Old vs New Media

We have a talking toilet. ?

First I’ll tell you which kind of mainstream technology I don’t want my sims to use every single time their fun level seems to be “compromised”…

☠️?⚡️?❌⚠️?☠️ PHONES. !!!

Unfortunately this IS a true reflection of the real world. It makes me feel a wee bit miserable whenever I see a bunch of friends sitting in a room and all they can manage to do together is stare at their gosh darn smarty pants phones.
Why don’t you go build a tree hut together instead? What do you mean “But I’m 40?!” Who cares?! Build a friggin’ tree hut. Do something useful with your lives.

I clearly feel very passionate about phones….

And yes I’m all for old school stuff.

News papers. I loved those. I’m not really a news paper kinda guy myself ( I read the news on my smart phone ?) but in the previous sims games I absolutely loved the newspapers!
From the dog bringing it to the sim to him opening it, leafing through it and reading all the gossip. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

And cars. I’d like that kinda mainstream technology too.

The newspaper was multifunctional in previous sims games. Sims could find jobs, read the comics strip, solve the crossword puzzle, read while sitting on the toilet, use as litter tray for pets, make an airplane out of it, compost it. People can still get newspaper subscription in the mail, and magazines, don't know why it they removed them from the game. We still have paper books, so it makes no sense to remove newspapers an SD magazines.

I'll admit that actual newspapers are on the way out where I live. Except for really big national papers (that wouldn't have local jobs or weather) it's hard to find one. I grew up with newspapers, but my childhood newspaper is no more, it financially went under. Then I lived in a town that made it cheaper to bundle the online and printed paper so I subscribed for a bit, but again gradually the paper got smaller and thinner and is now just online.

I do miss flyers though.

Audio cassettes might make for a fun gameplay addition: Add maybe a dozen cassette exclusive songs to the game*, that the sims have to track down. Cassettes can turn up at the flea market (CL), in trash cans (EL, basegame) or via online trading (Plopsy or a new computer menu). They'd come in different states, similar to foods, that give different moodlets from listening to the songs. Once a sim has acquired their first cassette, they can buy a multipurpose player that comes with the option to listen to the cassettes as-is or digitalize the songs.

*...One song per audio cassette. That's not accurate, but maybe the other songs on that cassette are still widely distributed, with only one of them being a rare record that only exists in this form.

I do wish mobile phones were optional and we would have the option to give our sims a landline. I also like the idea of some retro technology - it would be very useful for setting sims stories in older time periods.

"KathMHughes;c-18025120" wrote:
I'll admit that actual newspapers are on the way out where I live. Except for really big national papers (that wouldn't have local jobs or weather) it's hard to find one. I grew up with newspapers, but my childhood newspaper is no more, it financially went under. Then I lived in a town that made it cheaper to bundle the online and printed paper so I subscribed for a bit, but again gradually the paper got smaller and thinner and is now just online.

I do miss flyers though.

Businesses go down all the time, doesn't mean people have stopped doing business. Broad issues newspapers have lasted better with the advancement of online newspapers because they reach a broad audience. Local newspapers were doomed due to niche market. Some people prefer to read online as it's more convenient for them. But some just prefer the physical version. Personally, I think it's a different experience to read a fashion magazine online and a physical copy of it. With the physical copy you also get the little samples, and the smell of it, and once you're done reading it you can use the pictures for scrapbooking, you could even burn it to warm your room, recycle the paper or sell it to a second hand books dealer.