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

The $5 special was enough of a deal to get this tight wad to give it a try, and in the three months since I've purchased Get Together (mainly for the world of Windenberg) and Jungle Adventure, so I'm fairly certain I'm addicted.

Last year was my first time with The Sims 4.

my mom got the Sims 3 when it first came out, so I was 6 or 7 at the time. She had it on a potato laptop from like 2004, so it was borderline unplayable. I have many memories of crying when the game would crash and burn in front of me lmao. I still had a lot of fun with it though, and I used to play it everyday after school. My mom saw that I liked it so much that she dug out her old copy of TS1 + house party and livin large, and so I also played Sims 1 a lot around this time. When I was around 8, I got YouTube, and I became obsessed with Sims 2 videos, mostly machinimas and the producer walkthroughs, on top of World Adventures being released while I was going through an Egypt phase. So I begged my parents for a laptop of my own, and throughout the many holidays following that I ended up with basically all xpacs
1,2, and 3 by the age of 10.

2020. Would've been sooner if not for SimCity 2000, 3000, 3000U, and Sim City 4 =P.

My name has a 39, my age when I started with Sims 2.
I'm 53 now, and still playing.

I think it would have been sometime around 2009 or 2010. I had a playstation 2 and I'd never heard of the Sims, but I saw Sims 2 Pets for PS2 at gamestop and wanted it because it had animals in it. I also had regular Sims 2 on the PS2 but didn't play it that often. About a year or two later, I got Sims 3 on PC and have been playing that ever since.

My first Sims game was The Sims Bustin' Out on the PS2! I played that game for years! I tried playing Sims 2 on console, when it came out, but it lacked all of the charm of BO, so I switched back. Didn't touch any other sims game until Sims 3 on PC around 2018.

I brought the Sims1 or some of it's packs in 2000 but did not load it up until 2005 and from there I played everyday and I brought Sims 2 in 2004 and did not play that until shortly after I played Sims 1 and seeing Sims 2 I dropped Sims 1. :)

Colour me amazed that there's so many Sims 1 veterans in here!

My first Sims game was TS1+Hot Date, a few months prior to Vacation's release (which I got for my birthday that year, after already getting Livin' Large and House Party). I was obsessed with that game, though in hindsight it's not amazing, I don't know HOW I managed to craft these elaborate stories for my Sims when if you were distracted for *one second* they would all starve to death, lol

I got all the Sims 2 packs as well, but I don't think it ever really engaged me the way TS1 had. The TS2 base game was amazing, but the EPs were kind of one-and-done experiences for me.

Never really enjoyed TS3 at all.
I've gone back to it recently as well, and I'm still not super enthused.

Somehow 4 manages to keep me entertained, even if I'm only in CAS or build mode 90% of the time. I think because those game modes are engaging enough on their own, I don't mind not always playing in live mode. They're almost games in and of themselves, especially build mode.

And after twenty years and after reading about Sims5, Sims4 will be the last iteration for me. I have spent thousands of hours playing this game and never thought I'd hear myself say I will not be moving forward with the franchise. Time to seek out another life simulation game I guess. Because The Sims franchise has morphed into something I no longer recognize, or want to invest in.