For people with 1000+ hours on TS4 -- What keeps you playing?

So what keeps you interested?
For me it's the ability to tell stories and create.
The ability to turn off aging and just get lost in the game doing what I want when I want to.
It's a sandbox and I play with no rules.
Custom content and Mods.
Other Simmers and reading about their Sims and seeing their builds. Mostly just other simmers. We are an awesome and diverse group of individuals.

Origin says I've put in 1941 hours, but I know it's a lot more because there were months in 2014-15 (or maybe it was 2015-16) where the hours stopped updating!

What keeps me going? Sims became a creative place for me. I start of in the Sims ecosystem creating "people", and some of them turn out to have relationships and futures, and it just keeps snowballing. I fell in love with lots of them - they were just so charming, and adorable and animated - and they keep me attached too. They still do things that I've never seen them do before, or things that make me feel really, really happy inside, and I love giving in to that feeling. I suppose my Sims saves (one more than the other of what I've kept going) have taken on their own lives within my life. I'm still always creating new strands in them. And now and then the whole ecosystem expands again and there's even more I've not experienced. So it's constant creation on different scales, and constant discovery and exploration, and lots of moments of just plain outright joy. And all that without leaving the house, which I especially appreciate on days when I can't leave the house. For me, it's above all a kind of replenishment.

I think what keeps me interested the most is that I find the game relaxing. It's the happy, safe space in my chaotic life. I love coming on and loosing myself in my sims day to day lives and having the ability to pause the game or save and quit for a space of time when things get too crazy is nice as well.

I get bored and take breaks but for whatever reason I always come back to the game because it brings me joy.

"3KNPen;c-16623293" wrote:
I think what keeps me interested the most is that I find the game relaxing. It's the happy, safe space in my chaotic life. I love coming on and loosing myself in my sims day to day lives and having the ability to pause the game or save and quit for a space of time when things get too crazy is nice as well.

I get bored and take breaks but for whatever reason I always come back to the game because it brings me joy.

I second that emotion.
It's fun, it's funny, and quite often it's a much more inviting world than the real one.

I think 80% of my gameplay hours are in CAS, so I guess I would say it's CAS. TS4's character creator is among the best I've ever used and I find making sims to be relaxing.

The 4280 hours that I have sunk into the game since launch are a reflection of the fact that I am having a good time. After all, that's the only reason I play a video game, and when I am no longer having fun I stop playing it. That, and with the pets, vampires and now seasons in the game my game is finally complete. All of this leading up to the release of Seasons was prelude. Now I'm playing actual Sims 4.

Sometimes it's a story or my own challenges, funny if I tried some of the popular challenges I would change everything but I can stick with my own choices. No matter what I'm doing it's a game to play to relax even when I played ts1 as a kid it goes from being 'a lot' as you get used to the mechanics to just some peaceful playtime.

Origin says I've put in 2034 hours.

For me, I absolutely love games that let you create characters and determine their story. I find the Sims 4 lets me do that in a casual way. I love the graphics and animation quality and there's little details in the game that I enjoy as well. Like Sims as a couple greeting each other with a kiss on the cheek.

I'm also looking forward to seeing certain packs be made for this iteration of the Sims.

Since the very beginning my focus has been on a goal-oriented do it all type of game play with mainly one family. I found out early on that when switching families I'd often wonder what was going on with the family I'd just left. Or I'd get ideas for a sim in a family I'd just switched from so I decided to just focus on one family and occasionally play one of the offspring once they grew up and moved out, just to get them settled in a new household. It keeps the game interesting for me because I rarely repeat careers, or aspirations, or leveling up the same skill for different sims. I'm just now getting around to running a vet business. Anyone looking at my family tree would see that I don't follow any type of traditional aging system in my game so I'm in no hurry to get things done.

The next pack.
And the next pack...
and the next... :#