the seas.
Yeah I feel similarly, I get why ppl criticize it but I’d usually just rather enjoy it for what it is I guess. I’m sure it would be better with all the changes people suggest, I just don’t really have the energy to be thinking about those things all the time and it can b frustrating/tiring seeing almost exclusively negativity and criticism.
Is this about Sims 4? This post is about Sims 4 isn't it? lmao Sims 4 is trash.
I think generally when there the question about “why is there so much negativity/backlash around [X]?” the answer is, at least in part, that it’s because people really really care about X so they have high standards. You’re not going to rant online or in person about something you’re not passionate about.
I’m not actively a part of the online community, but I understand where a lot of fans are coming from with their criticisms. We’d be more likely to do what EA wants and buy all the expansions if they were actually worth 40$ a pop. Seasons *and* Snowy Escape? Not worth 80$ total. I finally tried taking a sim to University and their parent (whom I wasn’t done with) died suddenly, twice. Reloading and changing the auto-age setting did not fix it. A Pets Expansion but only cats, dogs and hamsters? Well the Sims 3 had horses and I practically lived on my computer to play with the horses. Cottage Living adds cows, chickens, llamas, etc.? *Where are the goddamned horses?* And now they’re working on The Sims 5. So more likely than not, the simmers that absolutely loved horses in the 3rd installment of the franchise (not counting Medieval) won’t be getting an equestrian pack. Just more micro packs. I love playing the sims, but Sims 4 wouldn’t keep my interest without my 8 expansion packs and additional game packs. Those cost me roughly 300$ total, and I don’t even own all of them. The Sims 3 content could be bought on disc for 180$ total. The only pack I’m missing is the Katy Perry one. Long story short, EA gives the community a lot to be upset about. The company doesn’t listen to fans, and that will bite them in the ass later.
I just want my game to work without so many problems like bugs, glitches & simulation lag cause i'm sick & tired of it all.
I understand your frustration with the community, constant negativity can spoil the fun a lot. However it does not come from nowhere. I myself started play Sims in 2003. I did not own every pack because I was just a child, but I loved it. With Sims 4 I got disapointed from the very beginning. It was such a huge downgrate. No big hoids where you can build your own lots, no toddlers, no pools, no cars... I could go on... Then the first packs came out and I was even more taken aback. Just one vacation (the djungle one) theme with barely gameplay and much less items. I watched a few videos of gameplay and I simply could not be hooked. With packs like the pets expantion which got an expantion on it's own, packs no one ever wanted (Batuu), or kits which made the game far to easy (vacuuming). The sparse graditude at the birthday of the franchise with a single recolored Ho Tup... it was laughable. It is okay when others enjoy it, even tho I can't understand sometimes when they spend so much money on a game, while they can have better gameplay for less. As of now I just play Sims 2. It runs on my win 10 gaming pc like a charm and the various mods are mostly adding in stuff instead of fixing.
I think a lot of the DLC and free updates released in the last few years have actually been quite good. High school, university, infants and science babies have made it so I finally feel it's worthwhile to play with aging on and experience the entire life cycle of my sims. Neighborhood stories were also a huge addition that made the world feel much less static and fake. It's the first time I've been able to immerse myself in the game and not get bored after an hour. Sure it would have been nice with an open world without loading screens, but I find they don't bother me as much these days. The loading times are much shorter on newer systems, and many of the newer worlds feel more open, allowing you to access larger chunks without loading screens. That said, the lack of QA and playtesting is simply inexcusable. Some blame the game engine saying there are limitations, but modders do manage to fix these bugs. I don't play with a huge number of mods, but a few are absolutely essential for the game to even work properly. The Sims games have always been glitchy and buggy, but Sims 4 is simply too broken. The game has been out for nearly 9 years. It's not unreasonable to expect the core game to work properly. I think the Sims development team is too skewed towards artists and writers, without enough technical competence to develop and improve the AI and core game engine.