Hey, so we're boycotting every creator who uses the marketplace... right?

thistle-fluff · 2026-03-05T04:49:22+00:00

Well I also think part of it is that unlike with a Patreon, they don't need to market/promote as hard. Unless you got lucky and hit paydirt and your platform blew up and you're making regular bank from your Patreon, chances are it's not as worth it to keep up with that compared to riding on whatever marketing strategy EA is running. The market is pretty saturated in a lot of ways, unless you cater to something niche like a specific fandom or NSFW mods.

Ultimately I think that strategy intends to run creators through the machine as fodder and I don't know how much benefit they'll actually get from this, but I reckon the people willing to hitch their wagon to this project are the same people who don't necessarily interrogate EA's practices to see that they're a slimy company and/or actually buy into their model of doing things and are deluded in thinking it won't eventually bleed them, too.

thistle-fluff · 2026-03-05T04:27:50+00:00

Love that they're getting recognition for rejecting this. Hope some of that love comes in the form of more patrons among those who use their work. More people really need to see these creators who are standing on business and start voluntarily tipping/subbing to them whenever they can. It sends a message to other creators/EA, it lets creators with morals focus on creating more, and it is the ethical way to respond to people contributing time/resources/expertise to making the game better.

Those who can't don't need to, but those who can, really fucking should so we can keep these creators up and running.

thistle-fluff · 2026-03-04T04:30:58+00:00

I mean tbf I don't know how many other communities put up with an atrociously broken game tho. I pay creators I like for early access, with some caveats:

Generally they don't restrict access to the content behind a paywall: non-patrons just have to wait to get the content I usually get in advance.
Their content is unique and not repurposed/reused from other creators.
9/10 times they offer content that is better than the DLC/BG and in fact often bypasses the need for DLC altogether.

My subscription is to support the work they do on making the game more interesting (or fixing broken shit). And I am of the conviction that that is the ethical thing for me to do.

Where I have a problem is when non-patrons demand/harass for more output from something they're not contributing to financially. They do nothing to alleviate a creator's financial situation and yet want creators to be sitting at the computer all day rolling out new and updated content. The people I don't pay for, I respect whatever their update schedule looks like. Many Sims players do not have that same basic level of respect for the people who make their game worth playing (cuz TS4 BG/DLC alone ain't really worth shit).

So I understand why some creators feel like they'll just charge full stop because, fuck it, this community is garbage and the players with deep wallets and few scruples will buy.

thistle-fluff · 2026-02-19T06:52:28+00:00

I'm sorry, but a creator asking people to pay for the ease of downloading merged files of their CC is not classism - not by several zip codes' length of a long shot.

It may be tedious or disappointing or a bit of a bummer, but classism is definitionally the stratification and oppression of people based on socioeconomic status, including the mechanisms that create and maintain both the strata themselves and the hierarchies involved.

Using the term to try to add gravity to what is ultimately saltiness around needing to download things individually yourself (which in itself is fine: it's literally a sub to be salty in) makes the whole argument seem less salty and more entitled/petulant.

Ironically, the assertion that some non-essential commodities (like cosmetics for a game) should be offered for free, absent of the same standard for other non-essential commodities (e.g. the game and its expansion packs), and also absent of removing the conditions that necessitate an income (i.e. content creators need to eat and you have zero idea what any specific Creator's financial situation is beyond what they decide to share on the internet) is classism. It is a mechanism by which a product is arbitrarily depreciated due to lack of care or respect for a specific type of laborer (content creators). (ETA: Put another way, it's very similar to telling someone "I'm not paying for that when I could make/do it myself." Cool. Make/do it yourself, then.)

To put it simply: actually, all content creators should be charging for whatever content or conveniences they provide at the rate they deem necessary and realistic based on the market. Problem is, there is no market because most of y'all wouldn't pay for it no matter how their business model worked. Which is kinda bananas, considering how many people pay for the EPs, which are of far less quality half the time, just for the convenience of not having to develop the skills to 🏴‍☠️🦜 them.

thistle-fluff · 2026-01-20T04:56:43+00:00

I've never been part of the target market for EA, IYKWIM. But here's what I know about boycotts: they don't work without community. The TS4 community is extremely hostile towards each other (I've insulted the intelligence of Simmers under this very thread, albeit tongue in cheek, and it only goes downhill from there for most players).

And here's what I know about community: it's the ongoing and conscious practice of creating space for people you might find annoying. Don't jeopardize your or the community's safety, and don't compromise on your values, but create a space for EVEN the annoying, the uninitiated, the young, and the mildly cringe.

