What is The Sims? - Series Design Retrospective - FULL DOCUMENTARY
2024 ж. 28 Сәу.
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What is the Sims about, what lessons and ideas does its mechanics reinforce?
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Chapters:
00:00 - 03:54 - Introduction
03:55 - 39:21 - Sims 1
39:22 - 1:11:16 - Sims 2
1:11:17 - 1:58:28 - Sims 3
1:58:29 - 2:26:53 - Sims 4
2:26:54 - 2:33:33 - Build Mode
2:33:34 - 2:44:10 - Guilt
2:44:11 - 2:52:41 - Closing
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for a few individuals I've spoken to, they've used the Sims to roleplay social scenarios in order to build the confidence to do the thing IRL. For many, the Sims was the spark for their career choice. Many architects, clothing designers, interior designers, and game devs began with their experience with the Sims.
Random question, but what was the program you mentioned at 1:00:48?
I loved sims 3 the most because of the car /animations per se. And because the first thing i did was turning off micro transactions, i never interacted with them. Also you can beg for money... I mean sing in public
@@Turbo_Waitress Bene Gesserit, from Dune
@@Chaotic_Pixie What went wrong is that by the 2nd game in the franchise it became exclusively a "girlie game".
Cassandra Goth's fiance Don is cheating on her with multiple sims, and if you prompt her and Don to get married without interacting with each other the interaction will almost always fail and cause poor Cass to go into aspiration failure, so tbh by breaking them up, you probably did her a favour.
Oh, definitely. I made sure to break them up in the most punishing-Don way possible, myself. I mean, I had played as little Cassie back in Sims 1, and I wasn't going to let some user a-hole marry her. So I deliberately invited all of Don Lothario's girlfriends over at once and told him to woohoo Nina Caliente in the very next room from where Cassandra was. BWAHAHA. ;)
In fact, this happens if you play the Goth family before you play the Lothario house. Playing with Don and his household first, even for a day, will cause his Long-term relationship with Cassandra to increase, even if he doesn’t talk to her. If you then play the Goth household and have them get married, he says yes.
it was probably sims 4 that broke my brain with video games entirely. I had my character as a young adult and to make it more interesting for myself I wanted to go for Cassandra herself and break up that marriage. I wanted to add more intrigue to the whole thing so I wanted Cassandra to get pregnant by my character, but she was still married and it was hard to do that. I don't remember what made it where I could get them to do sexy time with her being married, or if you always could, but for some reason I decided to build walls around my character and Cassandra in the tightest space possible to see if they would do anything. eventually they started doing sexy time and the way you can raise or lower walls to get a view inside of places, I did that to the walls around the maybe 6x6 room Cassandra and my character were in with the icons that they were making love or whatever. I wasn't trying to look in the room to see because I assumed the characters just disappeared and because when it's in the bed they just ruffle around or whatever. but for some reason the walls lowered to where you could see inside the small room and I could see Cassandra and my character just standing straight up looking like immobile robots moving their mouths making the noises for sims sex. seeing that broke my brain with video games and now I can no longer look at video games being more than just 1's and 0's with textures on screen over algorithms and codes
@@b1bbscraz3y there is a reason why sims 4 is considered the weakest one
Don Lothario’s last name literally means: seducer of women or womanizer…lol
The idea of a bunch of teenage boys making each other sims and sharing them amongst each other is honestly very sweet 😭💕 What a lovely experience to have with a game
Yes! Totally agreed. Makes me want to get my husband into playing TS2. Maybe I’ll show him that part of the video!
me and my friend built a toy store inspired by toy story 2 together on my family PC during Sims 2, using Open for Business expansion, thats a really good memory, and the fact that we got it running and it didnt go out of business was incredible
Noobs trade nudes; legends trades Sims.
its wonderful! especially at a time when being a "hardcore gamer" was important to many people -- including myself
.. when I was mad at my friends I would create them and unalive them.. sims isn’t an anger simulator?? 😂
Dude, the "Guilt" chapter really hit home like no other. I thought I was kind of alone in that feeling that I was improving my Sims life, living vicariously through them, while my own life was spiraling.
I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT THIS WHY DO I FEEL SO GUILTY PLAYING THE SIMS??? I didn’t even watch the video but I saw this comment and I was thinking ab this today!!
