The Sims at 20: how a generation of young people grew up playing God Two decades since the suburban sandbox game became a PC sensation, Lizzy Dening wonders if it promised an adulthood that proved out of reach

A smooth, wordless jazz fills the spare room where I, at 13, have been camped out for hours, building a house with a swimming pool from which I will later remove the ladder, so that a character I have designed to look identical to my ex-boyfriend can never escape.

This is the virtual universe of The Sims, the surprise hit computer game that allowed you to create characters and families, design their homes, and help (or hinder) their careers and love lives. It was first released this week 20 years ago, following the popularity of city development game SimCity, launched in 1989.

Strangely, The Sims grew from a real life tragedy, when SimCity creator Will Wright’s home was destroyed in a firestorm. He began to think that building a house from scratch for human characters might be fun. Over the years, the world grew with the release of expansion packs like Hot Date, Superstar, and Unleashed, allowing you to make your Sims famous, take them on holiday, throw wild parties, or get them a puppy so they, too, could enjoy taking care of someone helpless and incompetent.

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This was a “sandbox” game – in that the player could not progress: gameplay was open-ended. Unlike shooter games like Call of Duty, platform-hopping franchises like Super Mario, or adventure sagas like Tomb Raider, on The Sims, there were no treasures to seek, no levels to leap, and no scoreboard – the entire goal was to play God: keep characters alive by meeting their basic needs.

Still, even without points or prizes, and long before the dopamine hit of social media “likes”, The Sims was addictive. As fellow enthusiast Jinny Weller tells me via Twitter: “Playing The Sims with no goals or a real finish is really the draw. In real life, making decisions day to day can be pretty vile, because they matter.” It remains the biggest-selling PC game of all time, and opened up new, young markets – it was specifically designed for no individual demographic. This was a game for the anti-gamers – it was certainly the first time I ever played a computer game at a female friend’s house.

‘The Sims was a space where young people could express creativity – in fashion, interior design, or character development – without being graded or monitored’

The Sims’ neighbourhood was a playground; a space where young people could express creativity – in fashion, interior design, or character development – without being graded or monitored. And despite its traditional, suburban setting, this was a game with hilarious quirks – characters might get creepy phone calls for seemingly no reason; set themselves on fire when loading a dishwasher; get turned into a zombie; or beg with the grim reaper to spare a friend’s life. And that was before your own, self-imposed “storylines” played out on-screen.

As gaming journalist Jupiter Hadley says: “The Sims is special because it’s a dolls’ house with far more features. You can spend your time becoming the best part of you, or doing things that you wish you could in real life.”

It provided an alternative world, when the real one felt out of control. I, a powerless, unsettled teenager with divorcing parents, could wrest control of my cheating ex-boyfriend, duly drowned (I sold his ashes for $10).



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Decorating virtual homes and tending to their occupants gave me the stability I craved. Playing The Sims, the opportunities for imagination and reinvention were limitless. Want to create a femme fatale who breaks the hearts of everyone on the block, or redesign a set from a TV show? Want to engineer the romantic partner of your dreams, or fantasise about Beyoncé’s life behind closed doors? Want to infringe another’s human rights and suffer no punishment? On The Sims, you could.

Was this level of control healthy for developing teens? I’m not sure. My friends and I certainly displayed some psychopathic tendencies as we reduced our fake families to tears, or experimented with murder and neglect. Looking on Reddit, compared to others, we were tame – none of us thought to start a prison for “slave artists”, or trapped a starving child next to a room filled with her pizza-scoffing family.

But once you had explored the game’s extremes, it was a feeling of protection over your charges that kept you coming back for more.

Sims needed more upkeep than a pet hamster: they would wet themselves and cry if you didn’t lovingly guide them to a bathroom in time; eat food they found on the floor; pay little attention to their family unless actively encouraged. It was clear they could never be truly “happy” without a guiding hand. The Sims, like Tamagotchis before them, could teach you a lot about the accumulation of needs – the diamond above their heads would switch from a vibrant green to an alarm-bell red as theirs built up.

Sims could feel boredom and loneliness, as well as having physical requirements. As a clever method of global franchising, they didn’t speak a recognisable language, instead garbled away to each other in gibberish affectionately known as “Simlish”.

You could tell whether two characters were hitting it off by the speech bubbles above their head. If one showed a picture of, say, a fish, and the other responded with a fish, it was game on. A fish with a cross through it, though, meant you had clearly gone too far. At parties, I find myself imagining speech bubbles above the heads of small-talkers and the accompanying red crosses through my own replies.

Hidden in the gameplay were some basic life skills – microwaved food isn’t as satisfying as something cooked on the hob; tired people are more likely to shout at their children. When these lessons were ignored, the consequences were dark: a striped-sweater burglar and/or prim social worker might come knocking at the door. There were neighbourhood oddballs, too, including the sad clown – a depressed, red-nosed interloper, unknowingly activated when you bought an ugly oil painting. He cried all night – bursting balloons or squirting a lacklustre trickle of water from a flower on his lapel – and would drive other Sims slowly mad.

The game has changed since: on The Sims 4 (which boasts sales of 10 million copies), released in 2014, characters have pre-loaded goals and ambitions. Sims never had preordained interests or longings before – that was for the despotic players to determine.

But the original still has its fans, and huge, dedicated communities of players online. Why? Not only does The Sims hold a powerful nostalgic pull, it offers a lifestyle that we were once promised. The Baby Boomer-designed world of The Sims seemed to guarantee concepts such as a “career ladder” and home ownership which, two decades later, seem quaint to the majority of millennials.

Perhaps there’s something about these unrealistic versions of “adulthood” from our youth that we still crave. When we had a small square of green space to call our own (and cover in lawn flamingos); when we ruled the world.