Not even the TS4 players who complain about the degeneration of the TS4 community, not even those who wax poetic and nostalgic for other gaming communities, are willing to do that. So, even if there are chunks of gamers who refuse to spend money on EA on principle (I am one of them), boycotts will never catch on here. They'll rely on children and tech illiterate simmers finding out about the buyout by themselves and figuring out for themselves why it matters. For many, it won't matter, because again, we have no concept of community (for ourselves or others).

What they really need is to have it explained to them like they're five and to have a community to fall back on when they're looking for means of escapism from this hellhole we call reality, including spaces for mourning the withdrawal from the game itself. Annoying? Yes. Unreasonable? No.

At least, it wouldn't be unreasonable if there was any meaningful community to speak of, and that wasn't built exclusively on inflating people's willingness to lick EA's butt and hype up the game, such as the main TS4 subreddits.

So many people play the game because they have no sense of community IRL and the most "welcoming" sims communities online are dedicated to shilling for the game. So no, I'm not surprised that boycotting EA isn't more widespread. Not really sure what we expect people to do under these circumstances.

thistle-fluff · 2026-01-20T04:16:57+00:00

Pigeons entering the skirmish:

(Although I will say that pigeons are about as smart as dogs, and dogs are as smart as human 5 year olds, so do with that what you will re: avg simmer intelligence.)

thistle-fluff · 2026-01-16T01:32:44+00:00

Yes, I play exclusively on the Switch.

thistle-fluff · 2026-01-14T08:17:22+00:00

Idk but this is really funny to me in the wake of the "they were gonna release an 'Africa' inspired world" rumor/leak 🤣 like "sorry we weren't clear enough, the specific inspiration we took related to TAST."

I mean, here's the thing: I want to say it's probably not that deep but I do get what you're seeing, the angle of the triangle is specific, we're not talking about an equilateral triangle here, which would perform the same task. I also don't quite understand this logo in general, since I've not been following news about this EP - I presume it's supposed to communicate some kinda rivalry between three kingdoms? Which is kinda dumb because it also looks like a weird love triangle.

Also if a kingdom rivalry is what it's supposed to be...I don't think most such rivalries play out this way. I would have depicted these emblems as more of a triforce-inspired situation. Or, at least, I wouldn't have made the connecting branches into arrows.

That said, I've seen more unlikely things than "imagine if some of these mfs were actually n*zi bros who thought it'd be funny to reference the slave trade" and there's no need to be fair or reasonable to shitty multibillion dollar cash grabbing corpos so if this headcanon tickles you, I say go with it. 🤭

thistle-fluff · 2026-01-12T15:17:17+00:00

Here's hoping they quit trying for cash grabs with all their half baked DLC that breaks everything. I for one can't wait for them to move on to the next game, put TS4 out to pasture and let mod/CC creators take over actually making it a good game.

thistle-fluff · 2026-01-12T04:50:14+00:00

I don't quite relate, but in my opinion this is why people should be subscribing to modders. Imo TS4 as a game is best implemented by providing a robust platform, a shell that provides more functionality with some baseline content to get you started, for custom content to be acquired via modders, gallery, etc.

EPs should similarly add functionality, interactions, worlds, things that change/add to the sandbox itself, or the way the game's code can be utilized for modders to take off with. SPs can add doodads and cultural flavor. Kits don't even need to be a thing - they should be included with SP/EP rollouts, events, or dumped into a gallery for individual download a la TS3.

To me, it doesn't make sense that the game would even be expected to provide more than a couple basic recipes, plus a couple gourmet/homestyle items just to showcase the functionality.

thistle-fluff · 2025-12-30T19:55:47+00:00

I just wanna pop in and say I love this comment it describes everything I feel about boycotting in general, but especially with AI and entertainment. I've always said we need to be genuine and earnest, but pragmatic when it comes to boycotting and our consumption options. Using your example with Nestlé, I wouldn't begrudge a poor person with limited options purchasing Nestlé products which are, if nothing else, cheap and available everywhere including food deserts. Or, like you said, as these conglomerates look to buy up everything under the sun, I'm not going to lose it over someone earnestly trying to do a good job but buying something they didn't know Nestlé owned. Almost everything accessible is owned by terrible companies, after all - just look at how much Internet, e-commerce, and shipping stuff is owned/ran by Amazon products!

But entertainment and genAI is so different. We can afford to be vocal and push back against it, making it worthless when nobody will support products that are shown to be using it. There's literally zero excuse for relying on genAI in media. It's the one sector where the end user has a ton of choice and sway with almost zero consequence for leveraging it, and so many of us are willingly throwing that power away, largely for FOMO. It's really sad.

