The Sims 4 now has some tie-in jewellery, which I both hate and admire

As any fool knows, the age of girlies bulk-buying silver wire and making their own crystal jewellery at home is over, but EA always arrives precisely when it means to. This weekend saw the release of the Crystal Creations Stuff Pack, a DLC for The Sims 4 that takes the ability to find crystals (already in the game) and straps on your Sims making them into semi-precious, semi-magic jewellery that can be charged up by the moon. What I find more interesting is that this launched with some official IRL Sims plumbob jewellery that you can buy and wear around your own precious, swan-like neck.

This Sims jewellery is pretty awful, but kind of charming. It's gold-plated, yet has costume jewellery vibes, possibly because of the bright green stones. Of the three pieces, the stand out horror for me is the ring, which sort of looks like the go-to ring for someone doing an am-dram Cleopatra (played by Sheila, who does the flowers for the church). The necklace, though? I'd wear it. I mean if someone gave me one, I wouldn't buy it for 50 bucks. And if someone gave it to me and then disclosed it was $50, I would be horrified. Look, whomst among us has not gone on record as having a lot of plushies, or wore an official Solas-from-Dragon-Age necklace for years until it snapped and she lost it?

I'm a bit of a connoisseur of games tat, because most of it is yer standard "squinting statuette that collects dust on your matelpiece" and, like, an aged map, and whatever. Thus I quite like it when a game does something different (like Banishers doing a quill pen, although that isn't like, a big feature of the game or anything). I still don't think you should buy special edition tat, mind you, because it very rarely offers value for money, but it's good to see studios putting a small bit of imagination in.

I might be getting out over my skis here, but it feels like game series that aren't explictly coded as boy-stuff get to have more fun in this regard - like jewellery! Which is surely cheap to make and can be sold at a high markup? Compare the Call Of Duty merch store, which is mostly apparel and has limited little collectible doodads, with the BioWare one, which has challenge coins and bundles of blankets and plushies, and little Romance Bundles that include a pretend letter from whichever elf or witch you wanted to shag. I bet, as long as they didn't have to tell their mates, a bunch of Cod Bros would love a pretend mission pack with orders from Soap or Price. I mean as long as these companies are pumping out tat anyway, right?

Anyway, the Crystal Creations pack is out now, and you can get yer $50 jewellery on the official Sims shop (don't do that). Presumably we will see a timely aesthetic slime tie-in around 2028.