The director of Sims competitor Life By You says players can monetize their future mods: "You don't owe us a dime"

Life by You
(Image credit: Paradox Interactive)

The director of upcoming Sims competitor Life By You has said that players are free to create and monetize their future mods. 

In an interview with PC Gamer, Rod Humble - director of Life By You and manager at Paradox Interactive - has given players the green light to monetize any mods they make once the developer's life sim rolls out in a couple of months. "Player creativity is good for us," Humble told the outlet. "It's good for us [even if] we don't make a dime because it was made using our game."

If you're well-versed in all things life sim, you'll probably remember that EA, alongside software company Overwolf, launched a modding platform for The Sims 4 back in 2022. The idea was that it would be a "a better, safer, easier, and a much more fun way" to use mods with the life sim that complies with the company's modding policy. Humble didn't mention The Sims at all, but his approach to mods does seem more laid back than that of EA and Maxis.

"If you make a YouTube series made using Life By You, I want you to know: You monetize all you want. You don't owe us a dime - go for it," Humble continues. "Likewise, if you make a mod and it's downloaded by millions of people and you're like, 'actually I'm going to take my mod to my website and I'm going to start monetizing it,' perhaps on Patreon like a whole bunch of modders do, I want creators to know: Go for it. You don't need our permission."

In the same interview, Humble said that life sims are "the most complex RPGs ever written," and considering all of the customizable elements of Life By You, he certainly has a point. But can Paradox beat The Sims at its own game with Life By You?

While we're on the topic, here's a list of the best Sims 4 mods.

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.  

Read more
Paralives
The Sims 4's colorful competitor Paralives is bringing one of my favorite features from The Sims 3 back – the ability to customize literally everything
Big in 2025: inZOI
inZOI's "community simulation" approach to the life sim genre could make it The Sims 4's biggest rival yet
inZOI Character Studio trailer screenshot showing a young woman with ginger-y hair and a light baseball cap smiling to the side
InZOI director says it isn't a competitor to The Sims, but "another option" and a "different experience" with "in-depth customization" and AI-powered tools
InZOI screenshot from creation studio demo which depicts a shockingly realistic character model rendered in Unreal Engine 5
The director behind The Sims competitor InZOI spent 20 years making MMOs, but he ditched the massive RPGs after playing life sims with his son
Screenshot from inZOI showing two characters talking.
InZOI director hopes the Sims rival will be "successful and beloved," continues moonlighting as a philosopher: "Life is a tragedy when seen up close, but a comedy when viewed from a distance"
inZOI Character Studio trailer showing a young woman with ginger-y long hair and a white baseball cap smiling, her hand against her chin
The Sims 4's hyper-realistic competitor inZOI will only "sort of" have sex – but I'm sure a Wicked Whims-style mod will take care of the rest
Latest in Simulation
A Hobbit man cooking in a cozy kitchen in Tales of the Shire
Cozy Lord of the Rings game Tales of the Shire aims to be something "Tolkien would be happy with," and "add to his world like a real mythology"
inZOI Character Studio trailer screenshot showing a young woman with ginger-y hair and a light baseball cap smiling to the side
The Sims competitor inZOI dethrones Hollow Knight: Silksong to become most wishlisted game on Steam
American Truck Simulator
3,348 days later, American Truck Simulator is finally delivering the DLC I've been waiting for longer than Hollow Knight fans have been anticipating Silksong
A woman chasing a shining butterfly with a leaping cat on her shoulder in InZOI
inZOI review: "Currently feels like a soulless imitation of the worst parts of The Sims"
inZOI Character Studio trailer screenshot showing a young woman with ginger-y hair and a light baseball cap smiling to the side
If you can't get enough of killing Sims in The Sims 4, iNZOI offers "16 different types of deaths" to inflict upon your poor unsuspecting Zois
Boro and Alta sit on a bench together in Wanderstop
"It's OK for me to move on": Years after scoring Minecraft, composer C418's latest project is about running a cozy tea shop with a "stupidly complex music system"
Latest in News
Muse
Daredevil: Born Again midseason trailer teases Matt Murdock’s violent fight with Muse, including a gory scene straight from the comics
Batman looking over the city during Batman: Arkham City, one of the best PS3 games.
The PS2 Batman Begins game was considered such a "disaster" that Christopher Nolan turned down a Dark Knight-inspired game
Assassin's Creed Shadows Naoe assassinating target with Tanto skill
Assassin's Creed Shadows' first title update is a hotfix with three lines of patch notes and a download size up to 9GB
a victory screen showing someone in a day of the dead mask and another who is an old man looking sad
GeoGuessr is coming to Steam and you can go head-to-head to prove you're the best geographer of them all
Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 "is done," but it's been delayed again to October for "bug fixing, stability, and performance"
Ben Affleck in Air
Ben Affleck isn't in The Odyssey, but he plans to visit the set anyway to watch Christopher Nolan work: "He's one of the greatest filmmaking architects to ever live"