EA to Offer Premium Membership to Sims 4

EA is at it again, surprise surprise.

You know, it would be nice if I would write something nice about EA one of these days.  Seems every time I do have anything nice to say about them, its qualified with a rather large but, or the article is just them apologizing for being jerks without actually committing themselves to not being jerks.  Case in point, they can talk about learning a lesson about how to properly treat an in-game economy after the failure of Dungeon Keeper all they want, but if they dont learn anything from it, its all for naught: such as the case with Sims 4, which looks as if its going to have a subscription-based Premium mode, if an accidental slip in a gameplay video is anything to go off of.

Which, by the way, it is.  Something to go off of.

The video is below, and in it, two EA employees are showing off the new game.  Its a 20 minute video, worth your time if youre excited about the upcoming game, but what has our attention is at the 13:25-13:26 mark: when opening up the in-game store, we see an advertisement that reads:

"The Sims 4 Premium. Save on new packs with early access and exclusive items. Become a Premium member to get early access to three new packs, with exclusive items. Your Sims can throw a spooky costume party, camp in the great outdoors, and toast to the new year in style."

So it would be much like the Premium membership EA had for Battlefielda monthly subscription for bonus content and cheaper expansions, as opposed to the old Sims way of just offering a Premium edition that had all that content in it from the get-go.

Troubling, but all things considered, not unexpected.  EAs been getting ballsy with the kind of things it expects its players to pay for, so asking people to pay a monthly fee for discounts on Sims items makes sense to me, in a sad, sad way.

That'll probably how people get their hands on pools and toddlers in the future...