After being incredibly disappointed by the release of Sims 4, I was someone holding out hope for Sims 5 that they would have realized, “Hey, people really didn't want us to do anything multiplayer in Sims 4. Maybe that means we should go back and make an actual good Sims game?” But instead, we get this awful news that Sims will be just like Fortnite, heavily monetized with its own store, basically following the model of Fallout games with creation club, in a sense. Completely the opposite of what players asked for, and crushing all of our hopes and dreams of playing a new Sims game that's just like Sims 3....
To me, this really kills the entire franchise for me. I don't think there's any hope for it, I think this is a death blow, basically an execution of the franchise and turning it into the most low value (to the consumer, mind you) dribble that they could have possibly came up with. There is nothing they could have announced that is worse than a multiplayer version of Sims with microtransactions, that's basically just Sims mobile that you can play on your PC! Sims 4 is already completely unplayable for me, because there's no content, it's just stupid packs and kids and stuff and little micro bundles. There's nothing fun about the game, and you see people streaming it, it's just building. That's all they are ever doing. Just building crap.
It's even worse that there's no competitor because it's so incredibly challenging to make a game like The Sims. Horrifically challenging, life by me was completely gutted and canceled, and that was one of the major games that people were looking forward to. There is still paralives, But they are so early access and have no release date at all. It could be 10 years from now that they finish their game or longer.
TL;DR: Sims 4 ruined by surprise multiplayer mechanics that were removed. Sims 5 canceled in place of multiplayer with microtransaction store like Fallout creation club. Barely any competitors, life by me canceled. Franchise is dead in the water
Life by You's cancelation was a big disappointment to hear. I figured if any studio had an understanding of emergent intercharacter storytelling in the way a Sims game needed, it was Paradox.
That said, Para-Lives is still in the works and looks quite promising.
There's still hope. Just not from EA.
Mmhmm, Paralives looks like it’s going to take the world by storm. I’ve been following their development and they’re doing really good things.
Don't get your hopes up. It never lasts. These small indie studios create something truly insane that's so fun and incredible, and then big gaming studios like EA come in and ruin everything. A lot of people seem to forget that Maxis, developer of Sims and SimCity, used to be completely independent. EA bought them out and ruined the entire thing, now they basically don't exist anymore. Who is to say that the developers of Paralives isn't going to do the same thing? Guarantee they get a stupendous amount of money offered to them and they sell out, and they would be stupid not to. Who wouldn't sell their franchise for tens of millions and never have to work a day in their life ever again?
Just like ConcernedApe and Stardew, right? Redigit and Terraria?
I wouldn’t say never. A lot of these indie creators love their creation enough to not sell out.
Maxis made terrible decision after terrible decision. They had no money and ea bailed them out and redesigned sim city 3k to actually be possible on modern hardware, while allowing dollhouse to continue and turn in to the sims 1. Then Sims 2 and 3.
Hate on ea all you want but Maxis fucked themselves up and ea made all of the sims possible.
paralives is so slow development though, and the lack of teaser releases concerns me about the quality. I have high expectations for it as well but starting to grow concerned