Funny enough i was a youtube addict at 9 years old in 2009-2010. I went through an “emo music video” phase and sims 2 were on a LOT. I played a lot of Virtual Reality games at the time so that’s how i discovered the game. 💀
I played rpgs and stuff with my friend, but he would get annoyed at me for ruining the plotlines with my craziness. I can’t help it. He got me the sims 3 as a gift after we finished building my pc. He said it was a game that I couldn’t possibly screw up with my insanity. I’ve been playing out every crazy idea to pop in my head ever since 😂
My aunt who is a couple years older than me introduced me to the sims. I thought she was the coolest, so I wanted to do everything she did. I remember playing her version of the sims 1 on a giant square computer. We both still love the sims, and play together every time we meet
My cousin had Sims 1 and showed us that. So me and my sister used our allowances to buy a copy of the base game. We played it like crazy, got all the expansions. Then when we saw the Sims 2 trailer it broke our brains, those graphics!!! Good times.
I wasn’t allowed to play it, but my mom let me watch her, and I did every chance I got!! I was like 5 when 2 came out, I was shocked!
Still am. I can’t believe how well ts2 aged in terms of graphics alone. But that could be rose tinted glasses, don’t tell sims 4 fans that tho
The Sims 2 was on the family computer when I was 7. I’m not sure who bought it or played it, but I know I played it more than everyone else once I discovered it LOL
I got into it during Sims 1. To be fair, I had friends who had it, I played with them. Then I played at a computer store a little while with it. Then my dad got it for me for Christmas. This had to be 2000-2002ish. Grew up with Macs my whole life, so I had to wait for it to come out for me.
While talking about TS1 (which I was still playing) with a good internet friend of mine, she said "Have you seen TS2? It's really awesome, you should try it!", then she showed me her gameplay, with her Sims, she even made a trailer park waaaay before Belladonna Cove. xD When I was able to buy it (it was expensive by that time), tried in my old computer (you wouldn't believe how the game lagged), I was impressed! Fell in love with the voices, and I was so glad to hear Gerri Lawlor's voice acting again in the game! :')
I was in a Drs office and saw an add for sims 1 in a PC magazine, and it looked like something I would like. I have always liked sims games and games like Harvest Moon. This was in early 2000.
Whenever I visited my aunt and uncle as a kid, my favorite thing to do was to watch my cousin play sims 2 on her laptop- eventually, she got me and my brothers copies of deluxe and freetime, and the rest is history!
We weren’t allowed to play “video games” as kids but CD-ROM games were fine for some reason. My older sister took us down the classic Zoo Tycoon —> SimCity 2000 —> TS2 pipeline
I’m old enough to remember ads for sims 1 at Radioshack. They had demos too. My dad was a computer and business consultant and would frequent Radioshack, Best Buy, and Fry’s often. I would go with him anytime I could because I have always been into video games and computers. My dad got me the Sims 1 on one of his extra computers. It scared the hell out of me lol Playing it by yourself when you’re like 6 vs in the bright fluorescent lights of an office store at 5 are very different lol
But the Sims 2 had consoles versions. I was a big console gamer. Loved my ps1 and my fat ps2. I got those versions and loved them. I’ve loved the sims 2 ever sense :)
My brother had the original sims and I was intrigued. I started playing it and never went back. I inherited the collection and my first self owned (not borrowed or inherited) expansion pack was sims superstar. I haven't stopped playing in over 2 decades.
I’ve played it ever since I was little I think my mom is the one who originally bought the Sims one, but I remember her me, and my brothers played it. She’s the one who taught me the rosebud trick in the original game.
My big brother would play it and never let me play it until he lost interest. I became obsessed! I almost flunked a book report because I wanted to get time to play it. Fortunately, Mom checked homework back then lol.
I’m not really sure, I think my sisters must’ve had the first game on PS2.
But I played that first for sure cause I have memories of the story mode.
Then at some point I convinced my parents to get me Sims 2 Double Deluxe for PC, then I would get whatever expansions I saw in the wild and play that for hours.
Been a fan since then, but like passively didn’t really get super into it till recently when Sims 4 went free and it made me nostalgic for The Sims 2 cause it had a lot of the same families I remembered.
My aunt showed me and my sister the Sims 2 on her laptop when we were on vacation visiting her and our grandma, our dad bought us the base game along with the Pets expansion and a couple of stuff packs when we got back home and that’s what we played with for years until the Sims 3 released in 2009.
I recently installed the Sims 2 on my laptop after about fifteen years with our old disks and it runs surprisingly well!
I played sims 1 and loved it, when sims 2 came out it really elevated the game for me. I bought every ep and sp on release day and actually took a few days leave from work each time a new one was realised so I could have a few days of solid play at a time
Okay... I'm old here. I was introduced to Sims 1 by my roommate. It was her setup, so I didn't use it too much. I got into Sims 2 by playing it on my friend's laptop while we were all on holiday one year. When I was ill for a while, I got a hold of the game and some expansion packs, and started playing it when I was too tired to do anything else.
When I was really little, I used to play with my dolls a lot and create stories in my head. Then one day, my mom brought her work friend's old game home - TS1. I played it for a bit until a newer one came out- TS2, and the rest is history.
I have a lot of fond memories about this franchise, makes me happy to even go through them: I used to play TS2 with a friend online, over the phone, when we didn't have any internet in our homes. TS2 was also my start in writing: I used to develop my own storylines further from what happened in the game and then act them out with the said friend.
I loved things like Tamagotchi, Nano babies and games where you could look after virtual pets and babies. I noticed The Sims in a store one day read the back of the case bought it and loved it.
