I don't think it's as dramatic as all that. Pet Stuff was an entirely separate kind of issue/complaint. Strangerville isn't an issue of splitting up content, it's just (or on the surface, appears to be) a departure from the standard formula of sandbox tools mixed with RPG elements that The Sims 4 has been following.
I can understand concerns, though my reasons may be different. The main issue I'm seeing is that, quite frankly, the pack is difficult to talk about. Maybe that will change as time goes on, but I think it's kind of a curveball for the sims community, who is generally accustomed to being able to talk about content in great detail once it's all out there (and it usually is displayed in detail when released, if not a little before).
On the surface, it doesn't look like the style of it is much different from Jungle Adventure (maybe a bit more narrative-heavy). But Jungle Adventure, to my knowledge, didn't have spoilers because it didn't have a set narrative. It was a theme park, but without any major secrets. I was not paying attention closely when it was released, so I could be wrong about it, but that is how it comes across to me.
This type of storytelling (with spoilers) is nothing new under the sun, but it's normally in the context of things like movies and TV shows released nationwide, or globally, to a broad audience. Strangerville is a niche pack style within a niche game (The Sims 4) in a niche franchise, in a niche genre of video games. Video games are fairly mainstream entertainment now, but The Sims as a genre seems to be pretty narrow still. It is possible that they are attempting to expand its reach with a pack of this style, but I suppose this is where the concerns of an abandonment of the formula come from.
Anyway, the point of the emphasis on niche within niche within niche is that one of the things that helps along stories with spoilers, normally, is the power of word of mouth from people you know and trust to tell you that it's worth experiencing and paying for, without needing to spoil the details in the process. For example, the TV show Stranger Things (which, incidentally, the pack was partly inspired by I assume) was recommended to me by a member of my family and without that recommendation, it's possible I may never have bothered to give it a look. With that in mind, it's unlikely that someone like myself is going to jump at the pack without hearing from a trusted source that it's worth it. And the problem is, where can these trusted sources be found? Apart from word of mouth, TV shows and movies typically have reviewers to turn to, some of whom have dedicated their entire life's work to critically analyzing the medium and delivering takes that dissect the product succinctly and clearly in a way that puts forth bias upfront and helps people decide whether it's worth paying for.
The sims, as a community, doesn't really have something like this in place. Much of the reviewing culture revolves around something I touched on earlier - talking about all of the details. Whether it's going through all of CAS and build mode, or discussing gameplay, it's usually the go-to strategy for approaching reviewing due in part to the sheer amount of little details to cover in each pack. But that can't properly be done this time around. Some of the objects are apparently only available in buy debug and contain spoilers (who knows how many if you don't own the pack). Some of the outfits seem to be available from the career or something and who knows if those might contain spoilers too.
And then there's the gameplay itself, which is the core of the issue when it comes to spoilers and getting information. Even an overview of the gameplay could end up giving spoilers, depending on how it's all structured.
From the standpoint of marketing and sales, this pack's greatest strength may prove to be its undoing. The secrecy and strangeness is great for building hype, but will it work for those who aren't early adopters? I'm concerned that it's going to be a sort of black hole in the larger conversation about the sims, where the cost for conversing about it is either giving up the possibility of enjoying it as intended by reading spoilers, or paying $20 (or whatever your price tag is adjusted for currency differences in your country).
How can the sims team even gauge properly whether it's worth doing a pack like this again if it's so difficult to talk about its features? They can go off of sales figures, but those alone may not yield insight, as there may be a lot of people who choose to pay upfront with the newness of the "mystery" appeal and then go play other games and don't stick around to buy more packs.
I can also say that this affects me as a modder, which is the part of the sims community that I am most distinctively a part of. Do I look through the resources for things that might be interesting to mod or utilize, even if it spoils the story for me, were I to get it and play it? Do I hold off and just try to ignore the pack entirely and avoid various conversations about the game, until I've decided whether I want to try it? And looking at it from the possible perspective of modders in general, what if I'm a modder who can't afford to participate in it? Then the question becomes all the more difficult.
One thing that communities for a TV show have in common is that they are all on the same page, even with regard to spoilers. This pack being optional has the potential to splinter the community in terms of conversations, due to the secrecy surrounding it and the appeal that surrounds going into it with little information about it.
I will remain cautiously neutral about the whole thing, as I don't really feel strongly about any of it. I just thought I'd voice some thoughts that were mulling around during some downtime. :)
