To be honest I don't see why people think you have to get every pack. There's literally no reason to have everything.
Stuff packs are a waste of money imo, don't buy them and thats $170 off the price. Buy all the other packs on half price sales or online, that's a ton more money off aswell. Plus, not everyone is gonna like every pack so just buy the packs you're interested in and leave the others. Like its optional DLC, you don't have to buy everything. For example I haven't bought parenthood as family play and the focus of that pack doesn't interest me at all, someone who likes realism can just not buy packs like vampires, ROM, JTB, etc if they don't fit their playstyle. Literally nobody is gonna be really into every pack so buying them all is stupid and honestly you're just willingly wasting your money if you chose to buy packs you don't care for.
I have 3000+ hours of play in Sims 4, thats wayyyyy more than I have in any other game. Sims has always been my favorite video game franchise. I think for the amount of time I spend on the game I can mostly justify the amount I've spent on it. (However I have never bought a pack full price nor would I ever. Full price is too much. In my currency expansions go on sale at £17.50, or they're sold online for around £10. Game packs on 50% off sales are £8. I can justify that price point for what I get out of it)
Basically to cost up, I've bought every expansion and game pack at a reduced price. As a general estimate I've probably spent around £14 per EP, thats a total of £126. I have 7 GPs at an average of £10 each. That's £70. So in total I've spent roughly £200 on Sims 4 over many years. If you shop around and only buy what you want it's really not that much money and I think I easily get 10 bucks worth out of the individual packs I bought.
