The Sims franchise is one of the most popular in the world of gaming. The endless possibilities when it comes to customizing your characters and pretty much everything else in the game, combined with extremely open-ended gameplay, make it appealing for the vast majority of serious players and casuals alike. Many communities have formed around the game, and the franchise is still going strong. The Sims 4, the latest installment in the franchise, was released back in 2014 and received many upgrades over time. Due to that, it would be interesting to see how many people play Sims 4 in 2023?
Sims 4 is, at the moment of writing this article, being played by around 35 thousand players. This is according to the data provided by Steam Charts and takes into account the players on PC alone. Over the period of the last 30 days, the numbers are slightly smaller showing a steady number of 30 thousand players. No matter how impressive the numbers are for a single-player game, it’s a far cry from the peak the game had seen on September 26, 2022, when the game was played by 96,185 players in a single day alone.
Now that we’ve covered the numbers, it’s time to analyze them in a bit more detail. If you’re interested in how Sims 4 fares when it comes to some specific trends as well as how it fares on Twitch, stay with us and keep reading!
Why is The Sims 4 so popular?
The Sims franchise started back in 2000 with the release of The Sims game. It’s a franchise oriented toward social-simulation games in which you take control of a single specific character (or a whole household of characters). The game allows you to build a career, try out various hobbies, customize your character to a great extent and build meaningful relationships with other in-game Sims.
The franchise was praised for its open-ended gameplay and endless possibilities. It held appeal for just about anybody since the development team tried to include as many options as possible. The Sims 4, however, was a different type of story. It was highly criticized on release due to lack of some basic features such as open-world, swimming pools, and toddler stage of children. Those are all features that The Sims 3 had on release but were, for some reason, omitted from The Sims 4 initially.
Still, the game was loved enough, and the active modding community, as well as thousands of players around the globe, kept the game alive all these years.
The game received frequent updates in the form of expansion packs and game packs. Expansion packs and game packs vary in content drastically. Some added merely a few features, and some added extensive animal-keeping systems.
It was also one of the things that were criticized, as people are not oriented toward the numerous game packs and expansions that EA released over the years, considering the fact that they are almost always overpriced. The majority of fans consider that a lot of the features included in the subsequent game packs and expansions should have been included in the original release of the game. Still, the many possibilities appealed to a lot of players, and people kept buying the game, buying additional content, which made the Sims 4 extremely profitable. Even almost nine years since the game was released, paid updates are still being released.
How many people play The Sims 4 in 2023
At the moment of writing this post, The Sims 4 is being played by around 35 000 players, according to the data provided by Steam Charts. The system recorded a peak player number of 45 000 players in the last 24 hours alone, and over the period of the last 30 days, the game was played by around 30 000 players.
The numbers are impressive for a relatively older game. The peak recorded player number was on September 26, 2022, when Steam Charts reported 96,185 in a single day. You can see the more detailed stats for the period of the last six months in the table below.
| Month | Avg. players | Gain / Loss | Peak Players |
|---|---|---|---|
| Last 30 Days | 30,322.2 | +6.26% | 46,769 |
| December 2022 | 28,535.2 | -7.02% | 46,769 |
| November 2022 | 30,690.7 | +7.23% | 56,099 |
| October 2022 | 28,620.9 | +133.89% | 96,185 |
| September 2022 | 12,237.1 | -25.80% | 20,665 |
| August 2022 | 16,492.2 | -7.17% | 26,083 |
As you can see by the data provided by Steam Charts, Sims has an alternating trend of losing and gaining players. The trend mostly corresponds to the release of new content. The highest upward trend was recorded in October 2022, when the game has seen +133.89% increase in the player base. The increase was followed by steady growth, and the only month that resulted in the loss of the player base was December 2022. The future looks bright, at least according to Steam Charts.
How many people stream The Sims 4?
Currently, The Sims 4 has 3,091 live viewers across 174 live channels that are streaming Sims-related content. The game is currently ranked and 90th place when it comes to popularity on Twitch, according to the data provided by TwitchTracker.
The number that we can see today is nowhere near the highest that the game recorded, as the peak number of viewers was recorded on May 27, 2021, when 167,500 viewers streamed the game-related content in a single day. Over the last week alone, the game has seen 2,331 viewers on average, 129 live channels, and 390,398 hours of content have been watched. You can see the more detailed stats in the table below.
| Month | Concurrent viewers average | Gain / Loss | Concurrent streams average | Gain / Loss | Hours watched | Gain / Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Last 30 Days | 2.3K | +2.7% | 125 | +16.8% | 437K | -73.5% |
| December 2022 | 2.2K | -17.9% | 107 | -20.7% | 1.65M | -15.3% |
| November 2022 | 2.7K | +17.3% | 135 | +3.8% | 1.95M | +25.9% |
| October 2022 | 2.3K | -3.8% | 130 | +23.8% | 1.55M | -9.5% |
| September 2022 | 2.4K | -30.9% | 105 | -21.6% | 1.71M | -33.8% |
| August 2022 | 3.5K | -9.5% | 134 | -9.5% | 2.58M | -7.8% |
As you can see, the interest on Twitch when it comes to Sims 4 is alternating between sharp increases in viewers followed by rapid losses. The months coincide with the release of new content, but the numbers are pretty much consistent for such an older game.
Will The Sims 4 be popular again?
We can’t say for sure whether Sims 4 will be extremely popular once again. It’s unlikely but possible. Especially if new content gets announced. The more likely scenario is that the game will eventually be replaced by the so-called “Project Rene,” a new installment in the Sims series. A significant number of players will still keep on playing the Sims 4, just like was the case with The Sims 3, but most players will set their sights on the new release.