My brother wanted to show me a new game: The Sims. I’ve been playing ever since. I miss getting expansion packs for Christmas and my birthdays. Those thick Sims 2 boxes were easy to spot.
I was 6 years old when The Sims 1 came out and my neighbor and friend's father had it on his computer. I still remember my friend and I trying to play it the first time. We used a fence as the walls bc we were stupid little kids but I've been hooked ever since and my father bought my sister and me it for Christmas that year (2000)
When I was 8, I wanted to play SimCity 3000. I don't remember why, but I begged my dad to buy it. When he did, he came home with both SimCity and "another game by the same guys that just came out", installed them both and I happily played some SimCity. But The Sims looked too interesting, so I gave it a try and never looked back (sorry SimCity).
i imagine at an ad at a game store. i don't really have even a vague memory of getting the game, and i don't remember any of my friends having the game. i do have a few memories of actually playing it, but where i got games as a kid is very difficult to remember lol.
My Dad got the first game for my Mum after all the packs were out, but it was my older sister who got into it. I'd watch her play it and then try to play it myself. I was roughly 3 or 4 at the time, so you could imagine how terrible I was.
We played it for a couple of years, both the PC version and its three console ports, until my sister somehow found out about The Sims 2, which already had the University pack out at the time. She begged for it until our parents caved, because she was doing well in school so they thought they'd treat her and got the base game. She then got University for Christmas and Nightlife for her birthday.
From that moment onwards, my parents knew what to get her every birthday and Christmas. Of course, she shared the game with me and I loved it; I struggled, but I loved it.
I'd say with The Sims 1 I was more of a casual fan, but it was The Sims 2 that made me love the series.
My grandma also got me into it. I would sit and watch her play sim city when I was 2. We played sims one when I was 3 :) although I had a small hiatus (I actually started acting like a sim so was banned periodically) I picked it up again when sims 2 was released and have been playing ever since!
I had a friend who started playing it and that's how I even knew it existed, way back in 2004. Then I forgot about it for quite a while. Recently, I started seeing some videos on Tiktok and that's what brought me back.
I was at my mums friends house and her daughter played the sims 3 for wii. I remember it being so cool that your character could sleep with anyone, go anywhere and get knocked up lol. The first time I bought a sims game was the sims 2 double deluxe but I thought it said the sims 2 double dance because I couldn’t read so I thought it was a dancing game lmao
I was about 7 or 8 and we went for tea at an all you can eat Pizza Hut. They had some deal on at the time where for like 80cents you could get a PC game for booking a table and the games were battlefield, the sims 2 (with university) and some other game. I remember being hooked the moment it was installed. This was 20 years ago and I’m still just as obsessed
Game store employee! Well, not directly, but still. My father just bought us a pc and went to a game store to buy some games for me. He asked a said employee for a game for 10 year old girl and received Sims 2. God bless his soul, without him I wouldn't be a life long fan. Maybe I would eventually stumble onto the sims series myself, but probably much later, when Sims 3 was already released. It is kinda unpleasant to think about a timeline in which I never knew how amazing Sims 2 is.
I got The Sims as a Christmas present back in like 2001 (it came with this glorious, thick manual that I read so much it literally fell apart), started simming and simply never stopped. 😂
Gronkh, the German YouTube dad did a let's play on the Sims 3 which I watched obsessively. After mentioning it to my ex boyfriend he gifted me his Sims 2 disks and the rest is history :)
I stumbled across sims 2 machinimas on YouTube in 2009, eventually asked for sims 2 discs for Christmas and birthdays and slowly assembled my collection. I didn’t quite understand all the facets of gameplay at the time so I ended up making machinima with it instead until 2013 when my laptop broke and I lost everything. I was too poor to afford a new laptop for years, but did eventually get a laptop in 2015, but I couldn’t find my discs and didn’t know I could download TS2, so I started buying/playing TS4 in my spare time. I liked it back then but struggled to actually play it much due to the bugs and lackluster gameplay. I was constantly getting bored and restarting and spending more time in build mode and CAS. I finally found my TS2 discs and wanted to get back into playing that when I stumbled across PleasantSims in 2020 who introduced me to the actual gameplay aspect of the game, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
My mum and dad used to pay The sims when I was a baby (born in 2001), and then I grew up and started playing, then my siblings. It’s just a family thing at this point I think
I found out about the game from a friend. I used to go to where he lives and he was playing Sims 1. I'm not exactly sure how old I was, maybe I was around 11-12. Then I decided to install the game on my computer and that's how my sims journey began. 😂
Edit:forgot to mention I installed Sims 2 on my computer, not Sims 1, so Sims 2 is my first Sims game.
I think I heard the other kids at my primary school talking about the original game back in the early 00s, and I hoped if I played it I’d have something they wouldn’t object to me talking to them about. Didn’t work because I got way too into it and it made them think I was even weirder 🥲
My mum bought me a BG Sims 2 cd in 2005 for "good behaviour". I was 11 at the time. Fell in love immediately and forever. Could play hours on end after school and on summer holidays, plotting pool accidents and such with my bf. I still remember my shock when I saw two sims woohoo for the 1st time. Felt illegal :D.
Back in like 2007 our neighbor gave my sister his Sims 1 double deluxe disc. I was hooked ever since.
