EA reveals Sims 4 players spent 1.2 billion hours playing in 2021

ByKyle Wilson Hours
The Sims 4 2021

Last Updated on: 3rd February 2022, 06:04 pm

If you thought The Sims 4 was going anywhere, think again. Despite the fact that it’s nearly eight years old, The Sims 4 is still going strong with a frankly ridiculous amount of playtime in 2021 – according to EA.

During a recent earnings call, EA revealed that The Sims 4 was played for 1.2 billion hours in 2021. To put this into some sort of perspective, that’s almost 137,000 years – or as long as it would take you to walk to Mars, and back, a whopping 22 times!

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Why was The Sims 4 played so much in 2021?

The Sims 4 has been around for a long time – in fact, it’s been around a lot longer than everyone was expecting. The average lifespan for a game in the Sims series is around five years – The Sims 4 is about to turn eight! We know we all want to see The Sims 5 announced sometime soon, but it just doesn’t seem likely when you consider the fact that The Sims 4 was played so much in 2021.

In the last 12 months, The Sims 4 has received countless title updates with minor fixed and changes alongside several downloadable content packs. The Cottage Living expansion is by-far the largest, but The Sims 4 also saw smaller content packs like the Paranormal Stuff pack added. When you couple this with the release of nine Kits over the year – smaller packs that bundle themed clothing and household items together – it’s safe to say that Maxis and EA are still supporting this game.

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The Sims 4 also has an incredible modding community and an increasing number of content creators in the streaming space – platforms like Twitch and YouTube are home to a number of growing channels dedicated to The Sims series. These factors might not directly impact playtime, but they do contribute to a community that spends hours upon hours inside the unique experience that is The Sims 4. With only Animal Crossing games really comparable, the social sim space is still an open playing field in the gaming industry – it just looks like The Sims 4 is the only game there doing everything fans of the genre want, more or less.