Anyone having extreme difficulty getting Sims 3 to load?

I do it the "olden ways": Place a link to the Sims3 launcher on your desktop, Click that link to start said launcher. Clicking the link will, of course, start the EA app first, but most times, it will shortly blink up, then disappear to the background while the Sims3 launcher will finish loading.

This won't work if the EA app decides it has to do something, like update the EA app or see a new login from you, which "forgets" about loading the game. In that case, just click your desktop link a second time after the EA app is done. However, this is rare. In most cases, it just works like with Origin.

As for "what EA expects"? Games are subscriptions nowadays. Looks like Sims 5 will follow the "games as a service" model. You're not supposed to play any games you won't constantly pay any money on. This "bright future" has already arrived for many franchises, and the EA app is built around this. I remember when Sims 3 failed to load because the EA app felt the need to remind me that my EA Play subscription had run out. That I still have games I don't need a subscription for seemed to be like an afterthought. At least, for the time being, that particular issue has been fixed.

Edit: I forgot to mention your graphics issues. I doubt those have any relation to the EA app, as the EA app technically doesn't run your game; it just checks whether you have the rights to run the game. Usually, issues like that are due to graphics drivers updates (Nvidia, AMD, etc). You may have to remind the Sims3 of what graphics card you use and check whether the fps restrictions still work (the ingame setting never worked).

I discovered that if I click on "run as administrator" in the EA app, I can usually get my Sims 3 game to load. But sometimes I have to completely shut down my computer and start again. This app is very tricky- it doesn't like to run Sims 3.

I also have a shortcut on my desktop but it usually just tries to load only the basic game and no Eps. Or it tells me that I have to have Origin to do that! Not real helpful.

I can see that "administrator" thing happen if you have your games installed where the EA app wants to put them by default. However, I had all my Origin games installed on a different partition, which means that was never necessary. When I was forced to switch from Origin to the EA app, I just told the app to use my old "Origin Games" folder for its games. It accepted that, noticed that I had all my games there, and that was it. I didn't need to reinstall anything. The whole process took about two minutes (not counting the time it took me to backup The Sims 3 in case anything went wrong).

Not that there wasn't any hiccup. When the installation of the EA app was done, it told me that something went wrong. It didn't tell me what went wrong though, and I haven't found out yet, because everything seems to work just fine. Maybe, that's the error :p .

well it seems when there is updates. esp like today's update (or update since my first posting) It might be an admin thing with the newer version of windows. Methinks I recall long ago some issues. Thing is, my computer expert DH found issues with EA certificates esp as regarding TS3. Even today, it's a crap shoot if TS3 loads Again, methinks it's due to permission miscommunication across not just EA but the microsoft environment itself.