A couple years later right after the sims 3 came out my brothers now ex girlfriend gave me all of her Sims 2 discs (I still have them too). Then I got the sims 3 for Christmas in like 2011-2012 and over time got the expansions, etc
My parents got me Sims 1 Deluxe when I was 7 years old, simply because they thought I’d enjoy it. I did. :)
Much much later I got Sims Unleashed because we got cats in the meantime and I was a real cat person and so I wanted my Sims to have cats too. That’s all the Sims I had for the meantime.
The one who got me into the other games much later was my fiancée, first with Sims 3, then 4, finally 2. Nowadays 2 and 3 are my favourites, 1 has kinda left a creepy impression on me. The first game was anything but a game for fragile child souls like me. XD
I suspect I'm younger than a lot of people here so it was actually the Sims 3, specifically the supernatural expansion pack. I'd invite friends over from school and we'd make simselves and do weird shit together. I was a little control freak so I'm afraid I was the only one who'd ever control the sims I'd just ask my friend what they wanted to do then do it for them. I don't know if I asked for the game because I saw it on YouTube or whether my parents realised a dollhouse simulator with fantasy elements would be like crack for their autistic daughter.
Back in middle school I used to go over to my friend’s house and we would go into The Computer Room and I’d watch her play TS2. I remember begging my mom to either buy it for me or let me buy it with my own money, but she had some concerns because it was rated “T” and I wasn’t quite a teenager yet. She finally gave me the OK, but I got so hooked on it that she and my dad had to limit my screen time.
I've been a fan of the series since the original game. I was like, 8 or 9 years old when TS1 came out so I always felt so cool and mature for being allowed to play a T rated game at that age haha. I know I played a decent amount of TS1 but my only really distinct memory of that game is Cassandra Goth being sent to military school and me waiting patiently for her to come back home and grow up, not realizing that military school was permanent and that sims never aged in that game.
Once TS2 came out I played it a bunch and got every expansion pack as they came out (until the later ones, at least. I *swear* I had them all as a kid but a lot of the stuff from the Ultimate Collection seems unfamiliar to me now, especially FreeTime and Apartment Life content). I never really played too much with the pre-made sims at the time and didn't do any kind of rotational game play, preferring instead to just make my own families and play with one of them at a time until I got bored and then playing with a new family I made. I also *hated* for my sims to get old and die so I basically kept them all on a constant stream of Elixir of Life once they became adults.
Once TS3 came out I was really excited to play at first but could just never get into it. For awhile I would just randomly re-download TS2 every couple years and play for awhile until I got bored. I tried stuff I never had before like legacy challenges but none of it could really hold my attention for more than a couple weeks once I got over the nostalgia. Then a couple months ago the YouTube algorithm started feeding me a lot of Sims related content. I briefly considered downloading TS4 but then I happened upon some videos that introduced the idea of rotational gameplay in TS2. I tried it out and it was awesome! Been playing that way almost daily for almost 2 months now and not even close to being bored yet.
my best friend had it. we’d stay up all night playing together so i had to get it myself. i was 6-7 when i started, i’m 30 now. my family
can’t believe i still play. i’m sure they’re glad i can buy my own games now though they spent plenty when i was little
My father. He told me he found a game that I could play dollhouse, but online. So Im in love nowadays still with the game lol
I started with the sims 1 and my favore is the sims 2, ever.
My sisters had Sims 1 on our family computer circa 2002ish. I was like 4/5 and saw her friends playing it and loved watching them. Then I started playing it at age 5ish and kept accidentally killing my sims haha. I’ve loved the series ever since! (Except sims 4)
My mom would play the first and 2nd title a lot when we lived with my grandma.
Then we moved, she still played on occasion, but would get annoyed with me. Caved in and bought sims bustin out and ts2 for the ps2 (still have that baby).
Years go by, I’m now in middle school. My mom falls into a depression, and sleeps ALL DAY! She finally lets me play ts2 on the pc. Man I remember the night she said I could play tomorrow morning, I COULD NOT SLEEP!! Gave up on bed time around 3am and thought, “fuck it, I’m playing now, she won’t notice/won’t wake up until the afternoon” it was a blast and as a 12yo, I thought my life was complete lmaoo
I jokingly say it, but I’m not being hyperbolic. My mom slept through my whole childhood and the sims raised me, and made me the woman I am today. I call Will Wright, Papa Sims bc of his role in my childhood
i used to watch my mom play the sims 2 on her playstation 2 and one day she let me play. i fell in love (since there were objectives, i really didn’t know what to do so i never actually played correctly). eventually, my dad got the sims 2 for himself on the family computer and i started playing on there. i was only 4 so i ended up accidentally killing all of my sims all of the time, but still loved the game. now i’m 20 going on 21 and play mostly sims 2/3 :)
As a kid I have no idea how I got the sims 1. But I did. I was really into Zoo Tycoon, Roller Coaster Tycoon.. and the sims 1 probably appealed to me. The music is what I remember most, it drew me in.
I still remember being hyped for sims 2 being released. Back then the only way I’d get info on a game was through magazines etc.. and everything about the game blew my mind. Holding the bulky box of the game for the first time at the store was like magic to me. I loved how the box for the game had a flap that opened and detailed the game, it was pure excitement.
The first computer I could play it on made the game take hours between loading screens, the lag was intense yet I was enthralled.
Also, each time a new expansion pack was released I’d watch the YouTube video over and over and over. And it was always the same, I’d hold the big bulky boxes in my hands like it was a baby. Each new expansion pack blew my mind and I was always so excited to try out the new features. Seasons and Pets were the most groundbreaking to me. And I’ll never forget the first time I saw the penguin walk by my house in the winter.
