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THE SIMS (2000): WHO LET THE SIMS OUT?

Will Wright's The Sims (Electronic Arts, 2000; Apple Macintosh, Nintendo GameCube, PC, and others) is one of those rare games whose appeal extends to people who wouldn't normally consider themselves gamers. Plenty of people who would never dream of playing Halo or John Madden Footbal¹ are diehard fans of The Sims, and, conversely, many gamers who obsess over the latest shooter or MMORPG² have little knowledge of Wright's virtual playground,³ or, as he called it, “Virtual Dollhouse.”

Thus, although the game and its sequels constitute the best-selling franchise of all time for the PC, it's not hard to find seasoned gamers who've never played it. Indeed, it's estimated that a full 50% of the series’ fan base is female, a key demographic that many game developers have either failed to interest or simply ignored entirely.⁴ This isn't to say that The Sims is not accessible or intriguing to all sorts of gamers, but its focus on family and furniture is a radical alternative to almost any other game we might find on the shelf. Nevertheless, for the millions of gamers turned off by shooters, MMORPGs, sports, and strategy titles, The Sims is the best game in town. In this chapter, we'll explore the history of The Sims, analyze its unusual gameplay, and speculate on the future of the franchise.

In The Sims, the player's family can interact in all sorts of ways, such as dancing (shown here). These interactions have varied effects on the sims themselves; it's important to keep track of their needs (notice the panel on the bottom right of the screen). PC version shown.

As its title suggests, The Sims has much in common with Wright's earlier masterpiece SimCity (see Chapter 15, “SimCity (1989): Building Blocks for Fun and Profit”), whose invisible citizens were called “sims.” However, whereas that game cast players in the role of a mayor or city planner, The Sims puts them in charge of a family of semi-autonomous characters (the titular “sims”). Like real people (or pets), sims require food, sleep, and the occasional trip to the bathroom. Beyond these simple physical needs, they also require entertainment and fellowship with their friends and loved ones. Another important part of the game is building an appropriate home, reveling in the possibilities of interior design. Wright has described the game as a “Virtual Dollhouse,” and originally conceived of it as having more to do with building houses than the virtual people who'd live in them. However, as the concept evolved, it embraced both themes. What SimCity is to cities, The Sims is to citizens. If SimCity is a macrocosm, The Sims is a microcosm, a zoomed-in view of one of those ant-sized dots that flow between the buildings of SimCity.

Although The Sims, like SimCity before it, has no definite goals for players to accomplish, most players adopt one of three styles of gameplay. The first focuses on the “virtual pet” aspects; that is, carefully managing and controlling one's family of sims. Players creating sims can adjust the levels of five different personality attributes: neat, outgoing, active, playful, and nice. The aggregate of these attributes is calculated as a sign of the zodiac. Players can also choose their sims’ skin tone, sex, and age, and customize their appearance with different heads and outfits (the latter expansions greatly expand the options). Once the sims are created, the player must strive to satisfy their many needs or “motives.” These are hunger, comfort, hygiene, bladder (need to urinate), energy (sleep and caffeine levels), fun (entertainment), social (talking to other sims), and room (decor). Although some of these needs are straightforward (characters who don't get to a bathroom will soil their clothes), others are more complex and are affected by the personality traits. For instance, a very playful character will get more fun out of a game than a book.

Another important part of The Sims is the build and buy menus, which let players customize their sims’ environment. There are countless options available, and the many expansion packs extend them further. The captions are often quite witty and wry, contributing to the game's “smart” aesthetic and tongue-in-cheek humor. PC version shown.

The sims are conspicuous consumers, deriving much more satisfaction from high-end products than cheap stuff. The manual puts it this way: “Sims get the most gain from ‘high-quality’ objects: that is, a small TV is less efficient at entertaining than a large TV” These are simple but compelling utilitarian principles: “good” decisions amount to what brings the greatest pleasure and least pain to the most people. What makes The Sims interesting to play, however, is the challenge (if not the impossibility) of pleasing people with such radically different personalities. The ensuing drama is what makes the game unpredictable and fun, but might also inspire gamers to reflect on their social life. Why, for instance, does one spend so many hours playing The Sims when there are so many other ways to spend one's time? It's also likely that the chance to “play God” is quite compelling for many gamers.

