2026 isn't shaping up well for fans of The Sims 4 - not only are there more pieces of downloadable content seemingly every other week, but EA has now confirmed a new kind of paid currency is coming to the game.
Announced on March 3, The Sims Maker Program and Marketplace will debut in the game on March 17, 2026, starting with PC and then rolling to PlayStation and Xbox at a later date. The Maker Program essentially allows custom content creators to publish their work officially, instead of on sites like The Sims Resource and Curseforge.
Some creators also publish work on Patreon or their own sites, and sometimes charge a fee for downloading it. Now, they can do it through the game and earn a percentage of the new currency through EA. Only 30%, though. What is the new currency? Moola, signified by a cow plant. Moo-la. By the way, if your Sim takes the cake offered by the cow plant in the game, there's a high chance they get eaten. As pointed out by SatchOnSims, it is funny that we're using the very symbol of greed for the new store.
This article gives a full rundown of the new marketplace and how it works for creators, but essentially, you need to buy packs of Moola to spend in the game, similar to Fortnite's V-Bucks, Roblox's Robux, and gacha games' respective in-game currencies. The smallest pack of Moola you can buy is 200 coins for $2.49, ranging up to 5.5k coins for $49.99. This is very similar to Roblox, where $49.99 gets you 5,250 Robux, but more than in Genshin, where the same price gets you 3,880 gems.
Judging by screenshots in the above post, it seems that one small pack of custom items costs between 200 and 400 coins apiece. While this opens up the ability to pick and choose which items you want, instead of paying for a full kit or pack, it still seems a bit much to me.
I'm not paying for microtransactions in The Sims 4 on top of the $1,500+ it takes to fully 'complete' the game. A couple of months ago, I investigated the full cost of the Sims 4, and even since then, we've got four new kits and an expansion pack, pushing the total even higher.
It'll be interesting to see the community reaction as this rolls out, and to see the sales figures of the Moola packs. I, for one, am going back to my old trusty Sims 2 instead.