WHERE IT STARTED…
When I was eight years old, Electronic Arts (EA) released the game The Sims FreePlay and it immediately took over my life. For hours, me and my friends would try to make relationships, buy new buildings, etc. Since I was too young to have my own computer, I poured everything into this mobile game. Most of the time it made me want to quit because it took way too long and I could never afford to speed up the process. While it wasn’t the best game, I was addicted to it and I wasn’t sure why I loved playing these games where I “played” as a god.
Where it got worse…
When I was thirteen, I got my first computer – a MacBook Air – and my obsession skyrocketed when I discovered The Sims 3. Unfortunately I never got the opportunity to play The Sims or The Sims 2 – I did hack my way into getting The Sims 2 for free, but you didn’t hear that from me – but The Sims 3 will always hold a piece of my heart. Plus, I owe it to my poor bank account for all the expansion packs I bought ($200 later…). With almost 2,000 hours to my name (1,893 to be exact) I spent days upon days creating families and stories, pouring my soul into these sims. Every character was someone I had built, designed, and controlled; I would construct families, then tear them apart, and eventually I’d get bored with one storyline, so I’d make a new family and do it again!
When I tell you I loved this game, I LOVED this game. My friend and I would FaceTime for hours, just playing and chatting about random things. For me, this game is simply nostalgic and even talking about it now makes me want to play it again. There are so many unique features that made it so iconic for its time. But, then they announced The Sims 4 and a new obsession was created.
How its going
If you thought my 1,893 hours were bad, then you’ll hate the 2,211 hours that I’ve spent playing The Sims 4. After some calculations, I realized I’ve spent a total of 177 whole days on these two games. Not only that, but I have even more expansion packs on The Sims 4, which has probably costed me around $400. However, I spent that money so long ago that with girl math, it doesn’t even bother me anymore. Regardless, I’ve created the same toxic cycle where I spend hours building a family, just for me to abandon them and create a new story a few days later.
Another guilty pleasure of mine is watching the gameplay of other Simmers, which inevitably feeds this addiction. There are a few that I absolutely love, the main one is solitasims on YouTube and TikTok. Her gameplay is hilarious and brilliantly created. Not only is her cinematography so amazing, but her creativity is unmatched; she has a few “families” she plays and she constructed such elaborate stories, you’ll forget you’re watching a video game. One of my other favorites are Caryn and Connie, they do building challenges and their ability to turn a tiny room into a place I’d totally live in is amazing.
Down the rabbit hole I went!
Something I discovered while binging creators like these is custom content (cc) and mods. Not only are people making videos over this game, but they are coding and designing brand new elements strictly for it! CC is mainly used for aesthetics; EA’s original designs for hair, clothing, makeup, etc. are sometimes cute, but these creators take it to the next level with their intricate and trendy options. On the other hand, mods are extra gameplay features that increase your stories (i.e. building better romances, adding some dramatic events, etc.) and simply picks up details that EA hasn’t added yet/not thought about. *A note: if you play games on a PlayStation, unfortunately you can’t add mods or cc to it for some reason*
This new development only deepened my fixation; instead of going straight into The Sims 4, I end up spending hours on random websites downloading this content to build my world. However, the ratio of me downloading these features versus playing the actual game is ridiculously unbalanced. Regardless, the game still holds a tight grasp on me and inevitably steals my attention every few weeks.
how do i play?
If you’re choosing to ignore how addictive this game is, and would rather check it out for yourself, good luck! Depending on what type of computer you have, you can buy the disk versions (do computers even have that feature anymore?) or you can download the EA app – for Windows or Mac – and buy the games from there. If you dare to illegally obtain these apps, more power to you, but these games are worth the price in my personal opinion.
Once you start playing, I wish you the best of luck and make sure you have an alarm set or something, because I promise you – hours will pass by like seconds.