ALL OF THE ABOVE! The Sims 4 community, and EA in general, have been setting the absolute worst practices and precedents in gaming history. From Patreon to My First Pets Stuff, this big ball of crap has just been careening downhill, and it’s going to splatter absolutely everyone, unless people take a stand and stop giving these people money.
No other modding community charges for third party user-generated custom content (UGC / CC), because it’s stupid and scummy and downright illegal. But TS4 hypocrites will holler about microtransactions and STILL have a paywalled Patreon account, clutching their pearls as they complain about EA’s overpriced Packs and Kits and Store DLC, as if they’re not doing the exact same thing. 🙄
I cackle every time TS4 Patreon simmers say the TS3 Store is overpriced. TS3 simmers say it’s overpriced, because for us, in The SIms 3 community, it is–no one but EA is charging us that much money for CC, and we hate them for it cuz #EAYouSuck. EA eventually lowered some of it’s prices, particularly when they realized they had a brand new market to cheat as they belched up one TS4 SP & GP after another and y’all lapped them up. TS4 simmers have nooooooo right to be pointing fingers at EA, when your own fellow simmers are scamming y’all out of money on a regular basis. Eff EA–PATREON CC IS OVERPRICED. $30 is wild, yes, but there are TS4 patreons with VIP $100 tiers, so…. 🤦 The buffoonery never ends.
Whether it’s Build/Buy/CAS/etc, CC’s nothing new, it’s just building on what the game WE ALREADY EFFING PAID FOR provides. Most CC & DLC made for games are just COSMETICS & CUSTOMIZATION – stuff already in the game, just reskinned to suit a different look or aesthetic (a tv shaped like an apple; a bed with different sheets; hair with or without bangs–whatever). ONE DOLLAR is too much for most of the stuff on Patreon, particularly since the same type of stuff is on the Store for CENTS.
Much of the stuff on the Store is LESS than a dollar. The WORST prices, with the MOST EXPENSIVE stuff, is the crap topping $3+.
The most expensive lights are 25 cents; the most expensive plants are 50 cents; the most expensive electronics are $1; the most expensive CAS items are hat-hairs for $1.25; and the most expensive furniture are $1.60-$1.80 modular sectional chairs & BUNK BEDS (which TS4 JUST got, 7 years later–not to mention CARS, that are $2). Plumbing is actually some of the Store’s priciest build/buy items, with the most expensive aquariums & hottubs from $1.25-$3 depending on just how elaborate they are I guess (I suspect it’s also cuz those both originally came in TS3′s EPs/EPs).
The standouts are the $5 Hibiscus Bushes, which is absolute insanity (they’re animated plants using the infamous Speedtree program though, but who effing cares, it’s still a frikkin plant, EA, and should’ve just been included in Sunlit Tides with the rest of them); and the $4 pinball machine–which is Premium Content–the crap that actually ADDS NEW GAMEPLAY. The vast majority of Premium Content available for individual purchase are $5 or less (like the Cow Corral & Chicken Coop–IDKY the Cowplant’s $7 though; preying on nostalgia no doubt). The most expensive ones come with Worlds/Venues: the LP blackjack/poker’s $6; the AS playpen’s $6.50, Grandpa’s tractor trailer’s $7.50; and DV’s violin is a whopping $8.50 jfc. If you’re not creating brand new effing biological species and orchestral compositions & transportation (which TS4 still doesn’t have yet, lol), WTF are you charging that much effing money for???? Y’all Patreons are out here acting like you’ve reinvented the effing wheel with retextured frankenmeshes! 😭
In the TS2 days, TSR used to be downright anathema for having paywalled content. But midway through TS3, TSR changed to their current VIP system, and made all the CC free, because people said HAYUL NO. But with TS4 and this new online gaming generation of spendthrifts, the old adage is true that “a fool and their money are easily parted.”
Patreon and lootboxes are kissing-cousins at this point, as they LITERALLY BLUR the lines between consumers and the product, so that there is no transparency with what patrons are purchasing (quality or otherwise); where the content came from (converters not giving credit for where their assets came from); and no guarantee that the simmer will even stick to their uploading schedules and give people what they effing paid for on time. I’ve said it before, Patreon simmers swear they’re running a business, when it’s just one scam after another. REAL businesses are REGULATED. Even TSR is regulated. But who’s regulating Patreon and the CC community, unless we do it ourselves?
There are other, better ways to show a CC creator your appreciation and support monetarily. Donations have been around since at least TS2, as well as paid commissions/requests. CC should be free. I don’t even believe in giving EA my money, past whatever I paid for the basegame & EPs that I’d only ever buy ON SALE, since it’s all piecemealed & halfbaked anyway, and quality AAA games are an endangered species. I don’t like spending money with the actual company whose game I’m playing–I KNOW I’m not going to pay for CC; let alone for frikkin $30! 😭
Paywall creators & their shills just loooove talking about “entitlement" and “obligation,“ whenever they’re called on the carpet for being money-hungry schemers. I say this all the time, that simming is a HOBBY, not a JOB. If you want to be a professional developer for The Sims, apply to EA and let THEM pay you–why in the HELL are WE responsible for YOU choosing to make CC? No one MADE you sit on the computer all day making build/buy/CAS/mods, and they certainly didn’t make you upload anything.
Even early access CC is ridiculous, as it takes advantage of a developer system originally made to stress-test beta/alpha versions of games. But TS4′s clique-culture of showing off went and perverted early access, to charge simmers for the dubious privilege/luxury of playing with pixels earlier than everyone else (who’d be getting the exact same content for free if they just effing WAIT).
Most CC “creators” are converters. The content is “created“ in the most basic sense, but 99% of The Sims’ CC was NOT made from scratch by their “creator.” Most CC is PORTED; the meshes and textures are assets taken from other games or model/texture resource websites, and ported into a code/format that The Sims game can read (.package for TS2/TS3/TS4 / .sims3pack for TS3′s Launcher). Very rarely are there CC creators who actually make their own meshes and textures, and prior to TS4 being vomited into existence, even rarer amongst those were the ones who made paid content.
But no, mobile gaming’s fee-to-play economy is so effing lucrative that every greedy shyster with an internet connection and a basic understanding of Blender/Photoshop thinks that whatever crap they churn out can be capitalized on, regardless of legality, ethics, let alone quality. Everyone can call themselves a “creator,“ threatening to sue simmers for filesharing, and throwing around DMCAs and big words like copyright (when literally none of those mofos were even around when folks were in the trenches versus DRM & Securom; bashing people who pirate games when I don’t see any of THEM handing out gift codes, but whatever 🙄).
People always say to “don’t feed the trolls,” but what about feeding & enabling & encouraging exploitative practices, where people can just arbitrarily put up whatever rates & price tiers they want? How do we stop normalizing the monetization of assets on a gaming platform paywall creators don’t even hold the rights to, if y’all keep giving these feral Patreons money? And when do we hold EA themselves accountable for letting people run buck wild like this? They don’t care, so long as at the end of the day they it’s all free advertisement keeping the simming community alive & active in-between new pack releases.
TL; DR: NO ONE should be out here tryna MATCH EA’s exorbitant prices, let alone EXCEEDING them. If you want to make EA money, go get a job at EA and let them give you a cut of the revenue. Simmers shouldn’t be out here paying other simmers to do EA’s job for them.
