What sticks in my craw, is that the game is already missing a lot of core functions SimCity fans expected. We also think that this may impact modding which was key for SimCity 4.
Oh god, the volume of mods and custom content you could download for the Sims and Sims 2 was insane. There was this crazed community that lived vicariously through the games and generated a metric fuckton of modifications and build/buy items. If I remember correctly, Maxis even made a "Content Loader" app so people could import content easier, and they were really supportive of people making custom meshes and such.
All of that went away with The Sims 3, when EA made it harder to mod the game, harder to install custom content, harder to get that custom content to work correctly, and limited the number of items around which content could be produced. For example, in the Sims 2, people had gaming tables and stuff with custom interactions (so it's not just for looks, the sims could actually play it, with animations and sound and everthing). I'm pretty sure it utilized Lua scripting. In the Sims3, you can't run any kind of scripts like that without first modifying the game heavily.
In short, they had a ferociously loyal, creative community that worshipped the game, and they took out their knees for a quick buck. If you compare the custom content from Sims2 to Sims3, it's absurd how much the community has moved away from the game (or moved back to the Sims2, which apparently still has a really strong base).
The reason this upsets me is because it basically confirms they will do what they did with Sims 3.
In TS3, they left out something iconic to the franchise, the hot tubs, for future DLC. Or how they stock the base game with an extremely limited amount of hairstyles but immediately shove ones you can buy down your throat.
This person knows what I mean. For me, it wasn't hot tubs though, it was pool tables. Took them all the way to the obnoxious Kary Perry-branded Superstar expansion to get both of them in, years later. Both of those features were free and part of the base Sims game. I think, hot tubs might have been Living Large? I know Pool Tables were in the base game.