Another important part of a sim's life is a job, as money is required for buying things. The type of job a sim can get depends on his or her skills, which are improved in specified ways. The skills are cooking, mechanical, charisma, body, logic, and creativity. Cooking and mechanical skills are improved by reading (a bookcase is all but a requirement) charisma requires a mirror, and body requires physical exercise (swimming, working out, dancing, and so on). Logic and creativity are increased by playing chess or the piano, respectively. With the right skills, a character can land a job advertised in the newspaper or online. The jobs vary in terms of pay and satisfaction, of course, but players don't get to see or control sims that are away at work except to respond to workplace crises (how the player handles these determines whether the sim gets promoted or demoted). The original game included 10 career tracks, each with prerequisite skills. Perhaps the two most unusual career paths are crime (pickpocket) and “x-treme” (daredevil). Eventually, sims can get married (same-sex is allowed) and even have children, though anyone expecting torrid sex scenes will likely be disappointed by the comical way these activities are represented.

Back of the box for 2004’s The Sims: Bustin’ Out on the Nokia N-Gage handheld. Console and handheld versions tend to play a bit differently than their computer counterparts, often allowing for more direct control and having more predefined goals.

We should note that sims don't talk to each other using English or any other language, but rather a form of gibberish called “Simlish.” Simlish is spoken but also depicted in small comic book-like bubbles, though with icons rather than words. Simlish, which had been pioneered in Maxis's earlier SimCopter (see Chapter 15, “SimCity (1989): Building Blocks for Fun and Profit”), became one of the series’ most defining characteristics and was even parodied in an episode of The Drew Carey Show.⁵ Since Simlish is essentially a made-up nonsense language, there was no need to worry about translators or hiring different groups of voice actors for non-English versions of the game.

In yet another adaptation from SimCity, The Sims threw a variety of random events at players to keep them from getting too comfortable with their routines. These included natural disasters (floods and fires) and burglars. The sims could also die in accidents or from neglect. For example, forgetting to put ladders in a pool will prevent swimming sims from escaping; they will eventually drown. If the entire family dies, the house is sold.

Although many players lavished most of their attention on their sims, others focused on building things—what we might call the “dollhouse” approach to the game. The game offered countless ways to customize and renovate homes, turning players into virtual Bob Villas or Martha Stewarts. Players could add pools, fences, columns, plants, stairs, wallpaper, and windows just to name a few—and each type of object had dozens of variations. Lighting was a key concern, because sims languished in dark rooms. Ambitious builders could even add extra stories onto their homes. Many avid fans of the game spent hours and hours decorating, landscaping, and building, creating the perfect dream home for their lucky sims.

A last approach to The Sims is reminiscent of one of the game's influential predecessors: Game of Life,⁶ a mathematical simulation created in 1970 by British mathematician John Conway. In Game of Life, “players” began by setting up the initial conditions, then studying how these conditions determined the evolution of living cells, which the game's algorithms were supposed to model. Although Game of Life was highly abstract, it's easy to see how the same principles can apply to The Sims, where players could set up a huge variety of conditions, then sit back to watch how their sims respond. The thrill of this “great watchmaker” approach was that the player could never predict the outcome of such grand experiments—there were just too many variables. We might call this the “ant farm” approach, as it emphasizes observation over interaction.

Obviously, a project as ambitious as The Sims presented a formidable challenge from a technological perspective, and publisher Electronic Arts was initially skeptical that Wright's vision was feasible. The final product offered a combination of 2D and 3D graphics to maintain smooth performance on the era's hardware. Although the buildings and objects were rendered in 2D, the sims were 3D, consisting of what was then a high number of polygons. A later expansion allowed advanced gamers to create their own furniture, clothing, hairstyles, makeup, and more, and share them with their friends. The game and its sequels have all boasted sleek production values, with high-quality sound effects and catchy music.

