The Sims™ 4, life to date, has almost 36 million players

How many of these players got the base game for free or for $4 on steam? I know many people on steam who got it and tried it and then abandoned it after a couple of hours/days. I tried to get them set up with mods and things to make it more enjoyable, but they just didn't like it so left.

I think these numbers are inflated with the amount of people who got the game for free and don't really play it.