The Daily Populous Wednesday October 30th, 2024 evening edition
Authored by eurogamer.net and submitted by jhd9012

The Sims 4 might be getting on a bit, what with having launched over a decade ago now, but that doesn't seem to have dulled interest in the long-running life sim series; EA just announced The Sims 4 has managed to gain over 15m new players this year alone.

To put that into perspective, it took The Sims 4 six years to amass 20m players after its launch back in 2014 - a figure that then skyrocketed following EA's decision to transition the formerly premium title into a free-to-play game in October 2022. That business model shift more than quadrupled The Sims 4's audience, with EA touting 85m players back in May this year, and we now know the past 12 months have brought a total of 15m new players.

That most recent figure was revealed as part of EA's second-quarter 2025 financial earnings report ("Increased engagement led to higher-than-expected net bookings for the franchise in Q2", the publisher noted), and helps provide additional context for its announcement earlier this year that, despite its age, The Sims 4 will remain "a foundational Sims experience" as the series moves "beyond linear, sequential Sims releases".

The Sims 4's surge in popularity also explains EA renewed focus on the ten-year-old game, with the publisher having pledged more bug fixes more often this May as it looks to address years of 'frustrating' technical issues. That's on top of a range of new in-game initiatives, such as the new live-service style Reaper's Rewards Event, and a continuing avalanche of new DLC.

Next on the expansion list is The Sims 4's extremely promising and wonderfully macabre Life & Death expansion, which releases this Thursday, 31st October. Its launch follows a free base game update last week considerably expanding Sims' ghost-form gameplay (and making it possible to bonk Death), and comes ahead of a new series of creator-designed DLC packs.

Things have certainly come a long way since Swimmingpoolgate.

Darometh on October 30th, 2024 at 11:46 UTC »

And how many of those 15 million actually stayed or more important, bought anything? Base game is free

WhiteBlackBlueGreen on October 30th, 2024 at 11:00 UTC »

Sims 5 when?

Sparktank1 on October 30th, 2024 at 08:57 UTC »

I did not see the tiny little insignificant "m" after the number so read it only as 15. Total.

I had a good laugh before I read it again.