I'm not saying this as an excuse or as an accusation.
The Sims 4 revenue stream is built on DLC. No DLC, no money. If we want patches and bugfixes and new features, developers need to get paid.
So, if you look at other possible revenue models for other games, there are:
I don't know. I mean. I don't think there's a perfect revenue model. My own company went from a "Okay you bought [productname] 3 for [number of] users so you get all patches for [productname] 3 but when [productname] 4 comes out you need to buy it again, also you need to buy more users if you get more users" to "You have an annual subscription to [productname] for [number of] users and get all updates." We did this for a variety of reasons, but:
1. Support is AWFUL if you have people on eleventy different versions of your product. Just put people on one version of the product already!
2. Bugfixes: they're not free to produce and how many versions back are we going to backport our bugfixes?
3. If people want more features, we have to pay developers, so they need to pay us more so we can pay them.
I suspect that if The Sims 4 went annual or monthly subscription after 8 years there would be a revolution, but I'll bet good money that the Sims 5 will be subscription.
@xochiquetzl_xkvnI know that their revenue model involves releasing new content frequently. I know that leaves little time for quality assurance. and the devs have to make money somehow.
However.
EA has a long, storied history of destroying beloved franchises with this exact sort of mishandling of their games and generally abysmal QA standards. Mass Effect, Ultima, Command & Conquer, Sim City, Crysis, Burnout, Titanfall, Fight Night, possibly Dragon Age.... just to name a few.
The Sims is entirely propped up with the good will of the fanbase, and that good will is a very finite commodity. If this is what we can expect of patches and DLC for Sims 4, Sims 5 will almost surely be the last Sims game, and won't even have good enough sales for them to release kits for.
