Forum Discussion

Seasoned Rookie

25 days ago

Suggestions for if The Sims 4 ever wants to offer a subscription for its DLCs

While the current public stance of the development team seems to be that no subscription service for the DLC is being considered, I'd still like to offer some suggestions should such a system ever be tried to be implemented.

I'd suggest the following:

Keep the base game free and do not make it require a subscription
Still keep it so that you can buy DLCs individually from the EA & Steam store front directly
Make the Marketplace currency Moola also be able to buy DLC at an equivalent exchange rate
Give subscribers an equivalent amount of Moola monthly/annually to what they pay monthly/annually

With the last two points implemented, the system is more analogous to paying for a mortgage, which should be a lot more popular than a standard subscription system which feels more like renting.
Basically, being able to pay for DLC over time, while still being to enjoy/demo all of the DLC while you pay, and being able to keep some of the DLC after you stop paying.

Now, some may ask why a subscription for The Sims 4 should be more like a mortgage: The Sims 4 is not a live service game in the traditional sense. You can perfectly fine play the game offline and without updates, which is also why the illegitimate acquirement of DLC is probably higher than it should be.
As such, you have to offer some permanent value to the subscriber so that they continue to pay, just as mortgage payers continue to pay to finally some day call their home fully their own.

With such a system you would very likely have a much more positive reception from the community and also probably get more users to subscribe and for longer as they feel that get more out of it in the long run.

13 Replies

Prov31Simmer
Seasoned Ace
24 days ago
I only purchase the dlc that I will use. I am not one of those who buy all of it. So neither option are what I would support. I don't even pay for the EA play or any other live service model for gaming. What I want is to only purchase ONCE without mortgage-like installments. I am a Gen Xer, and remember owning a game after purchasing once. I am teaching that to my Gen Z kids, who prefer game disks over digital games too. If only when you purchase a game it didn't require an online connection to get it to be installed.
JohnBaccaratMc
Seasoned Rookie
24 days ago
I do want to address this first so it doesn't get jumbled up with the rest of my message:
"I am not one of those who buy all of it."
Just to make sure we are on the same wave length: The system I'm suggesting doesn't actually force you to "mortgage" all DLCs.
Let's say, for example, that you are new player to TS4 and EA/Maxis offered the service @ 20 $ a month and you subscribed to it for 4 months and then you decided you are only actually interested in 2 EPs (at 39.99 $ each), then you can just stop paying after those 4 months and pay for those 2 EPs with the overall 80 $ in equivalent Moola you received for you subscribing over 4 months.
After you stop paying for your subscription you do of course lose access to the rest of the DLCs, but you would then still digitally own the 2 EPs you were interested in without having to pay any more money.
As for the rest of your post: I do agree that one time purchases are better overall and I still own a large collection of physical games for my older consoles. However, new players may still want to demo one or more DLCs for themselves instead of trying to gauge if they are actually interested in it outside of analyzing external/indirect information about them. Currently, they can either just buy it (which they may later regret) or try to aquire it illegally. The former and partially the latter could be addressed with a subscription system, even if we both do not like them.
Prov31Simmer
Seasoned Ace
24 days ago
People could always wait for other suckers to buy it and look at gameplay from people who are not associated with any gamer partner programs. I know I always wait for sales anyway for Sims 4 dlc because none of it is worth full price. There are a few I wait until they are 50% off before buying. Btw, we do the same for buying consoles too. A gaming console must be out for at least a year before we even consider buying it. The problem with many modern-day gamers is that they refuse to wait. My kids will not even purchase a game until it is on sale.