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OTwo Co-Editor, Isabella Ambrosio, breaks down her absolute love-hate relationship with The Sims 4.
Okay, yes, The Sims has been a franchise for years. I remember sitting in my friend’s basement in fourth class as she customised her newest Sim on The Sims 2. I watched as she personalised the looks and behaviours of her Sim, subconsciously learning the ways of adulthood and I remember being absolutely captivated. Suddenly, she had free will and she could do whatever she pleased. With that aforementioned free will, my friends would start fires in rooms with no doors and build pools with no ladders. I preferred to live a ‘normal’ life. I remember begging my father to buy me The Sims so I could play it on my brick of a laptop. And when I played, it was mundane, but it was beautiful. Picking a career for my Sim, spending days making waffles before work, going to work, making a BLT for dinner, working out, showering and going to bed. The neurotypical way of life was apparently worth my fascination.
Picking a career for my Sim, spending days making waffles before work, going to work, making a BLT for dinner, working out, showering and going to bed. The neurotypical way of life was apparently worth my fascination.
When The Sims 4 came out, I was absolutely delighted. Granted, I had switched to a Mac, so I had to download Origin to run the game. While my laptop may have screamed and whirred to life as it tried to run the game file, I was still able to enjoy myself and have as much fun as I had as a child playing the game. There was more to do, but at what cost ? Literally. I caved and bought the €40 Dogs & Cats expansion pack. But still, I had paid, what €40, for the base game (back before EA made it free)? The animal lover in me beamed as I began recreating the childhood pets that unfortunately had passed on decades ago. In this time I became the proud owner of a veterinary clinic and enjoyed the simplicity of bonding with a virtual dog when my accommodation didn’t allow for a physical dog.
And then ... I got bored. Because there is so much you can do with The Sims, unless you buy another expansion pack. The Sims 4 has a total of 14 expansion packs. One. Four. Multiply that by €40, the usual price of an expansion pack, and that’s €560. But that’s also not including ‘fashion packs,’ ‘decor packs,’ ‘family and friends packs,’ ‘everyday activities packs,’ ‘career and lifestyle packs,’ ‘supernatural and fantasy’ packs,’ and ‘outdoor packs.’ Sounds like a bit much, doesn’t it? Like seriously, these packs range from €5 to €20; to have a fully decked out, enjoyable, non-boring game, you may have to shell out over a grand to own everything.
It’s an endless cycle with The Sims and It has been for as long as I can remember. Pick it up after not having played it for a year, binging it for a week, get bored, surfing for new expansion packs to add and becoming increasingly frustrated with the prices, before you just abandon the game altogether. The same thing happens every time without fail. But that one week that I spent playing The Sims, I enjoyed it with every fibre of my being. It’s fun to just lay in bed for a week, ignoring responsibilities, as I hold my burning hot laptop against my stomach and emerge myself in a realm where I can, in fact, operate like a normal human being. I bond with my dogs, I go to work, I meet a person who isn’t a walking red flag, get married, have kids, grow old. I make my Sim food, even though I don’t eat, and my Sim throws parties, even though I don’t respond to text messages. The possibilities are endless to be normal.
It’s an endless cycle with The Sims and It has been for as long as I can remember. Pick it up after not having played it for a year, binging it for a week, get bored, surfing for new expansion packs to add and becoming increasingly frustrated with the prices, before you just abandon the game altogether.
But EA just can’t seem to get their grubby corporate greed fingers out of the bowl, so sometimes I end up forking out maybe, €10 for some kind of decor pack, because God, the second best thing, if not the first, about this game is being able to design houses. Over time, The Sims has become a glorified house designing programme to me, and I don’t find that to be a bad thing. I loved scrolling through seedy websites to find custom furniture I could upload into my game until the game crashed so hard that I could no longer open it.
The Sims brings me momentary pleasure before I turn it off, and am faced with the fact that I just gave EA even more money. They already own FIFA, Battlefield, Apex Legends, Madden… they don’t need any more money. They reported $7.4 billion in profits last year. Billion, with a B. Yes. And I gave them a tenner as if that would make a difference and if they’d even care. That tenner ultimately could’ve paid for my SU sandwich and an iced coffee from Gather & Gather.
But the cycle continues...