The biggest problems with Sims 4 base game release are these: 1) It was rushed because initially they wasted time and resources on online features. 2) People were not made available to work on Sims 4 until Sims 3 development and improvements had ended. Really, they need two teams for continuation of the series, one continuing development on the old series, one starting work on the new series. The ones continuing development near the end of older game series life cycle should be mostly newer people. Then bring people from the older game team in speed things up, and start developing DLC. 3) Some developers for Sims 4 had more experience on mobile games than on desktop or laptop games. As a result, the graphics looked like mobile game graphics, and too much stock was put into later patch updates. Patch updates on mobile can alter the base game far more than patches for PC or Mac games or console games. 4) Not enough budget investment was put into the game. Maybe they thought they could force players to changing their attitude on micro transactions. Also, since more money seems to be gained by EA from DLC than base game, there was no financial incentive to pack the base game with content. Not to mention the perception that online games and other EA games would bring in more money, depriorizing the Sims.