Pre-order bonuses as seen on Origin: August 21, 2013.

LIMITED EDITION

• Life of the Party Digital Content:Features the Flaming Tiki Bar and spectacular party costumes.

The Sims™ 4

DIGITAL DELUXE EDITION

• Up All Night Digital Content: Features the Laser Light Show, new parties, outfits, decorations, and recipes.
• Life of the Party Digital Content: Features the Flaming Tiki Bar and spectacular party costumes.
• Digital Soundtrack: A digital soundtrack featuring music from the game.

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Release date at the time of posting: December 31, 2014 (Amazon)

It'll be interesting to see how many official expansion/stuff packs there will be for The Sims 4 a few years after its release.

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The Sims 3 (released June 2, 2009):

Official Expansion packs: 12

Official Stuff packs: 9

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Content packs from The Sims 3 will not transfer over to The Sims 4, will people buy all of the "stuff" again? Yes. Yes, they probably will buy all of the "stuff" again.

Which pack gives me the Issac Clark and Shepard skins?

But seriously, I do like the sims and I'm sure Ill eventually pick this up but what is the big hook for this one? I mean the original was just the idea of a life sim. 2 was the addition of aging and 3 was the semi open world neighborhood. What is this one striving to be?

I like The Sims. So this is cool! I'm hoping for like a next-gen small-download release at some point.

The Sims 3 is like crack.

Or Pringles.

Do you think it is safe to pre-order? I'm sort of worried about a catastrophe like SimCity happening again. I think Maxis learned its lesson from last year...but it really does leave me wondering if I want to put down money now. I have never played a Sims game before, and this would be my first, but from what I can glean form the game play that is typical in these games I would like it.