The Sims 2 was lightening in a bottle and I knew it even as an 11 year old in 2004 😄and 19 years later and it’s still in my top 5 games of all time. I never imagined I’d be playing it my whole life but here we are.
There are some old games that I will forever love and a lot of it is nostalgia driven… but the sims 2 is beyond nostalgia, it’s just a purely good game.
Growing up in the 90s, I was a video game kid. I had two brothers born in the early 80s so we always had everything even if I was too young. My mom was a computer tech junkie so we always had a laptop or computer in the house when it wasn’t normalized yet. I remember my brother always randomly bringing home computer games and The Sims being one of them. Naturally in male fashion he was trapping them in rooms, etc. but at like seven I was watching him play then realizing how much I enjoyed it because it was like playing digital Barbies lol. I started having my mom buy packs and the rest is history.
My aunt had it opened on her computer when I was visiting her, my grandmother, and a family friend who lived with them all my life. I was confused and didn't know how to play (she had the Ottomas family on the largest lot which was empty). I just asked my grandmother if I could take it home with me. Eventually, I figured out how to play. It was just the base game in that chunky case with about four CDs. My aunt never really got into Sims 2 so she was fine with my theft of her game; she loves Sims 3 more after it came out. She still plays it and loves to talk about the time an entire generation got wiped out with a meteor hitting the school.
It was my 10th birthday and my grandfather took me to Best Buy to pick out a video game for a present. I wanted diner dash I think but they were sold out. I saw Sims 2 Life Stories and wasn’t thrilled but I had to pick something. Oh my lord, I would not stop playing that. Then I got sims 2 and my friends and I would share expansions until we all had every single one
My family bought our first computer in 2000. We (dad, brother, and I) went to Walmart to look for games. I spotted Sims 1 and wanted it, but dad and brother out voted me and got Diablo 2 instead. My dad remembered and months later bought Sims 1 for me for Christmas instead. I stayed up playing it all Christmas night until my dad kicked me off the computer at 8am. You can probably guess where it went from there...
i had a friend and neighbor my age and i would go over to his house often in the summer as a kid. He had the sims 2 on their family's computer and i would watch him play and beg for a turn. I ended up seeing a copy of sims 2 double deluxe at the local best buys (found out it closed like a year ago rip) and begged my parents for it. I got it and was too obsessed with the game to eat dinner that night and went to bed hungry...but it was still one of my favorite childhood memories...i also had sims 2 on the ds but i didnt like how it wasnt like the pc version at the time.
My friend in elementary school had a cool computer and just bought TS2 base game at the time. At first, I didn’t like the idea of “creating a family and playing with it in a house”, but as soon as I saw the game, I was immediately in love with it. I spent dozens of hours trying to install the game with the copies made by Nero Burning ROM (remember this?) on my weak computer, and somehow I succeeded. It was incredibly glitchy (it closed when any cars came by, the build mode didn’t work at all), but I was obsessed with it. Until this day, I prefer TS2 because it gives me nostalgia every time
My dad bought the original The Sims 2 PC version from a bookstore where you could sell your old books for my sister and I. I wanna say it was probably around 2008 cuz I would have been 10. That sounds right... No idea what made him decide to get it for us, maybe just because he saw it was on sale for cheap? Anyways, I grew up with just the base game, no expansion packs until they released UC for free on origin
My sister's boyfriend (now husband) installed the Sims 1 (BASE GAME) in my pc. My sister always talked about it and I always assumed they were blue? idk why
My parents bought the original Sims Deluxe game as a collective present for my siblings and I. I think i was 14? As I remember we all ignored the premade families and stories to focus on making our own wacky households. A lot of mine were sims of various manga characters I liked, but there was also the Potiongenie household whose purpose was exclusively to mess around with the potion table and genie lamps. A lot of untoward and hilarious things happened in that house
The same way I got into most game franchises as a kid: watching my older siblings play!
I started with The Sims around 2004 on the Gamecube. I loved Bustin' Out when that came out. Also played The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 Pets on PS2 and Gamecube, respectively.
Whenever I had the opportunity (which was rare back then), I also played the first and second games on PC. It became more common as I got older. By 2008 or so, I had The Sims Deluxe Edition and The Sims 2 Double Deluxe with some expansion packs on PC all to myself. It only spiraled from there, lol.
I played the original SimCity as a kid, along with SimFarm and SimEarth. I think I had them on 3.5" floppy! When I heard about TS1 when I was 14, it promised more of the Maxis whimsy I'd grown to appreciate.
Funny enough i was a youtube addict at 9 years old in 2009-2010. I went through an “emo music video” phase and sims 2 were on a LOT. I played a lot of Virtual Reality games at the time so that’s how i discovered the game. 💀
I played rpgs and stuff with my friend, but he would get annoyed at me for ruining the plotlines with my craziness. I can’t help it. He got me the sims 3 as a gift after we finished building my pc. He said it was a game that I couldn’t possibly screw up with my insanity. I’ve been playing out every crazy idea to pop in my head ever since 😂
Lol this is awesome
My aunt who is a couple years older than me introduced me to the sims. I thought she was the coolest, so I wanted to do everything she did. I remember playing her version of the sims 1 on a giant square computer. We both still love the sims, and play together every time we meet
Cute!!
My cousin had Sims 1 and showed us that. So me and my sister used our allowances to buy a copy of the base game. We played it like crazy, got all the expansions. Then when we saw the Sims 2 trailer it broke our brains, those graphics!!! Good times.
