That's a big red flag to me. With the Sims 3, I think someone calculated that it would cost over $75,000 to buy everything for the game because of how they monetized the point store, so they've already shown a willingness to go there with monetization. Plus, gamers are much more accepting of micro-transactions these days (mobile games make tons of money) and EA publishes other games with some of the most egregious monetization in the industry (ex. FIFA). I don't have much hope for Sims 5. I would be so happy to be wrong though. I was really excited about being able to customize furniture and have some kind of co-op play. I guess we will see.
Ironically, I just learned that you can turn off the points store in the Sims 3 game settings. This "free to enter" news inspired me to finally buy the Sims 3 collection in the Steam sale - getting it while the gettin 's good, ya know?
Free base game with in-game store? I'm guessing freemium all the way with a shit ton of micro-transactions on launch.
I also remember hearing in the past that TS5 would require a continous internet connection. If that's so it'll likely be used to verify content to prevent pirating, and possible to serve ads...
This and the fact it's gonna be for mobile as well makes me have very little hope it will be the sims game we all want.
Biggest thing I want out of the sims 5 is to be able to play multiplayer. Been using S4MP and it works surprisingly well, to the point where if the sims 5 does not have multiplayer it's gonna seriously turn me off from it and probably just stick with sims 4.
Hopefully I'm wrong and it's the best sims game ever made.