Forum Discussion

Rising Ace

26 days ago

Solved

Need Some Honest Feedback...

Hello Everyone,

Well, just recently I began to reinstall the Sims 3 after having been playing around with the Sims 4 for the past 5 or so years. But with the recent problems with that game, I decided to dust off my Sims 3 and got it all set up to play on my PC.

Now, the question is... I love a lot of the content that is in the Sims 3 Store. Back in the day of the Sims 3 era, I was so eternally grateful to the short ad clips we could opt to watch to help us accumulate store points to purchase items/sets/Compilations... so I easily became a Sims 3 store junkie buying up a ton of their content over time.

Coming back to it after all these years, I see there are still some sets I would just love to have but are not yet completed in my purchasing. I would love to buy them now... but... is it "safe" to do so?

The game is nearly 17 years old now. With a questionable future of EA and the game being so old, I would be heartbroken to invest in more content only to learn EA might put the ax to this game. I know this is always a risk with any game... but to buy stuff so late into this stage of the game's history... is it safe to purchase more... or will I be basically throwing my money away on something that may soon come to a close?

build and buy

discussion

the sims 3 store

puzzlezaddict
26 days ago
SpiritedSim No one knows for sure, but what we DO know is that your content should continue to work once you've installed it, even if the Store site gets taken down and nothing new can be installed. And it's unlikely that EA would remove Sims 3 overall given that it's a single-player game, aside from the few online integrations that aren't all that meaningful to gameplay and could be disabled separately. The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection still works for people that already own it even though it hasn't been sold or given away since 2018.

The games that get delisted and removed are those that have online services that cost more money than they're worth. Sims Mobile and The Simpsons Tapped Out and Apex Legends for mobile and the Lord of the Rings mobile game only worked online. Anthem could have been offline in theory but wasn't built for that to work, and switching over would have taken more development resources that apparently weren't worth the effort in the end. I can't think of an example of an EA game that can be played offline that has been removed from the libraries of people that own it.

Still, there's always a risk, and my suggestion would be to invest as little money as possible to get the content you really want. Use Complete Your Set and the Daily Deal sales to your advantage; if you want more info on how this works, you can ask in this thread or in the DD master thread here:

Daily Deal (DD) 2018 Rotation List and Sales Help | EA Forums - 1821670

3 Replies

puzzlezaddict
Hero+
26 days ago
SpiritedSim No one knows for sure, but what we DO know is that your content should continue to work once you've installed it, even if the Store site gets taken down and nothing new can be installed. And it's unlikely that EA would remove Sims 3 overall given that it's a single-player game, aside from the few online integrations that aren't all that meaningful to gameplay and could be disabled separately. The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection still works for people that already own it even though it hasn't been sold or given away since 2018.

The games that get delisted and removed are those that have online services that cost more money than they're worth. Sims Mobile and The Simpsons Tapped Out and Apex Legends for mobile and the Lord of the Rings mobile game only worked online. Anthem could have been offline in theory but wasn't built for that to work, and switching over would have taken more development resources that apparently weren't worth the effort in the end. I can't think of an example of an EA game that can be played offline that has been removed from the libraries of people that own it.

Still, there's always a risk, and my suggestion would be to invest as little money as possible to get the content you really want. Use Complete Your Set and the Daily Deal sales to your advantage; if you want more info on how this works, you can ask in this thread or in the DD master thread here:

Daily Deal (DD) 2018 Rotation List and Sales Help | EA Forums - 1821670
5782341b77vl
Seasoned Ace
25 days ago
Once you buy something from the store, it's yours forever! The store items are linked to your account not the game itself.
I also uninstalled my Sims 3, when I got Sims 4, and I just recently (about about a month ago) REINSTALLED it!
I then gone to my Sims 3 account (the store) to reinstall ALL my "goodies" for my game! Even my TOYOTA PRIUS pack was there - and it STILL works!
Think of it not as a "Store" - it's more like a "Toy Box" and all your goodies are the "toys" inside!
Items no longer available in the Store are safe inside your toy box!
"Simpoints" CAN be purchased - I too wish we had those videos - but as with ANY software downloads, make sure you Scan it for anything that might harm your computer!
Hope this helps 😁!
SpiritedSim
Rising Ace
2 days ago
Thank you all for your helpful replies. While I do realize that once we purchase these items/sets/worlds, they are ours for keeps. In fact, I saved all my Sims3pack files to an external drive for safe keeping so I won't need to rely on the store, should they ever close down.
My main concern, as mentioned, was knowing how old these games are. Over time, I have seen EA remove games that have been around for years, so I just didn't want to invest in them only to learn the game will no longer be playable.
Thank you all for your help once again.