The Sims is one of the games of the century. No matter who, the game is very popular. Whether it was the music of the Sims, the detail of the Sims 2, the open world of the Sims 3, or the emotions of the Sims 4, competition is rising. Paralives, another life simulation game, is in the works and is appealing to even the most nostalgic Sims players.

The Sims was the first popular life simulation game, with their slogan, Play With Life. The game allows you to create a person, give them a personality, build a home, buy furniture, get a job, meet NPC’s (Non-Player Characters), burn the house down, get robbed, etc. Everything one would do or encounter in everyday life. It started with Will Wright, an American game deisinger. He had fun with creating worlds rather than playing them so he made the city management game SimCity. Eventually he would create other games like SimAnt and Simcopter. Then he had the idea of a doll house game “that was appealing to adults as well as kids” – GameStop. The idea struck him when tragedy happened, Wright’s house burned down. Wright had fun rebuilding and furnishing, which led to the creation and release of the Sims in 2000. Later, there would be Sims 2 (2004), Sims 3 (2009), and Sims 4 (2014). Which led to the idea of expansions to make the game more fun. Expansions would include things like cities, pets, seasons/weather, vacations, becoming famous, university, etc.

The only thing that is causing trouble for the Sims is a new indie (Indie gaming when a game started with one person and an idea and it expanded eventually into a full project with a team) life simulation, still in development, Paralives. Paralives follow the game slogan You live and then you die, but at least you do it in a nice house. The game idea was thought of by veteren game designer Alex Massé. The team includes seven people who animate, design, program, and storytell. Recently they announced zip lines, jumping into pools from roofs, taking off shoes before entering the house, and secret bookshelf doors are included. The game started off with low graphics and basic ideas, but over time the graphics are increasing and gameplay is improving significantly. They have been including their fans’ input through surveys. These surveys would talk about things that the team want to include and they want it to be represented correctly. Surveys included Same Gender Marriage/Transgender, World Culture, and Disabilities. For more information about what will be in the game, just click on the Paralives link at the top of this paragraph. For the future, the team is planning on adding on more members to the team and improving the game further.

Now, there are many fans of both games. Sims fans are becoming discouraged with the game because of multiple factors. It started with the Sims 4. Everyone questioned why the open world, cars, five personality traits, skin tone sliders, etc. of the Sims 3 was removed from the Sims 4 and the addition of death by laughter and embarrassment. That was just the beginning of the complaints. Glitches are still in the game and some of them are from the base game itself. Some included pets vanishing into thin air, hair disappearances, and the Dine Out Game Pack freezing many times. The price is another problem: $40 per Expansion (10 packs), $20 per Game Pack (9 packs), and $10 per Stuff Pack (17 packs) and a $60 base game adds up to $810 to get the full experience, what a rip-off! This eventually became a problem at Gamescom (gaming convention) 2020 announced the Sims 4: Journey to Batuu game pack, based on star wars. Star Wars was the last thing Simmers wanted. The top four things they do want are hotels, active schools, cars, world culture, etc. EA (Electronic Arts) recently announced the Sims 4: Snowy Escape, a pack based around snowboarding and skiing in the Japanese based world of Mt. Komorebi. Only 48 hours after announcing it, there was controversy over the pack due to a shrine that your sims could bow at. It did not settle well with Korean fans, due to a tragedy in Korean history. Lastly, one of the biggest problems is EA is working on the Sims 5 which was announced to be online only. With the failure of SimCity 5 (which was online) and Simmers liking the closed world of their own, they did not like the idea of it being online.

Honestly, Paralives might be the dominant game when the Sims 5 is released. The Sims needs to step up their game and listen to the community if they want to have a fighting chance against the competition. Only time will tell to see what the fans decide.

If you want to see what the Sims looked like, look at the trailer links below:

 Sims 1:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yLpvhNfoWA

 Sims 2:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUc_VDWRAQo

 Sims 3:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6gXiw5URNM

 Sims 4:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z00mK3Pxc8w