What year did you start playing your first The Sims game?

I remember I wanted The Sims 1 (I'm not sure how I learned about it) but when my stepdad went to the store he couldn't find it and came back with SimCity 3000 instead. I was horrible at SC3000. I would always start going broke in my city, so then I would raise the taxes super high and everyone would move out and I would spend years with a nearly abandoned city as I waited fo all that money to come in. Then I would lower the taxes and things would go back to normal, people would move back, services would work again; then I would go broke again. Rinse and repeat. :D

And then a year or two later, I remember there was a trailer for TS2 on a DVD that I had (very strange, right) and was like...I have to have this game. And then I eventually found TS2 at the library. It came in this encyclopedia-sized case because it also had four discs. I loved reading the manual while I waited for it to install. Eventually I got it as a gift and that was it.

ETA: I think for me it was around 2002-2003 when I played SimCity initially.

It was 2000-'01ish. Wasn't it rated 'M' for Mature? I don't remember. But I was like 10 then, lol.

I played it because I liked "god games" and general simulation/sandbox games. My older cousin always got the games before I played them, so she played The Sims before I did — and SimCity — and other games (like RuneScape and Neopets, haha). I also loved RollerCoaster Tycoon, by the way (and the other Tycoon games), and Black & White.

Been hooked ever since.

I was five when I got obsessed with TS1. TS2 followed not long after and it's still the game of my dreams.

2000, baby!

I think it was some time in 2001, my daughter was 10 years old and she was sitting on her computer playing this game that one of her friends let her borrow for the weekend. I sat down next to her and watched her play this cool "life" game called The Sims. I was hooked immediately. The next day, I ran out and bought two copies of the game, one for her computer and one for mine.

And the rest, as they say, is history. :)

And played them all since! A few of the spin offs too.

     

I tried picking up the series for the first time sometime in 2003 on the Nintendo Gamecube console. I had really fallen for Animal Crossing and realized that these life sims might be the best kind of games for me. I didn't like The Sims on the GCN for whatever reason, but I came back to the series time and time again, until early 2004 when I got the PC version and the rest is history.

I bought it day one, even got to Best Buy as it opened. It was not on the shelves yet, so I asked the clerk to grab it from the back. Went home and played it non-stop until the next morning. I miss those days when I could stay awake all night and still function the next day.

I bought it day one also, having seen an advance review this was very much what I’d been waiting for in a game. Was a founder in Sims Online and spent WAY too much time there.
Sims 2 was a long standing favourite of mine and when I didn’t get on with Sims 3 I drifted away. I discovered Sims 4 quite late but have been loving it to the extent that I play every day again.