The Sims Then and Now

For me the Sim games started on a black and white Mac with the original SimCity. I’ve heard people joke that their phone now has more power than their old desktops. But SimCity is the first game that I saw had been ported to my iPhone with more features than the first version of the game I played. It’s SimCity 2000 and it has color, two things that I salivated over when they first came out.

The Sim franchise is right up there with brands like “Levi’s” and “Coke” to me. If the Sims comes out with something new, chances are I’ve heard about it and considered buying it. If we’re talking the Sims 1 or 2 I’ve bought every expansion back and stuff pack sometimes more than once.

The Sims recently lost me when they moved away from Stuff Packs into the pay per item model. For $20 I would buy the pack of items from my local Target, but I can’t justify buying individual items for a $1 or $2. When it comes down to that level of detail I’m thinking I should be shopping for my own new clothes instead of my sims and it starts to feel like real work. Pressing Play is fun to me, not pressing Buy.

So while the Sims in all it’s incarnations has been a constant backdrop in my gaming life it might now be at the point where the Sims have moved into the RMT world and I’m not ready to followt. Fortunately , the base game runs just great without the add-ons.  When the mood strikes I can play, even if it means looking at a few ads while I log in.