Is The SIMS going to a monthly subscription ? and how much will it be ? I just received an origin update and the splash screen says included with PLAY and PLAYPro. This seems to imply that you will need a subscription or something soon. I have a screenshot of the splashsceen in question.

I don't think players who own a copy of the sims will need to start paying a separate fee each month to keep playing their game,no.

Origin does however have an option were you can pay a monthly fee in exchange for access to certain pre selected games in their archive.
So basicly you have the choose to spend 40 doller to buy the sims 4 itself . Or you can pay something like 80 dollers a month and get access to TS4, some of the expantions plus many other games as well. The diffrence from out right buying these games however is that they aren't added to your personal library and if you stop paying your subscription you can no longer play the games you didn't pay for directly. Think of it like netflix or amozon prime for video games.

If you buy TS4 or any of it expansions normally however then as long as the files stay on origin's data base and you have access to your account you should never have to spend another penny on something you've already bought.
Although in theory because of the way TS4 is tied to the origin client, EA does have the power to force players to pay a fee in order to continue to play their games, doing so would be literal suicide for them as a company.

I don't think so for the reasons keyqueen pointed out.

However, if there is going to be a TS5, sub fees and other types of fees ( macrotransactions) may become a thing as Android Wilson has mentioned that a possible TS5 would have a multi-player aspect.  Any time EA creates a multi-player anything these days,  people have to pay for everything.  This can be seen in action via Sims Mobile where players have to shell out $5.00 for a color swatch which doesn't include the item they want to recolor.

It should come as no surprise that EA is losing lots of money on their mobile games because of this, but they continue to do it anyway.

If a video game becomes a bill, it better be the best game I’ve played.

The Sims 4 ain’t it.

True. I kind of forgot about 5. Acualy I think I forgot on purpose. Given the state of 4 I already had zero hope for 5 and after the announcement of it being MP I'm honestly done with modern sims. I still have 1 through 3 and very, very occasional 4 to play. Also not spending my energy worring about para lives ether.
Anywhy at least with 5 EA almost assuredly make miro transations and pay to win a thing from the beginning not years down the line.
Then people will know right away what their buying, rather then them have time to become invested only to have the game ripped away from them.

I don't play multiplayer games, much less pay for them. IF EA's going to make sims 5 multiplayer, then I'm done with the sims.

I don't want multiplayer in my sims what if was pvp and they could kill your sims.

I doubt there would be pvp. There are plenty of MP games without it because it would go against what the game is trying to be. Considering that the worst sims on sims violence in any of the games up to this point has been comical fighting without any real consequence I highly doubt EA would suddenly allow sims to kill each other just because the game is MP.
My main grip about a MP sims game besides the overt money grabbing it would enable on the behalf of EA, is that it would make the game to dependant on online services which in my opinion EA does not have a good track record with. With every EA game I've owned sooner or later EA has shut down its online feature once they fill the game is no longer profitable enough. The sims 1 store? Shut down once sims 2 came alone. Sims 2 Store and exchange? Shut down when Sims 3 started to sell more copies. The MP feature for My sims pc? Shut down just a few years after the game released. The exchange for sims 3 console? Shut down just cause they felt like it I guess. You get the idea.
If you have but any Store content for the sims 3 and think you'll ever play it again I highly recommend making sure you back up any SC you own cause its only a matter of time before that disappears to. I believe the fact its still around to day is simply a testament to how well TS3 is selling even now.

So what happens a few years down the line when EA decides TS5 isn't selling well enough to suit them? They pull the plug on the online component which would leave what for a MP game? Nothing, kiss your 60+ dollers buy.

I only play the sims as a distraction to everyday life. Hence, I don't love the sims enough - not as it is in it's current condition - to pay monthly for it. The sims 5 better overwhelm me to hell to pull any more money out of my pocket. Either that, or someone better come up with a mod (like Sacrificial has with his various different types of gameplay mods to add to the sims) that's so exceptional to make me want to get the sims just to play that mod. Other than that, I've already decided that the sims 4 is the last game of the franchise I'll do.

Sorry EA. You screwed around so much that you finally screwed yourself. Are you happy now?

I wonder what online Sims 5 would look like? I might want to check it out. I played Sims Online in the second or third beta wave - whichever one it was where they let everyone in just before it was offered for sale. I played for a bit after that and left before they added significantly more content. It wasn't all that exciting, game-wise. You played just to hang out with the people you met and possibly so you could create a place that you liked, but the game play itself wasn't much.

If you're not really a gamer who play regular games, this kind of deal doesn't work.

No, that's wrongthink! Violence BAD, impossible biology and social politics GOOD!

if it weren't for mods this IP would have been shovelware decades ago; there's no way in hell they can pull off a subscription-based model for any Sims game. Just look at Sims Online, what a shitshow lmao.

I can't say exactly how it would be as I don't know that, but considering how TS4 was supposed to be a online game, I don't see it going well.  I also don't see a online game being able to handle 35 ( and still counting) packs. 

Oh, a game (or any type of software) is nothing but bits and bytes programed a certain way, and with a million terabytes of storage and more powerful chips in the servers, the online computers would be more than able to handle it.
The question is - as with any program - will it be worth it. Adobe Photoshop is the superior premier image editing program and every other image program tries to match them. Some do. Most don't. The Sims cannot say they are a superior game. Hence, just because they'd be online doesn't mean they'd be worth a damn to play.

That sounds terrible, aka something that EA would try.

Well I don't think we could kill your Sim directly like we do with Extreme Violence mod but we could sneak into your house at night, cook something, then left the stove alone, then go to a fireplace, lit!..., put some small objects near a fireplace from our inventory, then leave as soon as possible...just wait and see your whole house burns down with your Sim(s) from 50m away.

I've seriously considered taking a law degree just to sue horrible game companies, tech companies, for the abuses they perpetuate. But I don't have the patience for the bullshit minutia, I'm an writer not a lawyer.

Might as well add all the TV channel providers. I pay Virgin media for hundreds of channels I never use just to get the few I want. There are so many computer games that I have paid a lot for, like Civilisation and haven't even got to first base on or bored with after a week but The Sims games aren't one of them.

Life's like that, unfortunately.

No normal singleplayer game will become a subscription only. The whole point is to have both. This is why the big publishers that also publish for consoles already suggested they might raise the prices for games (did not keep track of this, so not sure if this is already set in stone). This helps with making a subscription service more attractive.

So with the next installment of the Sims, expect more DLC for less bang for the buck. After the game has been out for a while and they already released several hundreds of dollars worth of DLC, many people will get the sub instead of buying the game. Because it seems so cheap compared. Oh and expect the sub also to have limitations at some point when the game library is becoming really big. So that you get different varients with some overlap. But for example, you want to play TS5+DLC, you need to have Premium sub and for TS4+DLC, you need to have Classic sub if you don't want to buy the games.

It will not become sub only for the simple reason that less fortunate people (and imo anyone who wants more control over their purchase) will not have the money to have several subscriptions going for all the different kinds of media that offer them nowadays.They might instead just want to save for the base game and maybe a DLC and wait for a sale. Oh and people who are just cheap (like me), who just wait for sales and avoid always online single player games.

same. I have a sub for Elder Scrolls Online, but I can honestly say, I have not once played that game with anyone else, and any time other players try to interract with me, I run off haha. I just want to explore and find treasure with my little panter cub, Keith. Leave me beeeee!