Screenshot from the Apple II version of Life, part of Golden Oldies Volume 1: Computer Software Classics (Software Country, 1985), which also features versions of Adventure (Chapter 25, “Zork (1980): Text Imps versus Graphics Grues”), Eliza (a “computer shrink”/artificial intelligence simulator), and Pong (bonus chapter, “Pong (1972): Avoid Missing Game to Start Industry”).

To say that the The Sims was a commercial success is an understatement. The game and its countless offshoots have sold well over 100 million copies, making it one of the best-selling franchises in history.⁷ Although originally available only for computers, well-received ports were later developed for consoles and handhelds, introducing an even larger audience to the joys of satisfying sims.

Before moving on to the many expansions, sequels, and spin-offs, it's worthwhile to reflect on the game's antecedents. Besides the aforementioned SimCity, what other games may have influenced or at least anticipated The Sims? Although an exhaustive list of all such games would test even the most patient reader, no responsible historian could omit such obvious examples as David Crane's Little Computer People (1985), Paul Reiche's Mail Order Monsters (1985), Peter Molyneux's Populous (1989), and Yasuhiro Wada's Harvest Moon (1996). We'll also briefly compare The Sims to Ubisoft's Petz series (1995), which also embodies many of the concepts present in Wright's masterpiece. In each case, the key similarity is the “pet raising” aspect of these games.

Screenshot from the Commodore 64 version of Little Computer People, illustrating the game's full-time point of view, a cross section of the little computer person's house.

Little Computer People⁸ was released by Activision for most viable computer platforms of the mid-1980s, though never for the IBM PC. It has a great deal in common with The Sims and is a clear progenitor—Wright himself acknowledged that he had played the game and even knew several of its developers, who later provided feedback on The Sims.⁹ Like The Sims, Little Computer People offers open-ended gameplay, with no clear way to win or lose. The gameworld is 2D, resembling a slice-away of a three-story house. A “little computer person” moves into the house and goes about his daily activities. The player can interact with him in various ways, including playing games (poker, “Card War,” or anagrams) or giving him presents. Players interacted by typing commands blindly into an unseen text parser, such as “please play piano for me,” sometimes eliciting no noticeable response. Strangely, although Little Computer People was highly original and compelling (critics tended to rave about it), it faded into obscurity.

Back of the box of the Commodore 64 version of Mail Order Monsters.

Mail Order Monsters was another original game from 1985, released by Electronic Arts for the Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 platforms. Although Mail Order Monsters was primarily an action game, it did have various ways for players to improve their pet monsters with equipment or genetic enhancements. It's the player's job as a type of rancher to successfully manage his or her stable of monsters in order to do weapons-based gladiatorial combat in a variety of arenas. Up to two players could battle it out in the arenas or in a game similar to capture-the-flag. For additional motivation, the game kept track of won-lost records and other stats. The head-to-head aspects of Mail Order Monsters seems to have been a precursor to Satoshi Tajiri's immensely popular Pokemon series (starting in 1995) for Nintendo platforms. However, we should note that Mail Order Monsters did allow players direct control over their pet monsters during combat; later “pet” games would increase their autonomy.

Bullfrog's Populous is one of the first “god games,” a description that characterizes the players’ relationships to the game's characters and world. Simply put, players act as deities, affecting the destiny of the population by shaping the land, causing natural disasters, and raising up a hero to overthrow the people of their rival god. The player's ability to influence the world depended on “mana,” a divine substance generated by one's followers. Populous was immensely influential, eventually seeing release on almost every viable platform of its time, and was highly praised by critics for its originality.

Back of the box for Tecmo's Monster Rancher from 1997 for the Sony PlayStation, a series that has much in common with Electronic Arts’ much earlier Mail Order Monsters. The Monster Rancher series is notable for allowing unique monsters to be created by reading data from external sources, which in this case is other CDs.

