Every time you analyze a situation involving a complaint, do you end up overanalyzing the context and ignoring the actual issue? I don't know if you noticed, but this post isn't about breaks from the game. It's about a game being sold in an incomplete state, forcing every fan who wants to keep up with new releases to spend a significant amount of money on expansions. These are activities that were once included together but are now split into three or four separate packs. My intention wasn't to blame EA for my break from the game, but rather to blame my break for making me realize how long I'd been taken advantage of by them. Was that not clear when you interpreted my rant? They essentially want us to pay a subscription to access all the game's content, when it should be done in a less exploitative way. Anyone who has played The Sims since they were a kid knows it was never hard for the game to win over its fans, but now it's becoming increasingly difficult.
Have you actually engaged with Sims 4 content? The "It's content split up that used to be one thing" argument is pretty much always completely wrong. "Sims 4 has a separate vampire pack and a separate werewolves pack and a separate fairy pack and a separate witch pack and sims 3 had them all in one" doesn't hold up to even a few seconds of scrutiny, as Sims 3's vampires were so bad they were in two packs, and the werewolves/fairies/witches are significantly less fleshed out than Sims 4's, and required multiple 10-20 dollar sets from the Sims 3 Store to even get into a "complete" state.
Sims 4 is not "content split into three or four separate packs". The content it has that older games had is arranged differently, and pretty much always more fleshed out in the process.
You also do not have to own every piece of content...nor are you owed discounts for taking time off from playing...it's just a little silly.
It also is not becoming increasingly difficult for The Sims to win over fans. The Sims 4 gained 15,000,000 unique players in 2024. 15,000,000 new players 10 years after launch is unbelievable growth for any video game, it's doing quite well...