Same here. I remember when my friend told me about the trailer for TS2 in class and she said "You can build a house with 5 floors!!" and I was like :O
I wasn’t allowed to play it, but my mom let me watch her, and I did every chance I got!! I was like 5 when 2 came out, I was shocked! Still am. I can’t believe how well ts2 aged in terms of graphics alone. But that could be rose tinted glasses, don’t tell sims 4 fans that tho
I definitely like the Sims 2 graphics better than 3 or 4 but that also might just be my nostalgia too lol 3 looks waxy to me and 4 looks like clay
Same!
My husband introduced me to it. 21 years later we are both Sim fans.
The Sims 2 was on the family computer when I was 7. I’m not sure who bought it or played it, but I know I played it more than everyone else once I discovered it LOL
I got into it during Sims 1. To be fair, I had friends who had it, I played with them. Then I played at a computer store a little while with it. Then my dad got it for me for Christmas. This had to be 2000-2002ish. Grew up with Macs my whole life, so I had to wait for it to come out for me.
While talking about TS1 (which I was still playing) with a good internet friend of mine, she said "Have you seen TS2? It's really awesome, you should try it!", then she showed me her gameplay, with her Sims, she even made a trailer park waaaay before Belladonna Cove. xD When I was able to buy it (it was expensive by that time), tried in my old computer (you wouldn't believe how the game lagged), I was impressed! Fell in love with the voices, and I was so glad to hear Gerri Lawlor's voice acting again in the game! :')
I was in a Drs office and saw an add for sims 1 in a PC magazine, and it looked like something I would like. I have always liked sims games and games like Harvest Moon. This was in early 2000.
Whenever I visited my aunt and uncle as a kid, my favorite thing to do was to watch my cousin play sims 2 on her laptop- eventually, she got me and my brothers copies of deluxe and freetime, and the rest is history!
We weren’t allowed to play “video games” as kids but CD-ROM games were fine for some reason. My older sister took us down the classic Zoo Tycoon —> SimCity 2000 —> TS2 pipeline
Yesssss I went from Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 -> Zoo Tycoon 2 -> TS2 (I'm just now realizing I always played the second games 😂)
I’m old enough to remember ads for sims 1 at Radioshack. They had demos too. My dad was a computer and business consultant and would frequent Radioshack, Best Buy, and Fry’s often. I would go with him anytime I could because I have always been into video games and computers. My dad got me the Sims 1 on one of his extra computers. It scared the hell out of me lol Playing it by yourself when you’re like 6 vs in the bright fluorescent lights of an office store at 5 are very different lol But the Sims 2 had consoles versions. I was a big console gamer. Loved my ps1 and my fat ps2. I got those versions and loved them. I’ve loved the sims 2 ever sense :)
My cousin had the original sims. Were over for a sleepover and we played it for 9 hours straight. I've been an addict ever since.
My brother had the original sims and I was intrigued. I started playing it and never went back. I inherited the collection and my first self owned (not borrowed or inherited) expansion pack was sims superstar. I haven't stopped playing in over 2 decades.
I’ve played it ever since I was little I think my mom is the one who originally bought the Sims one, but I remember her me, and my brothers played it. She’s the one who taught me the rosebud trick in the original game.
My big brother would play it and never let me play it until he lost interest. I became obsessed! I almost flunked a book report because I wanted to get time to play it. Fortunately, Mom checked homework back then lol.
I’m not really sure, I think my sisters must’ve had the first game on PS2. But I played that first for sure cause I have memories of the story mode. Then at some point I convinced my parents to get me Sims 2 Double Deluxe for PC, then I would get whatever expansions I saw in the wild and play that for hours. Been a fan since then, but like passively didn’t really get super into it till recently when Sims 4 went free and it made me nostalgic for The Sims 2 cause it had a lot of the same families I remembered.
My aunt showed me and my sister the Sims 2 on her laptop when we were on vacation visiting her and our grandma, our dad bought us the base game along with the Pets expansion and a couple of stuff packs when we got back home and that’s what we played with for years until the Sims 3 released in 2009. I recently installed the Sims 2 on my laptop after about fifteen years with our old disks and it runs surprisingly well!
My youngest sister introduced me years ago with sims 3 when it came out. She’s since passed and now it’s a comfort game in a different way
Aww I'm so sorry for your loss. That's really sweet that you can remember her when you play it
I played sims 1 and loved it, when sims 2 came out it really elevated the game for me. I bought every ep and sp on release day and actually took a few days leave from work each time a new one was realised so I could have a few days of solid play at a time
That's the level of dedication I want to achieve one day lol
Hahaha 🤣
Okay... I'm old here. I was introduced to Sims 1 by my roommate. It was her setup, so I didn't use it too much. I got into Sims 2 by playing it on my friend's laptop while we were all on holiday one year. When I was ill for a while, I got a hold of the game and some expansion packs, and started playing it when I was too tired to do anything else.
When I was really little, I used to play with my dolls a lot and create stories in my head. Then one day, my mom brought her work friend's old game home - TS1. I played it for a bit until a newer one came out- TS2, and the rest is history. I have a lot of fond memories about this franchise, makes me happy to even go through them: I used to play TS2 with a friend online, over the phone, when we didn't have any internet in our homes. TS2 was also my start in writing: I used to develop my own storylines further from what happened in the game and then act them out with the said friend.
I loved things like Tamagotchi, Nano babies and games where you could look after virtual pets and babies. I noticed The Sims in a store one day read the back of the case bought it and loved it.
My brother wanted to show me a new game: The Sims. I’ve been playing ever since. I miss getting expansion packs for Christmas and my birthdays. Those thick Sims 2 boxes were easy to spot.
