I recently made an open letter of my concerns as far as the direction of The Sims franchise, here: https://mdpthatsme.tumblr.com/post/649967768660213760/dear-laura-miele-i-read-your-recent-interview
But for this thread, which I'm assuming is more discussion about TS4 than a probable Sims 5, I will stay more TS4 oriented.
One of my main concerns is gearing The Sims to E for Everyone, making it more and more simple to be appropriate for children. This makes game play shallow and boring. We had such innovation with CAS and Build/Buy mode from the previous iterations of the series, but in TS4 there's nothing to capture the player for long in Live Mode. It seems TS4 is centered around aesthetics, which is baffling considering we cannot build our own worlds.
Another concern was changing the franchise from life simulation to RPG, which is apparent in packs like Star Wars: Journey to Batuu and Strangerville. While above I mentioned the lack of game play, I do not mean adding action/adventure into the series and instead expanding the sandbox for more life simulation. We have vacation packs, but none of them act like the sims are going on vacations. They are more "solve the mystery of the temple or defeat the evil-doer" This is not life simulation. This is RPG. As I stated in my open letter, "there are endless action/adventure RPG games, many made by EA. There are few life simulation games and only one highly successful, The Sims." Do not replace what makes The Sims special and separate from all the other games out there with point-and-click adventures.
One thing I did not focus on in that open letter was micro-transaction packs. While I understand every company's priority is to make profit (because without capital there is no game), the Kits release after Star Wars: Journey to Batuu was very unsettling because it seemed a waste of resources and opportunities to work on better projects. Star Wars: Journey to Batuu was a pack inappropriate to sims lore entirely. The Kits are items that can easily be integrated into the other types of packs.
The Sims 4 is already a $700 game, but looking back, it is not worth that price because of how depthless it is. Again, we have the aesthetics, but no game play. I think that should be a priority in every game.
EA Staff (Retired)