A job posting from Electronic Arts (or should we now say EA Entertainment, after the publisher split into two and the other party would be EA Sports) confirmed the strategy it plans to follow with the new The Sims.

The Sims Community spotted the job ad, which tagged The Sims 5 as “free-to-enter,” meaning the base game will be free to play. Electronic Arts is seeking the head of marketplace and monetization. Although they removed the job ad for Project Rene (the codename for The Sims 5), they probably only did so because the press reported it. The applicant must oversee the in-game marketplace, which covers free and paid content and UGC (user-generated content). It is even mentioned in the job advert that the person must price all content in the free-to-enter game.

Thus, it can be stated that the base game of The Sims 5 will be free and kept alive by ongoing content add-ons (expansions, game packs, kits). Electronic Arts may pay for some of the user-generated content in some way so that modders can get some share if they do a fair enough job. The free-to-play model is not as surprising as The Sims 4 is, although it took nine years from the base game’s release to the change in its business model. The free version might be sparse in content, but the paid edition (with some bundles) is not.

The Sims has been focused on modding for quite some time. Still, mod makers have never been officially paid a penny and prefer to offer their content through Patreon, which takes Electronic Arts out of the equation. Still, knowing them, it wouldn’t be such a surprise if they started to take action against mods because this in-game content buying could be the publisher’s goal, and it could put more money in the pockets of Andrew Wilson’s company. Not everyone wants that.

Source: PCGamer