The Sims of Natalie, Géraldine and Micha: This is what expertise looks like. At this point, Natalie would like to complain about the meager choice of hairstyles.
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The Sims 5 will likely be a “live service” with a multiplayer focus. That’s what Andrew Wilson, the managing director of Electronic Arts, hinted at in an investor call in 2020, and then the Sims team went looking for it job postings for experienced staff for »responsive, resilient, massively scalable and globally available web services for millions of players«.
It’s probably going to give some of you chills, and you’re not alone: In the podcast, Micha, Géraldine and Natalie discuss what downsides the online future of The Sims 5 could have – and what we would rather wish for.
The latter is easy to answer: An improved version of The Sims 4 in all respects, including the following:
- Better DLC and addon policy
- An already extensive base game
- Open World statt Shared World
- Simulation with more depth
- optional (!) multiplayer
It’s not impossible for us to get that, but it’s unlikely. Because recently the Maxis boss Catharina Mallet announced im EA-Blog Suppose they want to continue providing content for The Sims 4 for years to come while building “the future of the Sims.”
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This can be interpreted in two directions: Either The Sims 5 is still so far away that EA can continue to pack the cash cow Sims 4 with content. Or The Sims 5 playfully sets such other priorities that it can coexist with The Sims 4 because it serves different tastes. So it won’t be a better Sims 4 at all, but a different kind of Sims.
The devil’s advocate Micha outlines what this “other kind of Sims” could look like with a view to an industry leader – namely Roblox! The game kit, popular with children, achieves something that many publishers dream of: it monetizes the creativity of its community. Well, the Sims community would also be creative – and monetizable anyway, see DLCs.
So why not marry the principle of The Sims with Roblox and transform Sims 5 into a kind of modular platform?
It’s just stupid that this vision of the future would have little space for three things that Sims have always distinguished: Cheats. Free modding. And offline single player (at least without additional costs).
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