The Sims 3™ Forever Launcher Screen/No Game Load Fix! // Steam Vers.
hello! i hope this solution worked for you.
i was having this problem where if i wanted to play the sims 3 via steam, it would open the launcher and pretend that it was loading when i clicked the 'play' button, but the game itself would never come up. i found someone's guide to fixing this in a steam discussion, but it was long-winded, had to be done every time you wanted to launch it, and was generally a bit of a pain, so i ended up dropping it for a few months. (that's why my "old save file" is from february LOL)
i stumbled upon this randomly while making new desktop shortcuts for some of my other games, and hey! if it works, it works. hopefully some other players with the same problem will see this video.
here is a written version, too, with some notes at the end, nabbed from my own steam discussion post:
(found here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/47890/...)
"* Open Program Files, or wherever the "EA Games" folder containing your copy of The Sims 3 is located.
Program Files ~ EA Games ~ Sims 3 ~ Game ~ Bin
Scroll down until you see an application named "TS3", for me it has the same icon as the shortcut version that Steam gives you/the light blue background with the green plumbob in the middle. For me, it's about 14.5 KB.
Right click this file, open up more options so you can "send to ~ desktop."
You should have another version of the game now, just named "TS3 - Shortcut," but obviously you can rename this.
Clicking on it now, it boots up with EA Origin and then gives you the launcher. But this time, when you click the play button, it should actually boot up the game!!
Note: I have not played very deeply with this version at all, but it seems like it kept the save I had from the prior one. I am not sure if it will operate correctly if you delete the other version of the game. I just have it tucked away on the other end of my desktop, for now, to be safe."
(^^^ this is why i had the real/og "The Sims 3" that steam gave me tucked in the upper-right corner in the video; i'm kinda scared to delete it...)
sorry the ending was abrupt; i didn't know how to wrap it up without just cutting to black.