This week, along with a new DLC pack from Crystal Creations, The Sims 4 received a very ordinary game update, including bug fixes. The Sims 4 now displays a store icon in the main toolbar at all times, and players unanimously hate this icon, so much so that someone has already created a mod to remove it.

"This cart-adorned button has a variety of uses, from sharing pack offers and sale information to recommending packs that might be of interest," EA said in the patch notes.

"and EA wrote in the patch notes.

The initial problem was a bug in the icon itself that caused it to pulse continuously. This has already been fixed in a subsequent patch, but players are still quite angry; a modder named SimMattically was frustrated enough to create a mod that removed the cart button from the interface.

It's no surprise that "The Sims 4" keeps pushing new DLC. The series has always extended the life of each game that way, and now that the base game of "The Sims 4" is free, it's all about monetization strategy. However, it feels like we are being forced to buy DLC in an increasingly intrusive way.

The main menu of the EA app and The Sims 4 is beginning to feel like a skin care product vendor in a suburban shopping mall. When you launch the game, a full-screen pop-up asks, "Remember me?" and tries to sell you DLC that you don't yet have.

Now when I load it up to actually play or build on the land, a new shopping cart icon pops up with a similar tooltip that says something like "earn cash to feed the town". I don't think it's terrible, but it's like one more straw on top of the already mountain of straw.

I know I have a lot of DLC for The Sims 4. But even I am almost drowning in the call to action prompts.

It's rare to see a Sims subreddit agree on something one way or the other, but this is one of those rare cases. Even moderate voices lament the presence of an equally annoying in-game store in The Sims 3.