The Sims 4 comes under fire after the launch of Paralives

If there's one thing Sims fans hate, it's The Sims. Or, more accurately, the current state of The Sims 4. EA's monetization practices with The Sims have never been great, but it's only gotten worse with the most recent installment, endless expensive expansions threatening to pile on top of each other without any sequels.

For years, the playerbase has been begging for a rival to The Sims 4 to give it a run for its money. The thinking is that this could give EA the kick it needs to improve its own simulation offerings (not too expensive). Now another contestant has entered the fray.

Paralives launched in early access this week and has gathered a lot of players. Although it still lacks some features that fans are after and it has some bugs, which can be expected from an indie game that has not yet been fully launched, and still, the reviews are “very positive” on Steam.

The Sims celebrates the launch of Paralives. Paralives players celebrate (what they hope is) the fall of The Sims

After its successful Early Access release, the man behind The Sims' social media accounts decided to be a good game about it all, wishing Paralives luck just as it did with InZoi. It might be better if The Sims stayed away from it entirely, though, as the comments aren't particularly favorable.

People are either accusing The Sims of trying to usher in a Paralives moment or using the opportunity to air their grievances with the state of TS4. Many suggest that Paralives would not exist if TS4 had kept players happy, clearly setting the two up as rivals.

Of course, it's worth noting that we saw similar sentiments shared when InZoi was launched last year. Since then, it has gone through some controversies and its playerbase has shrunk, so EA's crown is not easy to come by.

Paralives is at least off to a good start, and its small dev team has earned a lot of goodwill. But TS4 continues to draw massive amounts of players, regularly amassing more than 30,000 concurrent players on Steam, albeit on other platforms. With that in mind, Paralives might not be quite the Sims-Killer, but hopefully, there's enough room for both.