Populous is the first of the major “god games.” Rather than put players directly in control of a person or group, these games give players indirect control over their lives. For instance, a player can flatten terrain to make it easier to build more complex structures.

Harvest Moon, first released on the Super Nintendo, is a “farm simulator”; that is, a game that tasks players primarily with growing fruits, flowers, vegetables, and herbs. The player assumes the role of a young boy who has inherited his grandfather's old, dilapidated farm. The boy can also get married, though doing so means working hard to attract a spouse and building on to his home. Despite its seemingly banal and repetitive gameplay, Harvest Moon was a huge hit, and spawned many sequels and spin-offs.

Lionhead Studios’ Black & White from 2001 is a modern “god game.” Players can be good or evil deities and have many ways to interact with the world and its people. The game begins with a lengthy playable tutorial that slowly introduces players to the game's many features. PC version shown.

Tending to the farm animals in Natsume's Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility (2008) for the Nintendo Wii. In an increasingly common occurrence for the series, players can choose a female character instead of the standard male main character.

Although The Sims is ostensibly a “people simulator,” the game treats the sims more like pets than persons. Why, for instance, can a sim who can successfully hold down a 9-to-5 job not visit a bathroom on his or her own initiative?

Factors such as this are reminiscent of “pet” games like Ubisoft's Petz series. The first of these games, Dogz: Your Computer Pet was developed by PF Magic and published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in 1995 for PC. Dogz is essentially a virtual pet; a sort of evolving toy that required regular attention from their owners. Players (if we can indeed use that term) could pet and play with their dogs and even teach them tricks. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the game was that it was played right on the desktop; the dog could scamper right across a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or be confined to a playpen. Players could also spray them with water if they misbehaved. Dogz was followed in 1996 by Catz and Oddballz, the latter of which featured bizarre alien pets. These games were an amazing success for the company, which ended up shipping more than 500,000 units by 1997.¹⁰ Sequels and spin-offs are still being published by Ubisoft today, and feature many different kinds of pets—such as Bunnyz, Hamsterz, Horsez, and Tigerz—just to name a few. All of the games seem to focus on the “cute” aspects of the animals and seem to appeal mostly to children.

Dogz is one of the many Petz games that lets players control a virtual pet. The pets have enough artificial intelligence to learn tricks as well as play simple games. The pets behave better if the player treats them well, giving them treats or petting them. These games evolved from simple desktop toys to rather sophisticated simulations, and versions are available for almost every conceivable type of pet.

Some readers may wonder how Aki Maita's Tamagotchi toy compares to games like Petz. The Tamagotchi is essentially a handheld version of such games. It's egg-shaped (the name means “cute little egg”) and meant to be carried by the user at all times. Users interact with the pet by feeding it, playing with it, cleaning it, and keeping an eye on its steadily evolving stats. The original unit was released in 1996, and sold more 40 million units worldwide and 12 million in North America.¹¹ There have been five versions of the toy so far, and though their popularity has waned over the years, we're likely to see many more. There are also plenty of videogame interpretations, as well as knock-off toys from other companies, like Tiger Electronics’ Giga Pets, which debuted in 1997.¹²

What makes these games so appealing to children and even many adults? Aki Maita says that “It is dependent on you. That's one reason it became so popular. … I think it's very important for humans to find joy caring for something.”¹³ Maita's insight seems to extend to games like The Sims, who share much of the behavior of the Tamagotchi. Neglected sims can get into all sorts of trouble, such as setting their house and themselves on fire while making dinner. Naturally some players will feel more guilt at such calamities (or elation when their sims are happy), but it seems safe to say that most players who enjoy games of this sort do form a bond with their sims or virtual pets comparable to that experienced by real pet owners. Indeed, one of the more popular expansions for The Sims 2 allows sims to adopt and train their own virtual pets; it's an interesting case of a virtual pet with a virtual pet.

