Now, we get to the end of our journey into The Sims and its history of collaborations with celebrities, brands and beyond.
The Sims 4 is, of course, our main topic here on the site. And it’s undoubtedly the most popular in the history of the series, despite some setbacks. Now, let’s dig into the final entry in a short history of sims collabs as we explore The Sims 4!
Beyond The Sims
The last thing I want to do here is just reproduce a list of what other people have collated when it comes to The Sims 4 and its various collabs. In previous entries dissecting them one-by-one was practically a necessity — especially to lay the groundwork — but in The Sims 4 the sheer number of the means we’ll have to be a little more broad.
With The Sims 4, EA had by now found its footing with online content, and the potential to easily include minor updates and collaborations was no longer reliant on physical discs or other less user-friendly methods. Celebrities also made many more appearances with The Sims 4 Gallery easily letting EA include likenesses of them for players to peruse.
The Big stuff
Before the launch of The Sims 4, there was a bigger focus on crossover promotions, with SteelSeries producing a line of Sims-themed peripherals. No longer did it seem that the focus was on physical storefronts what with this being when EA were pushing Origin heavily.
However, it was definitely the start of the era of experimentation. Which is easy enough to see with the Sims Sessions event in 2021 that brought the idea of musicians making Simlish versions of their songs to the fore, rather than the background.
You only need to look as far back as FKA Twigs and their Simlish version of Perfect Stranger to see that the musical aspect of The Sims is an increasingly prominent one. And musicians being the famous celebrities they are, it’s hardly surprising that this is an easy ‘in’ for artists to get exposure and fans to get immersed in the world of The Sims.
Speaking of celebrities, The Sims 4 is arguably where they are the most prominent.
Hollywood glitz and glamour (Celeb Streams)
Previously, as you may remember from my last entries in this series, celebrity collabs were mainly just appearances. With occasional exceptions of course, such as Drew Carey in The Sims: House Party or Katy Perry being plastered all over The Sims 3 with her own themed expansion pack.
The Sims 4, living through the rise in popularity of livestreaming and an unprecedented look into the lives of the celebrities we aspire to means that their appearances in The Sims has been equally in-depth. Be it Megan Thee Stallion or T-Pain making an appearance and livestreaming The Sims, celebrities are featuring in a much more in-depth manner.
Not so fancy (Moschino & friends)
Of course, this is EA we’re talking about so not everything can be sunshine and roses. Such is the case with the Moschino collab. While something like Diesel in The Sims 3 was oddball if understandable, Moschino — an Italian luxury fashion brand — is not one that many fans were expecting, or seemed to want.
While the actual quality of the pieces included is debatable, for many fans it seemed like a bizarre choice. Still, it was a bold tie-in especially considering it also resulted in some experimental looks being translated into real life too, all inspired by The Sims.
Moschino wasn’t the only major fashion producer to take a swing at The Sims 4 either. Stefan Cooke’s designes featured in The Modern Menswear Kit, while MeUndies (allegedly something considered ‘stylish’) collabed for the Simtimates Collection Kit.
Same galaxy, same makeup (M.A.C.)
Indeed, while many of the collabs in the past Sims entries ranged from great to odd, The Sims 4 wasn’t shy about putting its foot in it. Take the M.A.C collab where the titular makeup brand produced a palette both in-game and in real-life for fans to purchase.
The only issue? The makeup in-game was…lacklustre to say the least. And the palette for the real-world collab was one which had been released already, without the name of the makeup colours even being changed. Well at least the box was a collectible; and reportedly the main ‘selling point’ at that. Yeesh.
Feeling Content (Creator Content kits)
Outside of the celebrity realm, it’s worth noting that EA has become seemingly much more comfortable working with custom content creators. The addition of different kits, including the recent announcements of two upcoming ones arriving later this month, shows that they appreciate the place custom content has in the hearts of fans.
Light a spark (Sims Spark’d)
The Sims also began pursuing some other tie-in projects that are a little bit out of this wheelhouse. But The Sims Spark’d is close enough to count as a collab, as this reality show based on The Sims 4 aired over on the TBS Network back in 2020. An oddball idea, it saw contests completing challenges within The Sims 4 itself.
Seeing teams of three taking on the role of Stylist (creating designs), Builder (creating buildings) and the Storyteller responsible for crafting stories, this was certainly an interesting way to try and get The Sims brand in front of new eyeballs.
While not exactly a disaster, it didn’t set the television world on fire either. And since 2020 we’ve heard nothing more about a potential second season of The Sims Spark’d.
In a galaxy that should have been much further away (Journey to Batuu)
Perhaps the most contentious collaboration in the history of The Sims, however, took place during this period. At the time EA possessed the lucrative licence to produce gaming properties based on Star Wars. So, it seemed only natural to bring The Sims — with its legacy of kooky expansions that brought the supernatural and aliens onboard — to a galaxy far, far away.
But upon being announced Journey to Batuu was absolutely slammed by fans. Not least because EA’s handling of the Star Wars licence was a bit iffy to begin with (remember Star Cards in Battlefront 2? Eesh). The main reason for Sims fans being that many wanted to see more attention paid to updating and adding core gameplay features rather than what seemed to be a bit of a forced tie-in on EA’s part.
Batuu itself was a little bit more of a whistle-stop tour of the Star Wars universe, with player Sims completing missions to gain favour with either the Resistance, First Order or Scoundrel factions. What was pretty much a separate place without many of the features players had come to expect made this less of a ‘Star Wars Sim Fantasy’ and more ‘hey, look at all this stuff you know from the filums!’.
Either way, The Sims 4 looks to be the main entry for the foreseeable future with news that a potential sequel is on the back-burner. And being over a decade old it almost certainly will chart the course for the future of the franchise, including a focus on collabs with celebrities and content creators alike.
So, with that in mind, we come to a close with our miniature tour of the collabs in The Sims franchise. And hopefully we’ve all learnt a little bit about gaming because of it, and certainly seen some wild and interesting things from the past of this fan-favourite franchise.
Errata
In our own whistle-stop tour of collabs throughout The Sims franchise, there’s been one or two things that were a little too small to include. With that in mind here’s some honourable mentions!
- The Soda Shuffle: While I joked about it in The Sims 2 article, Pepsi has actually shown up throughout the series, mainly as a branded vending machine in The Sims. Red Bull appeared in The Urbz instead (fittingly so) on its own vending machines.
- Tie-ins: There was a suite of branded content available for The Sims 3 such as posters and t-shirts for artists Ozzy Osbourne (RIP) and Li’l Wayne, but you’ll have to check the Wayback Machine to find it nowadays.
