Electronic Arts has been under the microscope ever since their infamous run as the two-time running Worst Company in America for a myriad of issues. While they no longer hold such a disparaging moniker to the company's name, they sometimes carry out antics that might lead people to believe that they haven't completely changed from their old ways.
So if you haven't heard by now, over on the official The Sims website a news post was made apparent that certain features wouldn't be in the base game; namely, toddlers and swimming pools have been axed.
Quite naturally, fans of the series went into a fury over the news, pelting the comment section with words of disappointment. Polygon captured a quote about the situation from the game's producer, Ryan Vaughan, who stated that...
"It's not possible for us to include every single feature and piece of content we added to The Sims 3 over the last five years.""While we recognize that some of you will be disappointed that pools and toddlers won't be available when The Sims 4 Base Game launches in September, you should know that we're building an incredibly strong foundation that is capable of fulfilling every one of your desires in the years to come,"
Some gamers didn't take too kindly to this response. Many fans see it as a way for EA and Maxis to remove features from the base game in order to resell the same content as a small expansion pack, which is how EA has continually made money on the series' long-time fans.
One of the other issues is that both swimming pools and toddlers have been in previous iterations of the game as basic, core content. Toddlers made their introduction in The Sims 2 and swimming pools have been in the game since the original The Sims. Exactly why core features weren't on the design roadmap when they were working on the core concepts of the game seems odd, assuming what Ryan Vaughn is saying happens to be true.
Nevertheless, having these core items removed in order to potentially bring them back in a future expansion pack has rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way. In fact, gamers made a pretty big stink about the issue over on Reddit's /r/Games/ thread, where hundreds of comments discuss the issue. Lots of gamers in the thread agreed that the series has turned into adding fewer amounts of base content in order to sell more features post-launch with expansion packs. One user, norain91, wrote that...
“Each iteration of the Sims has been a step back in what it offers in my opinion. I bought the Sims 3 base game when it came out and wanted to build my awesome house and start a family, etc. Well I got to a point where I was building the patio and wanted to put in a hot tub... No hot tubs, you have to buy an expansion for that. I wanted to see what kinds of beds and stuff I could put in the house... Less than the Sims 2 in terms of quantity, but expansions had more.“I am not down with spending $300 to get some digital couches and places downtown to go with my Sim, so as a result, I will probably never buy another Sims game, which is kind of sad to say.”
This sentiment echoed enough throughout the community to cause more than 8,000 gamers (as of the time of the writing of this article) to sign a petition over on Change.org about including toddlers and swimming pools in the base game for its September 2nd launch.
You can look for The Sims 4 to launch this September for PC. Some gamers have decided to opt out of buying EA games to send them a message, while others will simply wait for the “complete” edition.
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