This is what everyone wanted! Another "as a service" game! Oh, and look, a store front!
and partner with some “Sims” players to sell their own custom in-game content through the EA store as “Creator Kits.”
Would those "players" be musicians? 100% someone is already trying to figure out how to "collab" with Katy Perry. Big IPs of other franchises (movies/games/anime)? Are they going to do limited timed events to really push the FOMO? Did they see Fortnite and thought "Lets do that!".
Sims multiplayer sounds like it could be fun, but it is highly dependant on how that is implemented. The other "features" just sound like shareholder porn.
I gave FreeSO a try since it's an open-source implementation of Sims Online, but the hookability wasn't there. We've come so far from the days of Sims 1...
I sort of picture this happening more often at the graphical plateau. It used to be that these franchises needed big face lifts to stay relevant, but even that can sometimes happen with a lighting update.
The other reason might be if they want to do subtractive redesigns of the core concept but I’m still not sure what that should be for The Sims.