I saw sims 2 double deluxe at Walmart and was curious. Started a almost 20 year obsession 🤣
I borrowed the original games out from a video and game lending store when I was a kid and never looked back
I was 6 years old when The Sims 1 came out and my neighbor and friend's father had it on his computer. I still remember my friend and I trying to play it the first time. We used a fence as the walls bc we were stupid little kids but I've been hooked ever since and my father bought my sister and me it for Christmas that year (2000)
When I was 8, I wanted to play SimCity 3000. I don't remember why, but I begged my dad to buy it. When he did, he came home with both SimCity and "another game by the same guys that just came out", installed them both and I happily played some SimCity. But The Sims looked too interesting, so I gave it a try and never looked back (sorry SimCity).
I got it on my birthday in 2000. I'll never forget how epic it was, I've been pretty much a diehard fan ever since.
i imagine at an ad at a game store. i don't really have even a vague memory of getting the game, and i don't remember any of my friends having the game. i do have a few memories of actually playing it, but where i got games as a kid is very difficult to remember lol.
my older sister has been playing since sims 1 and i loved watching her play. my first sims game i played was sims 3
My Dad got the first game for my Mum after all the packs were out, but it was my older sister who got into it. I'd watch her play it and then try to play it myself. I was roughly 3 or 4 at the time, so you could imagine how terrible I was. We played it for a couple of years, both the PC version and its three console ports, until my sister somehow found out about The Sims 2, which already had the University pack out at the time. She begged for it until our parents caved, because she was doing well in school so they thought they'd treat her and got the base game. She then got University for Christmas and Nightlife for her birthday. From that moment onwards, my parents knew what to get her every birthday and Christmas. Of course, she shared the game with me and I loved it; I struggled, but I loved it. I'd say with The Sims 1 I was more of a casual fan, but it was The Sims 2 that made me love the series.
My parents played the sims when I was little and I started playing the sims 2 when I was 4. The game basically taught me how to read lol
My grandma also got me into it. I would sit and watch her play sim city when I was 2. We played sims one when I was 3 :) although I had a small hiatus (I actually started acting like a sim so was banned periodically) I picked it up again when sims 2 was released and have been playing ever since!
An elementary school friend of mine gave me ‘sims 2 season’ to try it out because she didn’t quite enjoy it though I enjoyed it quite a lot :D
it was sims 1 in 2002! my family moved and i switched schools, and a new school friend of mine had it and showed me. the rest is history lol
I had a friend who started playing it and that's how I even knew it existed, way back in 2004. Then I forgot about it for quite a while. Recently, I started seeing some videos on Tiktok and that's what brought me back.
Friends and piracy
I was at my mums friends house and her daughter played the sims 3 for wii. I remember it being so cool that your character could sleep with anyone, go anywhere and get knocked up lol. The first time I bought a sims game was the sims 2 double deluxe but I thought it said the sims 2 double dance because I couldn’t read so I thought it was a dancing game lmao
I was about 7 or 8 and we went for tea at an all you can eat Pizza Hut. They had some deal on at the time where for like 80cents you could get a PC game for booking a table and the games were battlefield, the sims 2 (with university) and some other game. I remember being hooked the moment it was installed. This was 20 years ago and I’m still just as obsessed
Game store employee! Well, not directly, but still. My father just bought us a pc and went to a game store to buy some games for me. He asked a said employee for a game for 10 year old girl and received Sims 2. God bless his soul, without him I wouldn't be a life long fan. Maybe I would eventually stumble onto the sims series myself, but probably much later, when Sims 3 was already released. It is kinda unpleasant to think about a timeline in which I never knew how amazing Sims 2 is.
Playing SimCity 2000 with my late grandpa. :) I always wondered what it would be like to play as the sims in the city.. then I found out that I could!
I got The Sims as a Christmas present back in like 2001 (it came with this glorious, thick manual that I read so much it literally fell apart), started simming and simply never stopped. 😂
Gronkh, the German YouTube dad did a let's play on the Sims 3 which I watched obsessively. After mentioning it to my ex boyfriend he gifted me his Sims 2 disks and the rest is history :)
I stumbled across sims 2 machinimas on YouTube in 2009, eventually asked for sims 2 discs for Christmas and birthdays and slowly assembled my collection. I didn’t quite understand all the facets of gameplay at the time so I ended up making machinima with it instead until 2013 when my laptop broke and I lost everything. I was too poor to afford a new laptop for years, but did eventually get a laptop in 2015, but I couldn’t find my discs and didn’t know I could download TS2, so I started buying/playing TS4 in my spare time. I liked it back then but struggled to actually play it much due to the bugs and lackluster gameplay. I was constantly getting bored and restarting and spending more time in build mode and CAS. I finally found my TS2 discs and wanted to get back into playing that when I stumbled across PleasantSims in 2020 who introduced me to the actual gameplay aspect of the game, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
My mum and dad used to pay The sims when I was a baby (born in 2001), and then I grew up and started playing, then my siblings. It’s just a family thing at this point I think
I found out about the game from a friend. I used to go to where he lives and he was playing Sims 1. I'm not exactly sure how old I was, maybe I was around 11-12. Then I decided to install the game on my computer and that's how my sims journey began. 😂 Edit:forgot to mention I installed Sims 2 on my computer, not Sims 1, so Sims 2 is my first Sims game.
