New The Sims 4 Marketplace Performance Report
Statement: The fact they’ve moved the official kits back out of the marketplace suggests all isn’t going as well as they’d like us to believe. Might be wishful thinking but maybe the backlash is moving the needle a little…
Sims Insider: I got some more information on the Marketplace performance, and without going to deeply into it, EA’s not happy that the content being made for the marketplace isn’t as good or interesting as either the EA or Creator Kits and believes if the Maker Packs were more interesting they’d be selling better.
Kits like Restoration Workshop, Greenhouse Haven and Book Nook Kit were hugely popular because they added things players didn’t have like the ability to build a realistic Greenhouse, Modular Bookshelves and Workshops. The issue with the Marketplace is there’s nothing there that does this and EA was expecting more unique ideas.
Whether that’s the direction of Maxis developers in charge of the marketplace or the decision of CC makers, wasn’t clear.
That said EA isn’t too concerned at the moment, because money for existing DLC is still coming through strong. The Sims 4 is moments away from having more unit sales of its DLC than The Sims 1, 2 and 3 combined (including storefronts) so the revenue is still going strong. But they do see dips in sales across the board when there’s no new packs to keep things fresh and the Marketplace was supposed to address this, but so far isn’t. Though more people claimed the free Kit than EA expected, which was good as it was used to bring people to look at the Marketplace. The issue is, people aren’t staying there for long.
New The Sims 4 Ingame Event and Project X Talks
Statement: I heard that during one of the playtests people told EA it felt way too similar to Sims 4, so now I’m curious if they tried to move even a little away from that visual style. I mean, I get that the whole point of Project X is to keep that Sims 4 vibe, but who knows what might’ve changed since then lol…This no-news silence is actually killing me
Sims Insider: The marketplace was meant to create more “buzz” so the silence isn’t supposed to be here. EA thought the Maker Packs would be more interesting.
That said, regular updates and quality of life improvements are still coming and I believe there’s an Event on the horizon unless it’s been canned because the engagement numbers aren’t needed for investors. But there was one scheduled for May but I was told this back in January.
[It’s an] In-game event. It was pencilled in back in either Dec/Jan when I was talking to someone about it, it was before the Royalty Event happened.
But overall player numbers are extremely strong, so there’s no real need for EA to worry about players leaving the game, so less need to be super loud or in your face to get people to play the game.
2025 was the most successful year for The Sims on record, and while The Sims 1 and 2 re-releases assisted with that, the Sims 4 alone was able to achieve that. Businesses & Hobbies really did a great job at keeping player engagement which was likely largely fuelled by the back of the 25th Anniversary. Perfect timing for that pack.
Unless plans have changed, X should be very Sims 4. It’s the whole idea. The Sims 4 has eclipsed the rest of the franchise and for most players is “The Sims” and players recognise older games but don’t identify or engage with them. EA doesn’t want that identity lost.
But EA are known for never having a consistent opinion and the longer games are in development, the more revisions EA give developers. Developers have learnt how to work with EA to avoid this.
Statement: To me, not carrying over DLC content is a major turn-off for me. I paid a lot of money and started playing Sims 4 recently so I am not interested in going over to Project X for the next 5 years.
Sims Insider: It’s going to be interesting to see how they address this. Do they avoid the Sims 4 brand entirely and brand it a new game and hope people don’t question how similar it is to the Sims 4, or do they acknowledge the Sims 4 and then deal with the backlash of why not all DLC carries over. There’s not going to be a simple winning formula. But neither was a Sims 5.
The biggest issue EA has right now is they were completely underprepared for how massive the Sims 4 became after the Growing Together Expansion (it was already the most successful Sims game before that point) and since then have had no idea what to do with the franchise because they’ve had no long term plans or avenues that considered this success. It’s why one second they’re saying the Sims 4 is here to stay, the next there’s a new game, the next there’s an update to overhaul the whole game, the next is selling that overhaul as a new product. They simply just don’t know how make sure they don’t lose this playerbase they’ve acquired. They also don’t want to spend insane amounts of money to keep The Sims 4 going either. They want it to be a secure profit product and having such a large back catalogue of DLC makes it very hard not to spend money to keep it stable.
It’s going to probably be the most interesting rollout for a Sims game ever.
– source