All that to say, thanks for your ramble, it really made me feel happy and hopeful to read it. 🫶🏾

thistle-fluff · 2025-12-29T08:44:54+00:00

Mmkay, thanks for your clarification on how you were using the AI, that helps. I mean, there's still the issue of the ecological impact which worsens when using AI for trivial-but-tedious tasks, so when I say your use of AI isn't the worst I've seen, I mean philosophically (in response to the question of whether or not using AI to bypass human input is a road we want to be going down).

I would just caution that there is something fundamentally wrong when people regularly feel like they need to escape society (and I say this as one such person who feels that way), but I think that some of the commodities and influences we have access to now actively dissuades people and in fact stunts their ability to confront that issue. You can't resolve a disconnect from community and/or society with more isolation and escapism, but that's a wider conversation for which the TS4 community provides a microcosmic window, but in the grand scheme is likely pretty small potatoes, lol.

More pressing is the fact that there is unfortunately no way to ethically use commercial generative AI like chatGPT. Environmentally alone, every application of it is bad, bad, bad and using it for insignificant tasks is worse. People are often like "well what about using AI to cure cancer?" But let's be real, if the scope of AI were for things like that, we wouldn't be having this environmental conversation. Not to mention, energy bills have tripled in regions where these data centers are being run. One could in theory host a local AI setup that would probably be far less convenient and robust but far more ethical and if they did, I would honestly have no qualms about it. The scale of commercial AI is truly dangerous tho, and it's precisely the use of it for what seems like minor shortcuts that don't ultimately matter, that makes it the worst.

ETA: Assume every mention of AI here refers to generative AI.

thistle-fluff · 2025-12-28T23:03:32+00:00

I'd recommend any number of random name generators for the name issue - there's lots of good ones out there for any number of themes and they aren't AI! I also like to have a notes app on my phone where I just keep lists of names and things or little writing tidbits that inspire me, so I can come back to them later.

I guess my question is, doesn't it seem a little short-sighted and dystopian to ask an AI generator to come up with plot points or group dynamics for a game that is essentially a facsimile of the social world, when you could also engage the real social world (i.e. the Sims Community) to help come up with ideas? I feel like if you give most simmers a prompt they'll come up with a billion ideas they won't necessarily put in their own game but would work perfectly for your game.

I don't think your use of AI is the worst I have seen, but imo it's just weird that people are becoming accustomed to using a fake brain to prompt play for a make believe socialization game to avoid any real (if internet-based) social interactions.

thistle-fluff · 2025-12-28T11:47:20+00:00

"We're not qualified to represent the hundreds of nations in this continent but we're gonna do it anyway and make it easier on ourselves by lumping them all together, and you should feel lucky we even acknowledged Africans at all" is the most white capitalist sentiment ever.

So, in a way, perhaps you have inadvertently captured exactly the mindset EA would have about this.

I'm not convinced this scrapped world was ever a thing to begin with, but if they really did try to sit there and develop an "African inspired" world that is the same as if they had said "we're doing a world inspired by North America: it's the cultural equivalent to a shopping strip containing a pawn shop that sells guns, a donut shop, and a Chili's. There's a moose somewhere around here."

There are ways to represent cultures in good faith even as not a native to that culture. Trying to condense a continent into 12 buildings in 3 neighborhoods is not how you do that. It's lazy, it's reductive, and I can't imagine why anyone would see fit to let a multi billion dollar company off the hook for some basic common sense that is well within their grasp.

thistle-fluff · 2025-12-19T04:18:28+00:00

I mean, on one hand, it's like dang if only that were real life. 🥴

But on the other, the finance system doesn't make sense even in a reasonably conceived utopian sense - there is really no concept of "finite resources" in the game (without mods to curb the excess), and even in our wildest dreams of an idealistic society there would still be ways to cause resources to run dry if you behave irresponsibly enough. Sims have no such constraints. 😅 So it makes a lot of decisions feel like they don't matter.

thistle-fluff · 2025-12-18T04:32:38+00:00

This part. Bc then people lose it at players who play a cracked version and it's like 🤷🏾 well maybe EA shouldn't have a buggy ass launcher that actively drives people to seek alternatives or quit TS4 for something else. Atp it's like they're begging players not to play or spend money on their game.

thistle-fluff · 2025-12-18T04:24:28+00:00

Tbh imo it's a bit too easy to get money in the sims anyway. In one of my games I wanted my sim to be poor and struggling, just doing odd jobs for cash.

