Click on play in origin and nothing happens

There's a current issue with Sims 3 where DirectX 9 is not installed properly and the launcher won't open. (This shouldn't affect a laptop that previously had the game installed, but perhaps your son has wiped his system since he last played.) The solution is to manually install DX9. It's not necessary to uninstall; just download the installer from Microsoft and run it, then restart the computer.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=8109

If that doesn't help, please have your son run a dxdiag that you can post. Hit Windows key-R, enter "dxdiag" without quotes in the run box, wait for the scan to finish, click "Save all information," and save the .txt file to your desktop. From there, he can upload it to a filehosting site (the free version of Pastebin is fine) and you can link it here.

Thank you so much for your response. I will send this to him and see if it works. if not I will tag you with his dxdiag info. You are a real sweetheart to try to help.

@puzzlezaddict My son said downloading direct x worked! Thank you so much You are a genius. So appreciate your help.

The same happened to me after I had to reset Windows for a recurring blue screen crash. And the DirectX is indeed the solution! What was interesting though I just bought this new laptop a month ago on a display discount and I didn't encounter the DirectX issue. I assume the laptop actually was first activated by the retailer around last December. Perhaps this has been a relatively new issue? I wish this could be part of the official troubleshooting guide, which could save me time.

Thanks @puzzlezaddict !

oh my god i've been trying to figure out why this was happening to me for days now. i downloaded direct x and it actually worked !! i cant express how thankful i am ! thank you so much @puzzlezaddict !

I just ran into this issue on my new laptop too. Thank you, it worked!