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

I started in 2011. I was in middle school then and I already had My Sims on the Wii. It was a good game, but I wanted more. So I somehow came across The Sims 3 on youtube and I was instantly hooked! I bought the game and then I ran out of sim money on my first house. I had a lot of ugly carpeting, unpainted walls, and bare-bones furniture.

I remember a few years before that I had no knowledge of the series but my mom was eyeing The Sims 2 for me. She called it the game "where you knock everything down and build it back up". For whatever reason that plan fizzled out.