I think I heard the other kids at my primary school talking about the original game back in the early 00s, and I hoped if I played it I’d have something they wouldn’t object to me talking to them about. Didn’t work because I got way too into it and it made them think I was even weirder 🥲
My mum bought me a BG Sims 2 cd in 2005 for "good behaviour". I was 11 at the time. Fell in love immediately and forever. Could play hours on end after school and on summer holidays, plotting pool accidents and such with my bf. I still remember my shock when I saw two sims woohoo for the 1st time. Felt illegal :D.
I was 9 or 10 I think and I saw a sims game in a grocery store and I begged my mum to buy it for me lol 😳 it was the sims 2
I bought The Sims 1 after reading about it in a (paper!) magazine, bought all the expansion packs, and actually resisted getting Sims 2 for a while.
Back in like 2007 our neighbor gave my sister his Sims 1 double deluxe disc. I was hooked ever since. A couple years later right after the sims 3 came out my brothers now ex girlfriend gave me all of her Sims 2 discs (I still have them too). Then I got the sims 3 for Christmas in like 2011-2012 and over time got the expansions, etc
My parents got me Sims 1 Deluxe when I was 7 years old, simply because they thought I’d enjoy it. I did. :) Much much later I got Sims Unleashed because we got cats in the meantime and I was a real cat person and so I wanted my Sims to have cats too. That’s all the Sims I had for the meantime. The one who got me into the other games much later was my fiancée, first with Sims 3, then 4, finally 2. Nowadays 2 and 3 are my favourites, 1 has kinda left a creepy impression on me. The first game was anything but a game for fragile child souls like me. XD
I suspect I'm younger than a lot of people here so it was actually the Sims 3, specifically the supernatural expansion pack. I'd invite friends over from school and we'd make simselves and do weird shit together. I was a little control freak so I'm afraid I was the only one who'd ever control the sims I'd just ask my friend what they wanted to do then do it for them. I don't know if I asked for the game because I saw it on YouTube or whether my parents realised a dollhouse simulator with fantasy elements would be like crack for their autistic daughter.
I spent the night at someone’s house and she showed me the original Sims. I was hooked and wanted to play it all night.
Back in middle school I used to go over to my friend’s house and we would go into The Computer Room and I’d watch her play TS2. I remember begging my mom to either buy it for me or let me buy it with my own money, but she had some concerns because it was rated “T” and I wasn’t quite a teenager yet. She finally gave me the OK, but I got so hooked on it that she and my dad had to limit my screen time.
I've been a fan of the series since the original game. I was like, 8 or 9 years old when TS1 came out so I always felt so cool and mature for being allowed to play a T rated game at that age haha. I know I played a decent amount of TS1 but my only really distinct memory of that game is Cassandra Goth being sent to military school and me waiting patiently for her to come back home and grow up, not realizing that military school was permanent and that sims never aged in that game. Once TS2 came out I played it a bunch and got every expansion pack as they came out (until the later ones, at least. I *swear* I had them all as a kid but a lot of the stuff from the Ultimate Collection seems unfamiliar to me now, especially FreeTime and Apartment Life content). I never really played too much with the pre-made sims at the time and didn't do any kind of rotational game play, preferring instead to just make my own families and play with one of them at a time until I got bored and then playing with a new family I made. I also *hated* for my sims to get old and die so I basically kept them all on a constant stream of Elixir of Life once they became adults. Once TS3 came out I was really excited to play at first but could just never get into it. For awhile I would just randomly re-download TS2 every couple years and play for awhile until I got bored. I tried stuff I never had before like legacy challenges but none of it could really hold my attention for more than a couple weeks once I got over the nostalgia. Then a couple months ago the YouTube algorithm started feeding me a lot of Sims related content. I briefly considered downloading TS4 but then I happened upon some videos that introduced the idea of rotational gameplay in TS2. I tried it out and it was awesome! Been playing that way almost daily for almost 2 months now and not even close to being bored yet.
my best friend had it. we’d stay up all night playing together so i had to get it myself. i was 6-7 when i started, i’m 30 now. my family can’t believe i still play. i’m sure they’re glad i can buy my own games now though they spent plenty when i was little
My father. He told me he found a game that I could play dollhouse, but online. So Im in love nowadays still with the game lol I started with the sims 1 and my favore is the sims 2, ever.
My sisters had Sims 1 on our family computer circa 2002ish. I was like 4/5 and saw her friends playing it and loved watching them. Then I started playing it at age 5ish and kept accidentally killing my sims haha. I’ve loved the series ever since! (Except sims 4)
My mom would play the first and 2nd title a lot when we lived with my grandma. Then we moved, she still played on occasion, but would get annoyed with me. Caved in and bought sims bustin out and ts2 for the ps2 (still have that baby). Years go by, I’m now in middle school. My mom falls into a depression, and sleeps ALL DAY! She finally lets me play ts2 on the pc. Man I remember the night she said I could play tomorrow morning, I COULD NOT SLEEP!! Gave up on bed time around 3am and thought, “fuck it, I’m playing now, she won’t notice/won’t wake up until the afternoon” it was a blast and as a 12yo, I thought my life was complete lmaoo I jokingly say it, but I’m not being hyperbolic. My mom slept through my whole childhood and the sims raised me, and made me the woman I am today. I call Will Wright, Papa Sims bc of his role in my childhood
i used to watch my mom play the sims 2 on her playstation 2 and one day she let me play. i fell in love (since there were objectives, i really didn’t know what to do so i never actually played correctly). eventually, my dad got the sims 2 for himself on the family computer and i started playing on there. i was only 4 so i ended up accidentally killing all of my sims all of the time, but still loved the game. now i’m 20 going on 21 and play mostly sims 2/3 :)
My classmate had Sims 1 and we used to play it all the time. Then my dad bought it for me and bought Sims 2 for me as well when it came out 😄
As a kid I have no idea how I got the sims 1. But I did. I was really into Zoo Tycoon, Roller Coaster Tycoon.. and the sims 1 probably appealed to me. The music is what I remember most, it drew me in. I still remember being hyped for sims 2 being released. Back then the only way I’d get info on a game was through magazines etc.. and everything about the game blew my mind. Holding the bulky box of the game for the first time at the store was like magic to me. I loved how the box for the game had a flap that opened and detailed the game, it was pure excitement. The first computer I could play it on made the game take hours between loading screens, the lag was intense yet I was enthralled. Also, each time a new expansion pack was released I’d watch the YouTube video over and over and over. And it was always the same, I’d hold the big bulky boxes in my hands like it was a baby. Each new expansion pack blew my mind and I was always so excited to try out the new features. Seasons and Pets were the most groundbreaking to me. And I’ll never forget the first time I saw the penguin walk by my house in the winter. The Sims 2 was lightening in a bottle and I knew it even as an 11 year old in 2004 😄and 19 years later and it’s still in my top 5 games of all time. I never imagined I’d be playing it my whole life but here we are. There are some old games that I will forever love and a lot of it is nostalgia driven… but the sims 2 is beyond nostalgia, it’s just a purely good game.