The Humane Society of the United States offers several reasons why people enjoy pets, including that “caring for a companion animal can provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment and lessen feelings of loneliness and isolation in all age groups.”¹⁴ Although it's of course arguable that no virtual pet can ever compete with “the real thing,” as technology improves, we'll no doubt see closer and closer approximations—and, let's face it, a virtual device is infinitely more convenient and less messy.

On December 17, 2002, Electronic Arts published Maxis’ The Sims Online. As the title suggests, this was an effort to adapt their best-selling franchise to the MMO¹⁵ format. Players would buy the product, then pay a monthly fee (which was later made optional) to gain access to the game's servers.

The idea seemed sound; if players were having so much fun playing with virtual people, wouldn't they have even more fun with actual people? Naturally, there were several key changes to the gameplay to accommodate online play—the most noticeable was the lack of Simlish. Now, characters spoke English to each other. Players were also limited to controlling a single sim, rather than a whole family. The graphics were kept mostly consistent with The Sims, which some critics felt gave the game a dated look.

Unfortunately, the online experience was sorely lacking in fun, and the game didn't last long. Most gamers didn't seem to find the social elements very compelling, and gameplay tended to boil down to repetitive actions intended to raise skill levels (and generate more income). The stand-alone game had generated tension with a series of timed activities; The Sims Online took a more relaxed but ultimately less exciting approach. In 2008, Electronic Arts rebranded the game as EA Land, added customization features and made it free—most likely as an attempt to compete with the much more popular virtual world of Second Life. Unfortunately, this experiment didn't pan out either, and EA took the game offline permanently on August 1, 2008.

It's only fair to say a few words about Second Life,¹⁶ an MMO developed by Linden Research and released for computers on June 23, 2003. Second Life has become the most successful of all social-based MMOs, receiving many awards and generating large amounts of buzz in the mass media as well as academic circles. Although Second Life has superficial similarities to other MMORPGs (such as Ultima Online), its key appeal seems to lie in the creative opportunities that it extends to users. Players are given several ways to add their own content to the game; this “user-generated content” ranges from virtual objects to new gestures and animations for their characters (or “Residents”). They can also use Linden Scripting Language (LSL) to program behaviors, and can of course buy and sell all manner of things from other players (users retain copyright of the objects they create for Second Life).

Unlike The Sims Online, Second Life was a staggering success. Although the game was free to play, Linden was able to make money with an optional subscription package. For about $10 a month, players were given some land and in-game money, as well as additional tech support. For more money, players could lease more land, and companies and institutions (as well as serious individual players) can pay fees of $1,000 or more for “private estates” or islands. Universities seem to be particularly keen on Second Life, perhaps as a way to interest their students in online educational experiences.

The media is full of reports of people earning their living simply by playing Second Life, exchanging their in-game money for real-life dollars. Other reports concern married players divorcing their spouses for the sake of their in-game lovers, and so on. The game is fairly well known outside the gaming community, and it's not unusual to hear it mentioned or alluded to in popular TV shows like The Daily Show or The Office. Indeed, one of the characters in The Office is an avid fan of the game.

Shown here is the sim body shop screen from The Sims 2, which went fully 3D. There are many, many ways to customize the look of each sim. Some players might prefer to make sims that resemble their own families, whereas others might opt for something more creative.

Perhaps as a response to the failure of The Sims Online, EA Games went back to the stand-alone model and released The Sims 2 on September 14, 2004. The key additions were a much improved 3D engine, lifetime aspirations, and genetic inheritance. Essentially, sims could strive for fortune, romance, family, popularity, or knowledge. The sims also had memories and genes that were passed on to subsequent generations. The aspiration system seemed intended most for players who disliked the open-ended nature of the first game; now, players who so desired could spend their time fulfilling specific goals for the sims. The Sims 2 was another success, and EA eventually issued eight expansion packs and 10 “stuff packs,” which consisted of new objects (such as holiday-themed objects or IKEA furniture). The latest experiment of this sort is The Sims 2 Store, which sells furniture, clothing, hair, and other objects in exchange for “SimPoints,” the game's virtual currency. Of course, players can also exchange real money for SimPoints, and the store happily accepts all major real world credit cards.

