Life is full of responsibilities: doing chores, going to work, basic hygiene. Surely not the stuff of popular video games.

Yet almost 20 years after it was first released, The Sims, which made unlikely entertainment of these mundane tasks, is having a second life online.

A generation that grew up with the quintessential "god game" remains a potent combination of nostalgic and loyal, while an internet cottage industry has emerged creating YouTube clips and listicles that detail minutiae like "16 Photos That Prove 'The Sims' Is The Weirdest F***ing Game".

For some, making videos about The Sims is lucrative enough to live on.

While other titles go to space or the American frontier, the allure of managing a suburban family somewhere in the uncanny valley holds strong in a way that players can find difficult to explain.

The Sims's co-creator Will Wright is said to have been partially inspired by "A Theory of Human Motivation", published by American psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943.

The text suggests humans have five basic life goals: physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualisation.

From the start Sims had needs like hunger, hygiene, bladder, comfort, energy, social, fun, and room, but today players can push their minions to strive for fame and material goods Wright could not have foreseen.

Owned by Electronic Arts, the game's thesis and appeal today still closely resembles Dr Maslow's conclusion, that the human is a "perpetually wanting" animal.

"The average member of our society is most often partially satisfied and partially unsatisfied in all of his wants."

Wanting what you can't have

Alicia Tan, 36, can't yet buy a house in Sydney. But she can in The Sims: "It's a two-bedroom, two-storey bungalow. It has a pool, a massive garden."

Now "seriously hooked" on the game, she began playing again recently after a decade-long break. It's pure escapism, she explained.

There is distinct pleasure in deciding the character's aspirations. In choosing what jobs they want and when to read.

"I've been thinking, I should go to the next stage where she starts having children," Alicia said.

"You can control social events. If you want to get married, what's your dream wedding going to be like? Who you're going to invite, the dress, the caterer."

Players can build elaborate homes in The Sims. ( ABC News: Electronic Arts )

According to a 2006 New Yorker profile of Wright, he used Dr Maslow's text and others to develop a model for scoring the happiness of his characters, based on elements such as environment, popularity and success.

These days, Sims can become social media influencers, acquire charisma with the click of a button or throw parties featuring Flaming Tiki Bars.

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The consistency of interest in The Sims may also be due to the game release cycle. A new version has been published introducing new capabilities, story lines and advancing graphics every few years. In the gaps, there are expansion packs and various add-ons — which players aren't always happy with.

It's unclear how much The Sims actually makes for Electronic Arts, which doesn't always split earnings by game in its earning reports. A spokesperson declined to share the game's current figures.

Caitlin Lomax, 27, in Sydney said she first started playing Sims when she was 10 years old. At one point, her parents had to cut her off before bed time because she used to dream about it.

Now she plays every couple of months, sitting down on a Friday night and finishing a game by Sunday. "You binge on it," she said.

"People can disappoint you in real life, but you can control what happens. I think that's what appeals to me," Alicia said.

The Sims takeover YouTube

The Sims' long life may be due in part to the expanding online ecosystem that's grown around it — a common phenomenon across the gaming industry.

On YouTube, youth-focused websites and gaming channels there's a regular churn of content, including popular video challenges and storylines from the game.

For an outsider, it can be, well, unusual. Consider the BuzzFeed clip "Single Girl Tries The 100-Baby Challenge In The Sims 4", in which a Sim matriarch is made to have, yes, 100 babies with no nanny, no job out of the home and no partner.

It does seem clear that a cohort who grew up with the game since 2000 haven't given it up yet. Sydney-based YouTuber James Turner who runs The Sims-focused YouTube channel The Sim Supply said 43 per cent of his views are from people over the age of 25.

James, 24, said it feels like there is a Sims resurgence, at least when it comes to internet chatter.

He compared it to the endless reboots of old television and film titles. "That sort of nostalgia we all have from ... growing up with these things," he said.

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YouTuber Maddy, who goes by Deligracy online (and does not share her surname), is in her mid-20s. She runs a popular Sims channel from Melbourne where her most watched clip remains a rather epic Barbie dreamhouse build.

Like James, she said The Sims does feel "all over the internet" lately.

She suggested YouTube has a lot to do with it — the immense appetite viewers have for watching livestreams, best of clips and other stunts from their favourite players such as "live like a Sims challenges".

James started playing when he was six, and combined with a love of Lego, it was a natural progression to building things on the computer as well.

He began posting houses he made in the game on fan sites, and later moved onto YouTube, with design outlets even noticing the "tiny houses" he sometimes builds in the game, echoing a broader architectural trend.

That appeal has helped build a unique fandom, despite past accusations of sexism in how Sims looked and dressed. On The Sims Supply, for example, 78 per cent of views in 2018 were from women, which James called "wildly" different to almost any other game.

Maddy, whose channel also has mostly female viewers, played The Sims all through her childhood and teen years. Now she livestreams on Twitch and produces YouTube videos fulltime, earning money from advertising on her channel.

When she first started, her audience was younger, and she now feels like they've grown with her.

For nearly two decades, The Sims has made gamified domesticity an implausible success, and one that players have so far failed to put away with childish things.

"You can destroy your Sims' lives or make them meet the love of their life. It's endless," Maddy said.

"It's kind of like a digital dollhouse".

Psychologists today might dispute the primacy of Dr Maslow's quintet — physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualisation — but in gaming, it's proved an enduring combination.