10 years of The Sims
By AleeN634 1 Comments
10 years ago this week Will Wright and Maxis unleashed The Sims upon the world. Spawning 7 expansion packs and selling millions of copies (seriously look at the PC sales charts after its release until 2004 when The Sims 2 was released) it was a huge moment in PC gaming and showed the importance of word of mouth and the casual market.
A virtual life simulator or more appropriately a crazy doll house, The Sims, introduced the world to a virtual living breathing world (although later versions would become more complex). It allowed the player to either torture their virtual creations or have them live very rich and successful lives. From the presentation to the soundtrack The Sims had a very 50's idealized world presentation (at least in my opinion) with the only way to get better results to buy bigger and better things (yay capitalism!). Future expansions would introduce things like a Downtown area and Cats and Dogs, all which added to the richness of the world.
When I first got my hands on The Sims, I didn't know what to expect. What I found was an amazing complex but manageable simulation game. Sure, you didn't need to eat 3 meals a day (I still remember my friend making that mistake) or live a 100% accurate depiction of real life, but that's what made it fun. Sure, The Sims 2 and 3 improved on the base created by The Sims in many ways (The complete Sims 2 package is still my favorite iteration of the The Sims franchise) but it would be The Sims that would forever change my view on simulation games. After 10 years, I can still remember the opening to what would be one of the biggest gaming franchises of all time. Thank you Will Wright and Maxis.
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