The Sims Franchise

 

The Sims is a longstanding franchise of life simulator games that started with The Sims in 2000.  I had the pleasure of playing the original game when I was a teen.  My younger sister would lock Sims in houses and set them on fire.  I had an artistic lesbian couple I carefully protected and cared for.  From the very beginning, it was a fascinating toy that different people played incredibly differently.  Some people focused on interior and exterior design, others on character creation.  Some carefully fostered family legacies with their Sims.  And some left them in a pool to inevitably drown.  The franchise was off to an amazing start.

It was incredibly basic compared to future releases.  Sims had static faces, their mouths couldn't move, their hands were basically bricks, they couldn't move their fingers.  The camera was always isometric, it wasn't really 3D.  Still, it was groundbreaking at the time, and developed a fan community very quickly.  Sims had 3 life stages: baby, child, and adult.  The Sims grew with 7 expansion packs.

The Sims 2 came out in 2004, only 4.5 years later, and with it came a lot of changes.  Sims got customizable, animated faces, with eyes and mouths that moved.  They got proper hands, with individual fingers that they could gesture with.  Their clothes, instead of being one solid outfit, came in individual pieces that could be mixed and matched.

Much more memorable than these technical changes though, were Sims' personalities and stories.  Sims could have different characteristics, and they really influenced which animations they played in response to in game events.  And Sims had memories of major life events.  You could look at any Sim's memories to see what kind of life they had before you played them, and add to the memories by playing.  The addition of memories added tons of lore to the Sims world.  Sims had tragedies, checkered pasts, mysteries, and drama.  This made the Sims 2 one of the most beloved and fondly remembered releases.  The Sims 2 had 5 life stages; baby, toddler, child, teen, and adult.  The Sims 2 had 8 expansion packs in it's lifetime.

The Sims 3 came out in 2009, 5 years later.  It brought a massive graphical update to the Sims, with a lot more polygons per character model, for much smoother features.  This was also the first Sims game you could really make plus sized or muscular Sims in.  Prior to The Sims 3, all sims were very skinny.

Outfits and furniture were more customizable than ever in the Sims 3.  On almost anything, you could add textures and change colors, using an all encompassing color wheel.

I have The Sims 3.  I've played a few times.  It's a good time.  I made a couple based on my husband (then fiancé) and myself, and had them live a nice life together.  I completed both their life goals and kept them alive, and made them some friends.

The Sims 3 introduced a new life stage, young adult.  The Sims 3 came out with 11 expansion packs (I only bought 5), and introduced "stuff packs" mini expansion packs that contained Sim clothing and household items, but no gameplay.

The Sims 4 is the cyclical hell Simmers have found themselves in since 2014.  It was highly anticipated, and supposed to be the best Sims game yet, but there were some major setbacks in it's initial release.  In the past, Sims sequels brought MORE life stages than the last.  Sims 4 started with fewer life stages, omitting toddler stage until 2017.  The baby stage, which had enjoyed lots of gameplay in Sims 2 and 3, was reduced back down to screaming furniture like in the Sims 1.  Babies did not get their interactability or gameplay back until 2023, 9 years later.  Swimming pools, the leading tool for Sim murder since the Sims 1, was not included until a few patches later, but they're still getting flack for it.

Customizability took a tank in the Sims 4 as well.  The color wheel was removed, replaced with a few swatches for each item.  Eyelashes were replaced with these black bars that went over women's eyes.  Proper eyelashes STILL haven't been added to date, and you need custom content made by fans to have them.  Skintone and hair colors were abysmal for years.  Pale people had to look yellow or paper white, and black people had it worse.

In spite of all these problems, the Sims 4 was and is still a massive success with 13 expansion packs, 12 game packs, 18 stuff packs, and 19 kits.  It's the longest standing Sims game to date, most Sims games having a life cycle of 5 years, and The Sims 4 has almost doubled that.  I personally haven't bought every single one, but I have a good amount of them.  I don't know how much money I've spent in total on this game, since I bought many packs on sale, but I really don't want to know.  I'm currently 3 expansions behind, so I've already bought 10.  That alone is a lot of money.

Have I played with the content I have?  Some.  All my saves got wiped last summer, but I had a Simself with maxed out painting, a super toddler, and a few others.  I had around a hundred random Sims in my library, that I created just for fun.  Looking at my EA account, I have over 600 hours in the Sims 4.  But that's not particularly impressive, I had 5000 hours in Aura Kingdom.  Heaven knows how many hours I had in World of Warcraft...  But yes, I am a Simmer, and like many others, I'm kinda trapped in The Sims 4 cyclical Hell too.  It's cyclical, because I keep buying new content for it, every year.  Do I play all the content?  Absolutely not, but I keep buying it.  I feel like I have to.