After being incredibly disappointed by the release of Sims 4, I was someone holding out hope for Sims 5 that they would have realized, “Hey, people really didn't want us to do anything multiplayer in Sims 4. Maybe that means we should go back and make an actual good Sims game?” But instead, we get this awful news that Sims will be just like Fortnite, heavily monetized with its own store, basically following the model of Fallout games with creation club, in a sense. Completely the opposite of what players asked for, and crushing all of our hopes and dreams of playing a new Sims game that's just like Sims 3....
To me, this really kills the entire franchise for me. I don't think there's any hope for it, I think this is a death blow, basically an execution of the franchise and turning it into the most low value (to the consumer, mind you) dribble that they could have possibly came up with. There is nothing they could have announced that is worse than a multiplayer version of Sims with microtransactions, that's basically just Sims mobile that you can play on your PC! Sims 4 is already completely unplayable for me, because there's no content, it's just stupid packs and kids and stuff and little micro bundles. There's nothing fun about the game, and you see people streaming it, it's just building. That's all they are ever doing. Just building crap.
It's even worse that there's no competitor because it's so incredibly challenging to make a game like The Sims. Horrifically challenging, life by me was completely gutted and canceled, and that was one of the major games that people were looking forward to. There is still paralives, But they are so early access and have no release date at all. It could be 10 years from now that they finish their game or longer.
TL;DR: Sims 4 ruined by surprise multiplayer mechanics that were removed. Sims 5 canceled in place of multiplayer with microtransaction store like Fallout creation club. Barely any competitors, life by me canceled. Franchise is dead in the water
The fact that there aren't many alternatives likely means that making a Sims-like game isn't as simple as it looks. That being said, there are a bunch of life sims under developement right now (probably because EA is doing a terrible job) such as Paralives, Inzoi and Alterlife.
Just a heads up, Alterlife likely never got off the ground. They mocked up a demo video with store assets 3 years ago, but were never heard from again. I still have it on my wishlist, but my hopes are not up, lol.
Ooohhh, Inzoi and Alterlife both look really good!