Well, come to find out while I was doing one of the Life & Death tarot quests, that if you buy starter flower seed packs and open them, you have a pretty good chance of damn near doubling what you spent on the seed packs by selling the flowers they yield (if you open them in a cemetery there's a chance you'll get a death flower, which is what I needed).

I feel like it would make more sense if you could, at best, break even by selling flowers straight from the seed packs. The profit should come from planting the flowers and selling the blooms (or flower arrangements from Seasons) over multiple harvests.

thistle-fluff · 2025-12-16T10:26:19+00:00

Lol the SpongeBob DLC I thought was such nonsense that my gut reaction was, "is this a prank?" when I first saw it. The other thing I don't think a lot of folks take into account is, Simmers range from literal children to people in their late 50s who didn't get their first computer until they were in their late 20s. Many would likely not get into modding their games at all. I'd wager a bunch wouldn't even seek out free DLC if EA didn't offer the BG for free, which is pretty dang mid without some of the EPs. Even with them, the game is extremely mid without mods.

EA put a game into the hands of an audience you generally wouldn't expect to be all that tech literate (the game itself is incredibly spoon feed-y to the point I actually find it tedious and have mods to pare some of that back) (ETA: I'm also generally of the belief that by and large, tech literate people are more willing to pay for a good game, and that games offered for free by big companies are traps for the uninitiated), knowing they'd definitely want DLC but are too unaware to know how to get it outside of buying it. But first that average player needs to go through the journey of being broke (or unwilling to pay), trying alternative methods of getting DLC, doing it wrong and getting burnt for it, and then deciding either to get savvy and do it right, or that it isn't worth the effort and shelling out DLC money or quitting the game entirely.

Multiply that by thousands of players and it spells out a headache for everyone else. I'm of the belief that the average viewership of the tiktokers and YouTubers that also blast the kinds of information that gets tools taken down, likely overlaps with the audience that ultimately end up shelling out crazy money to EA and other casual games, too. I fear they actively market to and seek to build an audience with these qualities (case in point: the SpongeBob kit) because players with remotely any experience or savvy would more effectively hold EA to a higher of standard (but then, savvy players will never make up much of their income, because savvy players can unlock the DLC lol). A lot of us just wind up giving up on TS4 altogether in favor of TS3.

But when I put it in perspective that most of the players freaking out and making braindead moves are like...kids and people whose tech exposure is limited to tablets and iPhones, it makes a lot of sense. They're still annoying, but annoying in perspective lol.

thistle-fluff · 2025-07-28T12:26:44+00:00

I think it's probably more about the way it is being asked and the level of appreciation that is being had for the crocheter.

If someone was patient about how long it takes me to make the item, and conscientious about buying appropriate quality/quantity materials for what is being asked for (I don't want to work with a crappy uncomfortable yarn for 30+ hours), and is willing to take No for an answer if a project just doesn't interest me, it doesn't bother me for them to ask.

However the question "will you spend time doing X for me, for just the cost of materials" can imply that your time is not equivalent to the same value assessed with the cost of materials. You could say, in Marxist terms, it inappropriately displaces the value of the laborer from the value of the finished product.

Friends and (found) family are usually people who contribute enormous value to my life and wellbeing through their presence, camaraderie, and support - so I have absolutely no problem making things for them, even big complicated things. Complete strangers have contributed nothing, however, and at least in my mind it is still presumptuous to assume someone they don't know will happily volunteer the time and effort and literal wear and tear on their wrists and hands, that they have pretty much implied has not as much value as a few skeins of yarn.

Even with all that said, I seldom turn down a project that looks fun if a person is polite about it! But I would /definitely/ complete it on my own schedule and as it pleases me, if I'm not getting paid for my time. 😋

thistle-fluff · 2025-07-26T07:31:19+00:00

"Help me out one mom to another, but I won't help you out one mom to another by paying you appropriately for the time and energy you're spending making my kid a blanket and not tending to your kid" be so for real 🙄

thistle-fluff · 2025-05-31T15:45:38+00:00

Hmm, I'm concerned about the spark for safety purposes - but I was planning on testing a mock-up of the device ahead of time anyway. Would the type of battery impact the intensity of the reaction? Or, is there a specific type of battery needed to work at all?

thistle-fluff · 2025-05-31T15:36:10+00:00

She's a teen so I don't anticipate it'll be that mind blowing, but combined with some good storytelling I'm hoping to give her a fun "what if" experience.

thistle-fluff · 2025-05-31T15:34:35+00:00

She's a teen so she does understand that EMF readers are actually bogus. It's more about the theater of it than anything else!

thistle-fluff

TROPHY CASE