Transforming The Sims: From Virtual Playground to Profitable Marketplace

I still think this isn’t right for the Sims. It goes against the spirit of the game and sounds a little too much like something GPT helped cook up. I don’t think EA wants to monitor and be responsible for thousands and thousands of marketplace creations. The business model of the Sims functions fine with EA creating its own games and DLC for sale, and others generating hype for them through separate YT videos, CC, mods, Discord, blogs, etc. Officially, users are prohibited from selling CC and mods, but they can enact an early access policy or receive donations (which I think is a good balance). 

Mods must be non-commercial and distributed free-of-charge. Mods cannot be sold, licensed, or rented for a fee, nor can Mods contain features that would support monetary transactions of any type.

Having users sell stuff based on EA IP is a total 180 from the above. 

Thank you for your lenghty response.
Although I'm still not convinced this so called "metaverse" approach is suitable for The Sims, it is an interesting discussion to be had. The initial idea might not always go down well with a community, but I always believe that through conversation, other -perhaps more attractive ideas could be generated. I agree, there is room for many wonderful inventions. 

That being said...
I did check out Decentraland and at first glance there's nothing about it that I find appealing. The mix of artstyles is too chaotic to my taste, in fact, it's the opposite of the kind of personal healing I'd need, but I assume this wide range of designs is not what you envision for The Sims.  Decentraland as a general concept is something I have absolutely zero interest in and like others, it reminds me of Second Life.  I don't know if they are in-fact similar since I've never actually gotten involved with either platform. 

It is the in-game community that I actually want to stay away from. It's too overwhelming, I get sensory overload just by looking at Decentraland's homepage. I can almost hear the noise like in an overcrowded trainstation.  I'd much rather socialize with a community outside of the game, in peace. And play my game alone, in peace. I'm not one for MMO's, I prefer socials and single player games to be separate. Multiplayer or in-game socializing is something I'd opt out of. 

Despite all that there are some features that interest me, such as the  "World Builder Game Creator", however, something like this isn't new to The Sims. Sims 2 & 3 had World Creators, a tool that I truly miss in Sims4. It would be wonderful if we could share custom worlds on the gallery, or have a World gallery feature on the world screen that can be toggled on and off. I don't know about turning it into a marketplace though. It would probably cost EA more money just to regulate a marketplace, especially when the content has to be quality assured: nothing can be below Maxis standard if this is sold as official content, like any DLC. There's a reason why EA does not support mods and CC. It's impossible to screen them all and for good reason. It's great to see them collaborating with various content creators, but when you open the door to millions of them to essentially create kits,  they're only going to make their own job harder, which brings me to my next point:

The 3 pillars of Decentraland are Create, Experience, Influence. This is how the Decentraland Experience is described: 

EXPERIENCE: The dynamic, virtual social world of Decentraland is home to a vibrant community hosting diverse daily events, ranging from parties, art exhibitions, fashion shows, music festivals, and more to interactive experiences from renown brands like Netflix, Doritos, and Samsung. Make friends, play games, explore, and discover all Decentraland has to offer!

Decentraland isn't a life sim as far as I understand. Life sims are incredibly complex, it's arguably the toughest game genre to  develop. That's why they're so rare. Why would The Sims stray away from being a life sim first and foremost and instead choose to be a virtual event creator with avatars? I certainly believe there is a place for it as a separate entity, like The Sims Mobile , but for Xbox- and I have a feeling this is what project Rene may be partly about. Trends and events. I don't know for sure though, we haven't heard about it for a while. 
I have other, more important questions: can you play out stories within Decentraland's metaverse? Do characters have in-depth personalities? Can you play rotationally? Are there RPG elements?  Or is this where AI comes in? It's a scary thought.

I still don't see why EA from their point of view should not keep official development contained and limited to their own dedicated teams, rather than building a large marketplace for many creators. At the end of the day they might end up releasing a CAS or BB kit per week, but it'll most likely cost a lot more money and effort to pull the chosen creators from an in-game marketplace. It will also put more strain on art directors, because most of these online creators will have had little to no industry experience and probably can't even deal with critique and honest feedback. Why would EA take that chance to mess with their own production pipeline? 
And non-creators...well...it's probably safe to say that the majority still doesn't really want any in-game shopping trolleys in whatever shape or form. 

As for healing and growing up, I turned one of my hobbies into my job, because I'm fun loving and life's too short. I made that choice deliberately. It not only pays the bills, but it keeps me on my feet, creatively. It's hard work, it can be tough and emotionally draining at times since there are many elements that I do not like about the job. These are the kind of things that -if it were only a hobby- I wouldn't have to deal with. Sometimes it's so easy to just want to quit, but so far passion has always won. It's a double edged sword. Therefore I can completely understand why people choose not to turn their hobbies into their job: losing passion for the only thing you may be passionate about can be detrimental to ones health. Ofcourse that's no reason to refuse to offer potential "marketplace" job opportunities in a metaverse-like environment. Then again, folks that really want to work as game artists or developers will do everything to get a paid position in a studio. The industry certainly won't get less competitive because of an online marketplace. 

Well yes, we do need to make a living, but we cannot always, and should not always, make a living out of our hobbies, that takes away from the part where its something you do to unwind and relax from your ordinary day to day. 

If you want to make a living on playing video games there are other ways to do so, like working for a development company and develop new video games. Or making mods and cc and using early access to get people to pay you for it. Even those youtube videos you mentioned in another comment where you play for an audience (I don't see the point but I'm hardly the target audience, I avoid them like the plague.) Either way, I do not want, nor will I ever want, my game turned into a virtual market place. 

When you say "holiday at the park", do you by chance mean festivals? Festivals indeed spawn marketstalls that sell ingame objects, but that is no different from entering buildmode to buy something or using the phone options to order stuff. All those objects are part of the game, we already paid for them, and there is no reminder of the outside world when interacting with those vendors, unlike the system you propose, where each object would, at the very least, have a username of the seller attached to it. Such a marketplace would create a very different experience ("vibe") from the existing points of purchase like, let's say, the thrift store from the High School Years expansion. 

If you want to make the system you propose work, you need to understand that difference in perception and be willing to compromise. Research how to engage introverts specifically, as that requires a different approach from getting a shy extrovert out of their shell. And read, read, read that shopping cart button discussion in the old forum (it was made read only, but is still accessable), I cannot stress that enough. Your blog post is fine for a boardroom meeting, unfortunately I can't see it convincing the core community, because time spent away from the game is how we socialize in this community. 

When was the first video game market crash? How do you all feel about all the social media videos of people playing video games? Is that not scary? I am a gamer, meaning that is what I do. I see no problem with playing games for living. I don’t feel that they are less intellectual and fulfilling as a career. Look at all the AI models being produced. With technology comes, new ways and new exploration. It is just the current models of monetization are saturated and to me outdated. Video games are a lifestyle for me.