The announcement has just fallen like a hammer blow to the head, and within the Sims community, we still have trouble believing it. Some are even in denial, but it’s official, Electronic Arts will not release Sims 5. It was at the end of its annual presentation dedicated to investors that the American publisher gave news on the future of the Sims franchise, stuck at a fourth episode that does not stop offering regular extensions and updates. Those who thought – almost stupidly – that Project Rene was going to turn into a fifth episode of The Sims can be disappointed, Electronic Arts has decided to make it a multiplayer experience, a sort of unacknowledged free-to-play of which some playtests will begin in a few months. but only by invitation. The idea is therefore to make this Project Rene a friendly place where members of the community will be able to meet online. So, The Sims 4 will continue to be fed ad nauseum, especially since the series will celebrate its 10th anniversary. It must be said that with 80 million players and 2.4 billion hours played on it, Electronic Arts does not want to take any risk of losing its fanbase and starting all over again.
At VarietyKate Gorman, vice president and general manager of The Sims franchise, tries to give acceptable explanations. For example, we learn that Electronic Arts wants to break the traditional cycle of new games that replace the previous one. The idea for them is no longer to work on replacements for previous projects; but to add more things to what already exists in The Sims 4. Kate Gorman explains that they will continue to support The Sims 4 more than ever. And this choice to go for a very long longevity is going to change a lot of things. The problem is that The Sims 4 has been enriched with paid DLC, updates, patches for 10 years and all of this is starting to weigh heavily on the source code, but also on the players’ wallets. Electronic Arts also insists on the fact that the players’ creations in The Sims 4 are their progression, their attachment and that they do not want to reset this progression. They want to create a seamless experience, not one of starting and stopping between products. A sudden and unexpected change in direction…
“Historically, The Sims franchise started with The Sims 1, and then The Sims 2, 3, and 4. They were seen as replacements for what came before. We’re really working with our community to create a new era of The Sims. We’re not going to be working on replacements for what came before, we’re just going to be expanding our universe. So you’ll see that there are new ways to experience The Sims across different platforms, new ways to play, new transmedia solutions, and a lot of great offerings in the universe. So we’re going to continue to support The Sims 4 more than ever. We’re going to continue to deliver expansion packs, updates, and fixes. But what that means is that the way we’re going to do things going forward is a little bit different. It’s really exciting and it’s really the most expansive iteration of The Sims yet.”
As you can see, we are dealing with a change of strategy on the part of Electronic Arts, which perhaps does not feel up to the task in the face of the competition that is already there and ready to kick ass. I am obviously talking about inZOI, but before the game from the Koreans at Krafton, there was Life by You, which also had enormous potential, but which was cancelled a few months ago, following numerous postponements and probably financial problems at Paradox. We prefer to kill a project than to continue to feed it to the point of putting what is left of the company in danger. Krafton therefore has a whole boulevard with inZOI to make it the next gen alternative to The Sims, undefeated until now, because there was simply no competition. And you know it as well as I do, when you are a leader, when you have a monopoly, you no longer need to make an effort, you can live on your acquired knowledge. We see it with FIFA, with NBA 2K and now Sony is making the prices of its consoles soar since Microsoft saw sales of its Xboxes collapse in recent years. It remains to be seen how players will react, if the community will continue to accept extensions until they are no longer thirsty, or try something new on the Korean side.
