The Sims 4 Star Wars: Really EA?

For those who don't know, I've played every single game (including expansion packs and stuff packs) since the original pixelated The Sims game was released and I've been a huge fan of the series ever since. Currently, The Sims 4 is the game on my Steam library that I've played the longest (and that's saying something when you own over 400 games). And yet, would I recommend The Sims 4 to anyone? No, I wouldn't. Instead, I would recommend The Sims 3 or even The Sims 2. Why? Let's compare TS4 with the previous editions.

No zodiac signs. No body hair. No color wheel. No Create-a-World tool. No spiral stairs. No trash compactor. No toaster. Can no longer add railing only to one side of the staircase. No auto-roofing. No diving boards. Can't delete specific floor tiles without deleting the entire floor. Can't paint the ceiling. Can't resize lots. Can't move buildings from one lot to another. Can't bulldoze a house without entering the lot first. No Collection folders. No cars, scooters, or school buses. No alarm clocks, or doorbells. No urinals. No picnic basket. No newspaper service. No burglars, police officers, repo man, social worker, or imaginary friends. Pets expansion doesn't have horses, birds, hamsters, etc. Still didn't deliver on proper skin tones.

Children and teens can barely do anything. No after-school activities. No graduation. No prom. No bachelor party or honeymoon. No baby ultrasound scan. You can't go to a retail store and shop for groceries unless you make a sim actually own a business and run it.

I've been waiting for a Tiny House expansion ever since I played TS2 and I am even more disappointed with it than I was with the Pets expansion. Tiny house living is all about finding creative out-of-the-box ways to optimize your space, and (apart from the murphy bed) I feel like EA pretty much failed at delivering that. There is no toilet-sink combo, no composting toilet, no foldable tables/chairs/doors, no wall-mounted desks, no sofa-beds or bunk beds, no bed/sofa storage,  no ladders, no under the stairs/floor storage, no column bookshelves, no corner furniture, etc. Sure some (very few) of this stuff came out in other packs but that's EXACTLY the game EA is playing at this point: making as many packs with as little content as possible, to try to milk as much money as they can. When comparing with TS2/TS3, they really are putting quantity before quality when it comes to TS4.

And, with all of that out of the way... let's move on to the most recently announced pack.

The infamous Star Wars Pack

Recently, EA announced the Sims 4 Star Wars game pack at Gamescom. But what exactly would you be getting out of this Star Wars pack? That information is yet to be released to the public but we can analyze what you can see in the trailer. You're getting a new world - Batuu (which seems to be about the size of a lot in other worlds), with no playable lots. You're not getting any significant new clothes or hairstyles because we already have most of Start Wars clothes in the game as it is and the hairstyles shown in the trailer are similar to existing ones as well. aliens already exist in the game as well. So, you're basically getting an R2-D2 robot, lightsabers, flying spaceships (that you won't even be able to get inside), and a handful of house decor.

Bear in mind, you can't play this pack unless you own the base game first. Also, to make the most of it, you'd probably need to get into University, Get to Work, and maybe even Eco Lifestyle as well, to have access to more robotic stuff and extra thematic gameplay.

Even if you are a Star Wars enthusiast, why would you even buy this? Personally, I honestly don't see a reason. You can go buy yourself a lightsaber. You can rewatch the Star Wars movies. You can play much better Star War games. Wikipedia has a huge list of those and I think even the LEGO version of Star Wars would be better than playing The Sims 4 Star Wars pack. Why? Because of the actual gameplay. Star Wars is supposed to be a high-risk high-reward action-adventure franchise and, as much as you can swing your lightsaber back and forward in TS4, you can't actually hurt sims.

The latest Sim packs have been one disappointment after the other for the community, each new release somewhat worse than the one before, and it seems that, for several people, the Star Wars pack was the last straw, with simmers even claiming they will stop supporting the franchise. The bottom line is, not only is this extremely niche content, but this crossover also makes no sense from a gameplay perspective; as such, even simmers who happen to be Star Wars enthusiasts have openly stated that they will not be adding this pack to their collection, as it is simply not worth their money.

Some simmers are even more outraged because EA has recently made a market-study survey, enquiring the players regarding which content they would like to see in future updates of the game, and the Star Wars content came out in the last place. Not only that, but it turns out that this pack also is literally an advertisement for the new Star Wars-themed area at Disney World - it's called Galaxy's Edge and it takes place in a new planet called Batuu, so the consumers feel insulted that EA is pretty much selling them an add they had already made clear they didn't want in the first place.

In a matter of only a few hours after the announcement of this pack, the internet exploded with articles and youtube reviews that point out just why this EA move has left everyone baffled.

Not only on the trailer but also on several of these youtube reviews, a chain-comment also started to multiply:

"Copy and paste to spread awareness.

 DO NOT buy this pack! We need to show EA that we are not going to spend money on them if they treat us like this, completely ignoring us and pushing the important things like race equality, Good gameplay, REAL babies, etc into the corner. We need to show EA that we are not their money bags for them to milk all they like. If you actually want this pack, go ahead. But if you don't, don't just buy it for the sake of it."

EA has managed to disappoint the community as a whole, and that is showing on the upvotes vs downvotes ratio of the pack's trailer on YouTube (last I checked, it had 38K upvotes vs 90K downvotes).