@MsPrissy88: Ironically, I just told a friend recently about getting Sims3 on Steam. :) Another friend of mine purchased everything through Steam when they had that $5 for each pack sale many years back. She had to pay again for a few expansions, but it was worth it, because it made everything SO much cheaper for her. I'm also told that it's one patch back from the last patch that Origin foisted on us, and since that last patch caused a lot of problems, that would fix a few things, I think. I may do that, someday. Right now I don't have a lot of funds, and it was only a few months ago that I started having these problems.
The Steam version actually runs better, huh? I'm betting that has to do with that final patch they made on Origin. Intriguing, and that motivates me to consider that option for the future. One irony about buying the Steam version: If you get an expansion on Steam that you didn't get through Origin (or on disk), you CAN activate that expansion on Origin. It doesn't work in reverse, though. A bummer about the Katy Perry stuff.
I actually like BOTH games (S3 and S4), in different ways. I was going back and forth between them, until I started having issues with recoloring things. I'm thinking, though, that if I remove all my CC, and use the store stuff relatively sparingly in my games (I tend to stuff all of the premium items everywhere), I probably won't have as many problems. But... there are so many nice builds that use a lot of store stuff... and I have trouble resisting. :) (Especially builds by @Hidehi and @luckyheather. How can I resist those?)
Yeah, Steam and Origin don't handle the store items the same way. It's so weird that they did it that way, isn't it? My guess is that it has to do with the way they DRM it. Quite a pita, and I've never really thought too much about it, but I may consider it now, from what you tell me about it.