John Paul M. Joaquin Games 04.19.2023 04:Apr AM EDT

The Sims 4 Now Has More Than 70 Million Players, Breaks Record

The Sims 4 has surpassed its predecessors.

Video game publisher EA recently announced that The Sims 4 recently acquired enough players to make it the most widely played game ever in the franchise's 23-year history.

EA published The Sims 4 on Spte. 2, 2014, per the game's Steam store page, making the game one of the longest-lived games in the franchise.

The Sims 4 Player Count

(Photo : Electronic Arts | Maxis)

EA's published statement, which cites a Maxis report, said that The Sims 4 had reached more than 70 million players worldwide since its launch in 2014, making it the most widely played game in the franchise's 23-year history.

According to the publisher's statement, this rise in the game's player count is due to a few factors, one of which being the game's free-to-play set-up since Oct. 2022 - more than 16 million new players downloaded the game as of press time, increasing the average weekly user count by 53%.

You may recall that EA made The Sims 4's base game free to play in mid-Oct. 2022 for all platforms, allowing Maxis, the franchise's developer, to focus more on developing "new and meaningful" experiences for players and continue creating and releasing packs, kits, and Sims Delivery Express drops in the future.

Thanks to EA's decision to make the game free-to-play, it slowly expanded outside of North America in growth areas, with 75% of its new unique players located in Brazil, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Poland. As a result of this expansion, the amount of user-generated content shared through the game's Library increased significantly, with more than 7 million gallery downloads in-game in the past week alone.

Another reason The Sims 4's player count increased was the release of the game's latest expansion pack, Getting Together. According to EA, it saw more sales for Growing Together than any other expansion pack launch week since The Sims 4 started releasing content through them in 2015. For those unaware, the Growing Together pack includes highly requested gameplay features by fans, which center around family dynamics, new life stages, and milestones as players guide their Sims into the next chapter of their lives.

The Real Money Makers In The Sims Franchise

EA and Maxis have been releasing various packs for players of The Sims franchise to enjoy since its first game. The Gamer reports that both companies developed and published eight expansion packs for The Sims from 2000 to 2003.

However, it is only when The Sims 3 came out that EA capitalized on expanding the game's base features with various expansion packs, stuff packs, and game packs. According to Carl's Sims 3 Guide, The Sims 3 has a total of eleven expansion packs, while Gaming Scan reports that the game has nine stuff packs for players to buy and enjoy.

The Sims 4, meanwhile, has 13 expansion packs, according to Prima Games, with a significant amount of stuff packs and game packs that allow players to do more things in-game. The amount of expansion packs, game packs, and stuff packs, which cost $39.99, $19.99, and $9.99, respectively, is more than enough reason to make the base The Sims 4 game free to play.

PCGamesN reports that buying all of the game's additional content would cost $1064.45 by the time Growing Together was released.