@EA_Cade Thank you for compiling all of our feedback from multiple places and passing it on to EA, it must be a huge job, and thank you also for continuing to communicate with honesty and courtesy in both directions.
TS4 was a game for purchase for a long time and then it became essentially free-with-ads.
I use some free-with-ads services and listen to some free-with-ads podcasts. The ads are annoying but I get it about why they're there and accept that my attention to the ads is the cost of using the service.
I can see why EA wants to adjust to a free-with-ads model now that the game is free to download.
However:
1. The game wasn't made free because of being a free-with-ads game. It was made free largely because of its age. Kinda like the way I bought TS2 with lots of expansions from the Apple store in the early days of the pandemic for like $34.99. It cost me way less than it would have if I'd bought TS2 and the expansions at release. In the land of software, an older product is a less valuable product.
2. Many many players already paid for the game before it became free. Those free-with-ads services often come with a purchase option, where you can pay money to eliminate the ads. At the very least, the shopping cart button should be completely eliminated for those players. Buying the game should buy the ability to remove the cart.
