An Unexpected Hit Almost 25 Years Ago Changed Gaming Forever

It’s rare when the trajectory of an entire medium is altered by a single release, but that’s the kind of impact that The Sims had when it was released in 2000. Developed by Will Wright as a continuation of his city construction simulation titles like SimCity, Wright’s work on The Sims throughout the 90s led to a well-crafted and deeply engrossing experience where players are only tasked with living out the lives of their creations.

There was no princess to save or goal to accomplish in The Sims. Rather, the player is simply given the chance to live a simulated life, explaining the title. In the process, though, Wright landed on a game design that has paid dividends for the entire industry, shaping not just its own genre and general conceptions about gameplay but also opening the door for generations of players while making progressive moves for the industry at large. Over 25 years after it debuted, the impact of The Sims is still driving the games industry forward — making the fears that the original game would be a flop seem all the more ridiculous in retrospect.

How The Sims Went From An Ambitious Idea To A Hit Game

26 years ago today, The Sims became one of the most influential titles of the 21st century. Led by Will Wright, development on what would become The Sims technically began in 1991. While developing other entries in the larger SimCity franchise, Wright worked with programmer Jamie Doornbos to develop an open-ended system of character behavior. As development continued, watching the in-game characters develop unique dynamics and recreate social connections became the main draw of the experience. Taking inspiration from earlier games like Little Computer People and books like Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, the pair steadily fleshed out the world and crafted the franchise’s distinct art style and audio design.

At the time, the game was seen as something of a risk. Wright even noted that the game would either be a complete flop or a massive success, telling the press in retrospect that he didn’t believe there would be any in-between. The game led Maxis and EA to initially be wary, but the success of the other SimCity titles allowed Wright and Doornbos to keep fleshing out the experience. Following a successful tease of the game at 1999’s E3 (which inspired the team to add sexual orientation as an option), the game was launched on February 4, 2000. The open-ended experience was universally embraced by critics, especially the PC version. Audiences responded even more positively. Within two years, the game had become the top-selling PC game. This led to a slew of expansion packs and later an entire series of sequels, spin-offs, and offshoots that still influence the gaming landscape over two decades later.

26 Years Ago, The Sims Predicted Where Gaming Was Going

Looking back, it’s hard not to call The Sims one of the most important video games of the 21st century. The game’s focus on open-ended growth and player-first mentality preceded other games like Minecraft, which similarly work best as digital sandboxes for players to do as they please. The focus on life simulation came ahead of games like Animal Crossing, which took that general formula and tweaked it to fit their own style and mechanical tweaks. The Sims proved that games didn’t need to have any set goal in mind to be engrossing and that simply creating a world for players to explore and experiment with could lead to decades of enjoyment for players.

EA’s commitment to keeping The Sims alive through expansions and DLC has ensured that the latest game in the series — 2014’s The Sims 4 — is still in heavy rotation among players. That focus on long-running DLC plans influenced the larger industry, laying the groundwork for a modern era where most games are expected to have DLC road maps for players. Early expansions into the mobile space also highlighted the potential for phones in the gaming space, preceding one of the industry’s biggest shifts in recent years. The largely female player base for The Sims underscored the reality that gaming wasn’t just meant for men, and that the right title could easily cross a gender gap that earlier generations of publishers, developers, and players had criminally underestimated.

It was a big step towards depicting same-sex relationships in mainstream gaming, with the option to determine a character’s sexuality quietly serving as a big stepping stone towards representation in broader releases. The fandom that erupted and remains surrounding The Sims included some early figures in the larger Let’s Play environment, with that sense of community spreading and evolving into an entire subsection of the modern fandom culture. Throughout it all, The Sims retained a cheeky sense of humor and a strong emotional core, reflective of Wright’s sensibilities as a game designer.

A decision to go for stylized elements (like the now famous “Simlish” voice language originated for the game) instead of the industry standard highlighted the importance of unique approaches to gaming, a mentality that has helped inspire plenty of developers to retain the core of themselves in their creations instead of sanding down the unique elements to fit better into the larger market. Even the original version of The Sims continues to be a hit to this day. All of this underscores how older titles can still fit into a market that increasingly seems content to let those games fall by the wayside. The Sims is a good game on its own, but the legacy it has on the larger gaming universe is immeasurable.