There have been several spin-offs from The Sims franchise. Perhaps the most notable are MySims, which brought the series to the Nintendo Wii and DS platforms in 2007, and The Sims Stories, a series of Sims games for laptops that debuted in 2007. The Sims Stories tend to be more linear than other games in the franchise, and feature a “story mode” that follows a preset (and hopefully dramatic) script. There is also a “classic mode” available for those who prefer the more flexible gameplay of the main series.

The future of The Sims seems quite bright, with additional sequels, ports, and expansions forthcoming. Any game that has sold as many copies as The Sims deserves a place in any legitimate compilation of history's best games, and its influence on both other casual games and the casual gamer market in general is undeniable. In addition, its eccentric gameplay and nontraditional fan base make it a worthwhile object of study for anyone serious about game development. Although its fans enjoy The Sims for different reasons, the main appeals seem to be its emphasis on nurturing (e.g., the “virtual pet” aspects), building (the “dollhouse” aspects), and experimenting (the “ant farm” aspects). Chances are good that almost any serious gamer can find satisfaction in at least one of these styles of gameplay in the virtual playground, and many will find pleasure in all of them.

¹See Chapters 5 and 10, respectively.

²Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.

³A virtual playground's primary goal is to essentially play with or manipulate premade elements, with less focus on creativity and creation. Compare this to the primary goal of a “Software Toy,” like Pinball Construction Set in bonus chapter, “Pinball Construction Set (1982): Launching Millions of Creative Possibilities,” which is to provide either the parts or allow the creation of the parts to build a game in a typically creative manner, and “sandbox” games, like Grand Theft Auto III in Chapter 9, “Grand Theft Auto III (2001): The Consolejacking Life,” in which the player is able to move about a large environment and perform a wide range of typically realistic activities, but with a primary focus on accomplishing various goals and activities over any type of creative or creation possibilities.

⁴See http://news.cnet.com/Will-Sims-0nline-alter-gaming-world/2100–1040_3–977912.html.

⁵Episode s06e01. Drew Carey even appeared as a character in the 2001 House Party expansion pack. Malcolm in the Middle , episode 16 in season three, also featured a lengthy parody, with the titular character becoming obsessed with “The Virts.”

⁶Sometimes referred to as Conway's Game of Life. Many clones were created for various platforms over the years.

⁷See http://thesims2.ea.com/images/100million/100mmLetter.jpg.

⁸Also known as The Activision Little Computer People Discovery Kit, Little Computer People Research Project, and House-on-a-Disk. It was also released in a modified and less interactive form in Japan for the Nintendo Famicom as Apple Town Story.

⁹See “A Chat About ‘The Sims’ and ‘Simcity’” at http://www.cnn.com/chat/transcripts/2000/1/wright/index.html.

¹⁰See http://www.virtualpet.com/vp/farm/petz/petz.htm, which reprints an article from Business Wire on the topic.

¹¹“See http://www.mimitchi.com/tamaplus/tama_history.shtml.

¹²These types of toys have aroused some controversy among parents and school administrators. Tamagotchi can compete quite maddeningly for children's attention, making regular demands on them to feed or play with their pets—who will “die” if neglected. Later Tamagotchi models offered pause options that let owners go about their day without worrying over their pet.

¹³See Murakami Mutsuko's “Just Another Day's Work: The Strange Tale of How a Craze Was Born” at http://www.mimitchi.com/html/aki.htm.

¹⁴See http://www.hsus.org/pets/pet_care/how_pets_help_people/.

¹⁵Or MMOG: Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

¹⁶We also briefly touch on this title in Chapter 24, “Ultima Online (1997): Putting the Role-Play Back in Computer Role-Playing Games”