[GALLERY] Default sort order changed to most popular

Not only do I agree to most of the points made here about this change, but does this not also mean we will always see the same things by default now? New creations won't stand a change to be popular if they are never seen, which means the stuff on Most Popular will stay there and get even older/outdated.

I completely agree with you. That is probably my biggest issue with the Gallery defaulting to Most Popular.

A lot of those uploads have been sitting in the Gallery for years, so naturally their download numbers have stacked over time. That does not always mean they are the best or most relevant creations to feature first now. This why EA needs to provide a holistic fix to the Gallery. And while they're at it, they need to bring back our newsfeed, our follower counts, etc.!

I want to add that most of the most popular creations are base game from like 10 years ago. We got a looot of new base game content in the meantime. So while the old builds/sims are definitely stunning, they can feel outdated on some parts. 

Thank you!

HI gourmetsimsx​ 

I merged your post with the bug report. Make sure to upvote

Hi everyone. I wanted to report a Gallery issue I noticed after the recent update.

The Gallery appears to be defaulting to Most Popular rather than Newest. As a result, older uploads are being shown first instead of newer creations.

I am also seeing the same behavior on creator profile pages. Instead of displaying the most recent uploads first, profiles appear to prioritize older Sims based on download count.

This is especially disappointing because the Gallery has already lost a lot of the community features that made it feel active and connected. With the News tab gone and other social features reduced over time, discoverability was already weaker. This change will have an even bigger impact on how players browse and engage with new content.

A lot of players are not going to stop and manually change the filter, which means newer creations are simply going to be overlooked. That is bad for creators, bad for engagement, and bad for the overall health of the Gallery.

Has this change been confirmed, and is it intended behavior or a bug?

Yep. This is a big deal because your new creations will not be seen. Whenever I upload new content, it gets exposure and is downloaded by gallery viewers or my followers. Now that doesn't happen anymore and it's my most popular ones that's getting exposure. It's my fist time to upload something and get zero engagement after a day.

I experienced the same fright that DracuAlice2017​ did above, which is that I at first thought I had lost the household I was working on prior to the patch before I noticed the filter. 

And I agree with Amuni50​ that newer or less experienced The Sims 4 gallery browsers will miss newer creations. I'm not really one who cares about my downloads and favorites, but I would be lying if I didn't admit that it does indeed make me a bit happy if I see that people has taken notice to my creations. But this default filter will certainly put a huge road block for my creation to even be noticed.
Especially since the front page you now see on the gallery is filtered by most popular instead of newest. I'd rather be surprised by fun new creations and simmers I didn't know about on the front page of the gallery, and then filter to popular now or most popular at wish. ESPECIALLY in my own library! 

Also having this happen and definitely not a fan of it. 

I posted this feedback elsewhere and was redirected here:

Gallery Changes:  Newest/Most Popular

My Library used to automatically sort by Newest but the recent patch has changed this default to Most Popular.

I do not like this change, especially for My Library, for a few reasons:

1. People are often saving works-in-progress so they will be more likely to be looking for recent builds and Sims in their own library.
2. Simmers will often be looking for Sims and builds they have recently downloaded to play with newly installed content.
3. It doesn't matter as much which items are 'Popular' in our own libraries.
4. It appears 'popularity' isn't tracked anyway.  My most downloaded Sims on thr gallery tab do not correlate with the Sims surfaced in my library.  It is not accurate/functional.

I think the default My Library filter should be reset to "newest".