Honestly? Good. Life by You seemed mechanically flawed from the beginning. I think after all of the Sims 5 stuff we have seen so far, the writing was on the wall that it was just going to be everything that Life by You wanted to be, but better in every conceivable way. Better to just cancel it now than rope everyone in with a broken early access, slow and meager updates for a few years before finally just being cancelled anyway.
The Sims, is, by its nature, a doll house. You make your dolls, give them little back stories, and turn them loose or guide them how you see fit. That doll house premise builds on hundreds of years of imaginative play- and it works. The Sims is also infused with playful comedy. From silly things you can do to wacky reactions and funny blurbs of text. Life by You comes across as very dry by comparison. Never once have I seen the Lifers or whatever they're called have the same kind of fun the Sims do.
It's undeniable that the Sims series has its faults. Predatory monetization, severe bugs dating back years, inflexibility in certain design scenarios. It feel like they took features out of previous sims games so they could re-sell them to you down the road in broken pieces, like The Sims 3 Pets introducing cats, dogs, horses and small animals like lizards and birds. Now in TS4 that one expansion pack has been broken up into THREE.
That said, the amount of support - both from the publisher/developer and the player base is also undeniable.
Life by You had a poor art direction - the kind of garish hyper realism that never ages well, and a poor concept. It feels like the core game was built around the idea of "It's the sims, but you can freely control anyone in an open world!" .. But that's not the doll house. I don't necessarily want to "drive" my dolls. It's a neat gimmick but centering the gameplay around like.. me taking control of a character and clicking on okay buy this shirt okay clock into work okay push this guy into the pool - just going through all the mundane actions myself? That's not that fun.
I dunno. I'm all for competition - I think that healthy competition pushes all of the competitors forward. I just don't believe that Life by You was ever going to be a competitor for The Sims. The numerous delays and now cancellation prove that the publisher felt the same way.
