User blog:Lost Labyrinth/The Sims turns 13

 The Sims turns 13! Hey there Simmers!

Today (February 4th), The Sims series legally became a teenager and turned 13! That's right! 13 years old!

Starting as a life simulator cooked up in the virtual bakery of Will Wright back in the 1990s, The Sims had sold so many copies that even to EA it had become a surprise hit and eventually went on to become the best selling PC game of all time, later surpassed by its sequel, The Sims 2.

What was once fairly simple has grown from being confined to your house to being able to hit the town and eventually explore an open world in which you may never go home again. The game has even ventured out of the realistic simulation formula to implement new features such as magic, time travel and...Sim-eating cowplants. It has even expanded on the original formula by adding ownable property, ownable businesses, Pets, celebrity status, further education, vehicles, apartments and much more.

Even with the fans, the game was and still is a major hit with fansites, custom content, modifications, fanon, shared creations and much much more. Even after the closure of TheSims2.com, there is still a strong modding community with The Sims 2 hosted on various other sites.

Of course with success comes controversy. The series has come under fire for it's open-ended modification system which allowed sexually related mods to be created for a game aimed at teenagers, pricing, reusing the same ideas over and over, poor support from EA, that SP and various other things. But even through all of that, the series has had a strong prominence within the gaming industry and still sits there today.

So on behalf of the community, I shall say Happy birthday to The Sims series!

Feel free to leave comments with your experiences of the series as you have grown up with it!

Peace! 19:16, February 4, 2013 (UTC)