A new job listing for The Sims developer Maxis seemingly indicates that the long-awaited title will be a free-to-play game.
According to a now-pulled job listing for a Head of Marketplace & Monetization, a candidate for the role will
'own Project Rene's in-game marketplace of content and UGC (free and paid_, and manage a data-informed player-centric player purchase journey - maximizing value to players, optimizing player 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 listing was noticed by SimsCommunity and seemingly shows that The Sims 5 will be a free-to-play title. All of the other mainline Sims games have been paid titles with added DLC content, so this could indicate some worrying things to come for the franchise. Will we see more and more things in the game that were in the base games of the other titles being added as DLC?
We still don't know when exactly we can expect The Sims 5 will launch, with the fact that EA and Maxis are still hiring for the role seeming to indicate that it's still years away from being ready for showtime.