Do the early buyers rewards influence if or when you buy a pack?

I always pre-order. It had perks back in Sims2, as in being one of the first to get the pack and start playing. I like to explore a pack before I see pictures of what others have found in the pack. I'm a little weird that way, I guess. I do like the additional items for purchasing early. I like having the pack on the day of release.

It would matter if I always had money, but really the only thing that influences when I buy packs is when I can afford them. So.

It hasn't influenced me so far. I've been playing on the Werewolf patch all this time so couldn't play the new EPs anyway. I suppose I could have still bought them in preparation for when I did decide to update my game, but that just wouldn't be practical. I don't feel I need to own all packs and content because I don't always like the theme or want certain types of gameplay that could irritate me or weigh the game down with things I won't use.

But I can see why some people like to collect special items and I can also see why other people hate the practice of it. Both have equally good reasoning, so I don't really have a strong stance on it myself.

It would bother me a lot more if the window for the items were preorder only. The biggest game-breaking bugs usually get fixed before the time runs out, so there's less risk of buying a new pack on release day only for the whole thing to be unusable (not to say every bug is fixed, but there's a huge difference to me in "fireworks stopped working" and "the save button stopped working and the game crashes"). I always wait for mods to update anyway, so having a month to purchase is fine with me. None of the items have been unique enough yet to influence my timeline for purchasing a pack.

I couldn't care less, if being honest.
I only remember the bike and baby carrier, both items I have, but never used so far. No even tiniest idea what were the other items.

I could almost have chosen this option: "It doesn't apply because I get EP right at or right after release anyway, with or without early buyers incentive."

Most of the time, that's true. I usually wait a long time for stuff packs, and a long time for kits if I get them at all. But most EPs and GPs I buy right away. By "right away" I generally mean within a week of the release, once I have a chance to hear what the worst of the bugs are. Also, I have a fulltime job, and packs release during the week, so I'm generally not going to play until weekend, at the earliest, no matter how excited I am for the pack.

That being said, there have been a very few EPs that I was worried about, so I didn't buy right away, and so far, they either haven't had bonus content or it's bonus content I don't care about at all. High School Years is the only one that immediately comes to mind: I was interested, but annoyed by some of the aspects of it (like not being able to use clubs on school grounds), so I waited a while; however, I was deeply uninterested in the extra content, so I didn't mind missing that at all.

So, as of now, the extra content has worked out well for me. I've done what I was going to do anyway, and got some extra content out of it, so it's a win-win. I think as long as the bonus content aligns pretty closely with the theme of the pack, that should continue to be the case.

Now, if they come out with, like, a superhero EP (which I don't care about at all), and the bonus content includes something unrelated that I really want, like a sculpting or glassblowing station, I would be livid. But I don't see that happening.

I’m going to buy the packs anyway, and usually within a few days. I haven’t seen a pack I really didn’t want. I don’t use CC or mods so extra stuff is always wanted by me. Whether it be for build, CAS or the world. The only time I didn’t get packs right away was when I needed to get a better laptop, and it took me over a year to decide which one I wanted, and to buy it. So, it actually would have upset me that I couldn’t get the extra content, so it would just have been a negative towards EA, and I might just have decided not to play anymore. At the time I wasn’t able to put City living when it came out because of needing a new one, so they may have lost me, as a player back then if they had been withholding content because of no real fault of mine. As it was back then I was playing other games on my on a portable system. In Fact, I was very upset that they didn’t give us PC players a chance to buy the pajama pack that they gave to Xbox players. I don’t expect free content, but at least let me buy the content you do have, otherwise you are penalizing me. I feel like penalizing people for not buying things right away could actually back fire and make people beginning to play not worry about completing the set if they are unable to afford a pack right when it comes out, and this miss out on content. Pack extra’s for buying before a certain date might actually make some people decide to not become “completionists” that otherwise might have become one, so that would offset others who are waiting to buy on sale. People who can wait for sales already have the fortitude not to buy something, and may just anger them to not buy it at all. If you can’t afford something, it’s because you can’t afford it…..why penalize them?

I don't like this practice, but since I'm a completionist, I got all the rewards anyway. I'm such a shallow person. EA has me wrapped around its finger.

I prefer to wait for bug fixes and sales. I don't have the budget to buy EPs at full price, even if they did release bug-free. These early buyer rewards being introduced later into the game and not being a thing since the beginning of TS4 is a change I personally don't like at all. It's FOMO marketing. I'll still get the pack on sale later, but this just puts a bad taste in my mouth.

It doesn’t apply to me or bother me at all. I always buy the packs I want on release day except a few that I didn’t necessarily want but got them when they went on sale. There have always been incentives for people buying things like discounts, gift with purchase etc etc and not just in video games. People aren’t going to stop buying it so companies aren’t going to stop doing it. At least they give you about 5-6 weeks. They could just say pre-orders only which I find to be the case with most game franchises. I wouldn’t even be mad if they did that (and before anyone gets upset no I’m not saying that’s what they should do).

I’m not mad that people got the plumbob moodlet lamps for owning ts3 content but by the time I had time to focus on ts4, the promo was unavailable. It’s an incentive, a thank you, a whatever you want to call it. Congrats to those that got them.

A store ran out of free birthday gifts for the month by the time my birthday rolled around, I shop there all the time and spend thousands a year, I didn’t get upset or threaten to never shop there again. Just told myself I’d try a different location, be quicker next year or place an online order this year to get it.

I like the bonus content and will continue to purchase early to get it if I’m interested in the pack. But I won’t gripe about it and hope they stop it for everyone just because I can’t get it or it doesn’t appeal to me in that moment. That’s selfish.