The Sims 5 Will be a F2P Game, but Rest Assured - It Will Offer Ways to Spend Money
A new job announcement released by EA has provided us with detailed plans for monetization methods for the upcoming Project Rene.
Two days ago there was another episode of the Behind The Sims series, which included a sizable segment on Maxis' progress on Project Rene. Just a day later, the community discovered new information about the project, which the developers decided not to include in the presentation.
The Sims 5 for free?
Project Renea presented as a follow-up to the main The Sims series has been a big unknown since its announcement in late 2022. For now, the biggest surprise, and thus a departure from the brand's familiar format, is the tight integration of cloud gaming aspects.
Now, based on the job posting for the position of Head of Monetization and Market, found by user The Henford Hen, we can deduce that with the new gameplay systems will also come an entirely new business model.
Two points of the job announcement in particular are worth noting:
- "Own Project Rene's in-game marketplace of created content and ugc (free and paid), and manage a data-informed player-centric player purchase journe - maximizing value to players, optimizngplayer spend patterns and minimizing player churn.
- Own pricing of all content in this free-to-enter game, ensuring we have an optimal pricing and content architecture. Provide guidance to content teams on in-game content needs to meet player demand."
This primarily means that the basic version of The Sims 5 will be a free-to-play game, based on microtransactions for additional content.
This turn of events was predicted by fans of the game since the first announcements of Project Rene, but clear confirmation from an official source (the announcement has been removed, but is well documented online) could put an end to the speculation.
Admittedly, The Sims 4 also switched to free-to-play model, this happened only 8 years after the game's release, and not at launch - as is expected to happen with its sequel.
