Recently, since the press release about The Sims Deluxe came out, there have been lots of discussions about it. Many - according to a recent poll at this site, a lot of people think it's a rip-off. But many people in the discussions had no objections to Maxis releasing the pack the way they did. Now The Sims Deluxe has been released, and a few people had commented on it. As said, there are some people like this person (WorldSims forums) who like it. Apparantly the Creator is worth some money (in my opinion, I still doubt $40 - which most people will pay for it - is really worth it). Also it seems that it loads a bit faster and graphics look slightly better. But as Davybear commented in alt.games.the-sims the extras are of the type that "Most of them you would not download if you saw them on a web site". If you'd like to see for yourself, then here (at Club MOTS) are some pictures. I must agree with Davybear that they're not too original and do not really seem to be worth 5 bucks for all of them. Even if it was all great, it still doesn't rule out part of the open letter about neglected Europeans: Europeans cannot get a rebate. At all. And considering the costs there are to make the program - probably no more than $5000 - after which the costs per package (box, cds and paperwork etc) are no more than $5, they'd need just 1000 sales of $10 each (with just those extras, for the loyal fans) to start making a profit. No doubt that they'll reach that from all the 6 or 7 million fans who already bought the game. As many people already paid nearly $200 for The Sims (if not more) it seems that Maxis and EA could easily sell the extras separately for a small fee, or even give them away for free to fill up some SimDays - which have been pretty worthless recently. Of course it's still up to you whether or not to buy The Sims Deluxe, but I do not recommend it. That doesn't mean you have to listen to me, but you don't have to listen to EA either...