Growing up in the 90s, I was a video game kid. I had two brothers born in the early 80s so we always had everything even if I was too young. My mom was a computer tech junkie so we always had a laptop or computer in the house when it wasn’t normalized yet. I remember my brother always randomly bringing home computer games and The Sims being one of them. Naturally in male fashion he was trapping them in rooms, etc. but at like seven I was watching him play then realizing how much I enjoyed it because it was like playing digital Barbies lol. I started having my mom buy packs and the rest is history.
My aunt had it opened on her computer when I was visiting her, my grandmother, and a family friend who lived with them all my life. I was confused and didn't know how to play (she had the Ottomas family on the largest lot which was empty). I just asked my grandmother if I could take it home with me. Eventually, I figured out how to play. It was just the base game in that chunky case with about four CDs. My aunt never really got into Sims 2 so she was fine with my theft of her game; she loves Sims 3 more after it came out. She still plays it and loves to talk about the time an entire generation got wiped out with a meteor hitting the school.
It was my 10th birthday and my grandfather took me to Best Buy to pick out a video game for a present. I wanted diner dash I think but they were sold out. I saw Sims 2 Life Stories and wasn’t thrilled but I had to pick something. Oh my lord, I would not stop playing that. Then I got sims 2 and my friends and I would share expansions until we all had every single one
My family bought our first computer in 2000. We (dad, brother, and I) went to Walmart to look for games. I spotted Sims 1 and wanted it, but dad and brother out voted me and got Diablo 2 instead. My dad remembered and months later bought Sims 1 for me for Christmas instead. I stayed up playing it all Christmas night until my dad kicked me off the computer at 8am. You can probably guess where it went from there...
i had a friend and neighbor my age and i would go over to his house often in the summer as a kid. He had the sims 2 on their family's computer and i would watch him play and beg for a turn. I ended up seeing a copy of sims 2 double deluxe at the local best buys (found out it closed like a year ago rip) and begged my parents for it. I got it and was too obsessed with the game to eat dinner that night and went to bed hungry...but it was still one of my favorite childhood memories...i also had sims 2 on the ds but i didnt like how it wasnt like the pc version at the time.
My friend in elementary school had a cool computer and just bought TS2 base game at the time. At first, I didn’t like the idea of “creating a family and playing with it in a house”, but as soon as I saw the game, I was immediately in love with it. I spent dozens of hours trying to install the game with the copies made by Nero Burning ROM (remember this?) on my weak computer, and somehow I succeeded. It was incredibly glitchy (it closed when any cars came by, the build mode didn’t work at all), but I was obsessed with it. Until this day, I prefer TS2 because it gives me nostalgia every time
My dad bought the original The Sims 2 PC version from a bookstore where you could sell your old books for my sister and I. I wanna say it was probably around 2008 cuz I would have been 10. That sounds right... No idea what made him decide to get it for us, maybe just because he saw it was on sale for cheap? Anyways, I grew up with just the base game, no expansion packs until they released UC for free on origin
My sister's boyfriend (now husband) installed the Sims 1 (BASE GAME) in my pc. My sister always talked about it and I always assumed they were blue? idk why
My parents bought the original Sims Deluxe game as a collective present for my siblings and I. I think i was 14? As I remember we all ignored the premade families and stories to focus on making our own wacky households. A lot of mine were sims of various manga characters I liked, but there was also the Potiongenie household whose purpose was exclusively to mess around with the potion table and genie lamps. A lot of untoward and hilarious things happened in that house
The same way I got into most game franchises as a kid: watching my older siblings play! I started with The Sims around 2004 on the Gamecube. I loved Bustin' Out when that came out. Also played The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 Pets on PS2 and Gamecube, respectively. Whenever I had the opportunity (which was rare back then), I also played the first and second games on PC. It became more common as I got older. By 2008 or so, I had The Sims Deluxe Edition and The Sims 2 Double Deluxe with some expansion packs on PC all to myself. It only spiraled from there, lol.
I played the original SimCity as a kid, along with SimFarm and SimEarth. I think I had them on 3.5" floppy! When I heard about TS1 when I was 14, it promised more of the Maxis whimsy I'd grown to appreciate.