You're Getting Old: The Sims Turn 10
Where were you ten years ago?
Like a proud daddy, EA announced Thursday that its lovechild with developer Maxis has finally turned a big ten-years-old. EA's original The Sims PC game hit the streets on February 4, 2000, and became an unstoppable beast for the next decade. Now in its third installment, the entire franchise has sold has sold more than 125 million units worldwide, racking in more than $2.4 billion in revenue.
"The success of The Sims is something gamers and the gaming business as a whole can be proud of," said Rod Humble, Head of the EA Play label. "With its charming and quirky style, lovely emergent game mechanics and user created creativity that delights every day, The Sims is a game that can be enjoyed by everybody and reflects what you put into it. The future of The Sims is going to be a lot of fun; it is rare for an entertainment franchise to be gaining momentum a decade after release, so this is a particularly pleasant moment for everyone who has worked on the games."
The original Sims PC game is available in 60 countries and 22 languages. By March 22, 2002, the game had sold more than 6.3 million copies, making it the best-selling PC game of all time. On February 7, 2005, more than 16 million copies of The Sims had shipped worldwide. EA and Maxis also churned out seven expansion packs including Livin' Large, Vacation, and Superstar.
The Sims 3, released in June 2009, has sold more than 4.5 million units worldwide to date, and currently holds the #1 spot as the best-selling PC game in 2009 for North America and Europe. The iPhone and iPod Touch version has also become one of the top-selling games on the App Store in 2009, and has even reached the #1 paid Apps spot in nearly 40 countries.
Currently there's no indication that The Sims mammoth will ever stop. We're not too sure how to say "happy birthday" in Simlish, however here's a bit of Klingon: qoSlIj DatIvjaj
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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nonxcarbonx It was an alright game, but as you progressed it seemed to be very redundant (feed, sleep,make friends). I probably wouldn't get it again until they have a major graphics update.Reply -
zorky9 Sad this great franchise never got ported to any social networking site where it would have been a great hit.Reply
Yo/Farmville anyone?
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mr_tuel zorky9Sad this great franchise never got ported to any social networking site where it would have been a great hit. Yo/Farmville anyone?The Sims OnlineReply -
zarf42 The Sims is why we haven't had a good SimCity game in 7 years.Reply
I mourn. SimCity 4 was excellent - Societies was a bad joke, and CitiesXL (From a completely different studio, attempting to take up the SimCity crown) was disappointing and difficult to use.
Bring me a City Builder that rocks like SC3K/U and SC4, but works properly on modern computers, and I will bring you a lot of gratitude. And $50. -
Computer_Lots The Sims was the only game I could get my wife to play, besides Super Mario Bros.Reply -
sliem Never played The Sim more than 5 minutes.Reply
I did enjoy Maxis' other games such as sim city, sim ants, sim tower...