I don’t feel guilty playing other games but I feel like I shouldn’t play sims as an adult 😭😭
@@lalabunnybunbun6372 It's the cognitive dissonance of creating a perfect world where you do all the things you wish you could do, live the life you wish you could live, and the time you spent doing that in the game could have been used to do that in real life.
Me doing laundry in the game while my laundry is piling up
Same. I play the Sims because, if I can't be successful IRL, at the very least I can make damn sure my sims are. But then I feel guilty, because my brain goes "But if you put all this time into trying to improve your real life, maybe you WOULD be successful". lol.
The section on guilt really hit me hard. Because you're 100% right, it really does effect your mental health. I've always played the sims for the family aspect because I really want to have my own house, career, and happy family one day. A few weeks ago, there was a big update for the babies in the game that I was so excited for. I even dropped the $50 to buy the new gamepack for expanding the family system that accompanied the update and proceeded to spend hours playing the Sims with the new content. A few days later, my grandparents visited and asked me what I was up to which made me confront the fact that all I was doing was playing the Sims all day. Then, my mom mentioned that an old friend of mine is pregnant with her second child, having a husband and home of her own, while I am hopelessly single living with my mom because my mental health is too poor to get a job and live on my own. I genuinely had a breakdown when I got home because my first instinct was to boot up the sims and keep playing with my perfect family while my own life is in pieces.
Sometimes you need the safety blanket, and sometimes you need to know when that blanket is holding you back. That said, life isn't a race, it's a journey. We've all got our mountains to climb, all that matters is that we make it to the top, not how fast we got there.
being pregnant doesn't make you a valued member of society, believe me.
@@likmijnreet4542 I don’t think that’s what OP is saying. It’s not about being a valued member of society-it’s what OP personally wants for themself.
I'm in the same position as you 😪 feels bad, I checked your channel and I also do digital art, what a coincidence
I hope you’re doing well now- I have severe mental illness and can relate to your story. I wish you all the best ❤ love a fellow simmer
As a long-term sims player I really enjoyed your analysis. I think that one aspect of why people play sims 4 is how they focus only on sims creation or building sims houses. Most long-term sims players would say that sims 4 is weakest for gameplay and strongest for the more aesthetic gameplay styles like building and creating sims or storytelling (aka virtual dollhouse) gamestyles where options and animations are imortant.
Good point!
Oh absolutely. I became A Builder in Sims 4, the way I never even considered doing in other games. It's a mix of the ease, convenoence, and cutomizability. I've also learned entire new archtecture terms I never knew before, and now think "That's a so-and-so" when I see bulidings in real life, BECAUSE of Sims 4's build tools. Most of the stuff I've uploaded to the gallery is buildings. It's nuts. Especially when you consider that in the older games, my idea of "decorating" was usually "There, you have a patterned wallpaper so it's not just blank, shut up. I'll add _a_ picture later" and then I never do, because I got caught up in the functional gameplay part of everything and spent all the money on better (more need-fulfilling) items. (Although I do also do the role-playing thing of "This couch has better stats, but this other couch fits the style/personality of the household/Sim in question better" as well.) Seriously though, I now look at houses in real life and am like "That's a corbel! That's a pergola! Oh, I know how they made that balcony now!" and sometimes try to figure out if I could use the game's build tools to recreate what I'm seeing. The other games NEVER did that to me. You said the Sims build tools in general helped your interest in architecture? Well, the Sims 4's ones actually _educated_ me on it. I consider that a good thing, even if it's not really what the developers intended. :)
The gameplay aspect doesn't pose much of a challenge at all, to the point where I had to install gameplay mods or do self-imposed restrictions to make things a little more interesting. I wasn't much of a CAS/Build Mode enthusiast until I started playing Sims 4, now I pretty much spend all of my hours creating households I won't even play. Though, in that sense, it isn't all that bad I suppose. I would consider Sims 4 to be an entirely different game, while Sims 2 would be the real/only successor to the original Sims (Sims 3 is also unique by itself because of the open world aspect.)
I started as a builder because you can build some really incredible things in thr sims 4, however I’ve turned more towards gameplay and found that even after playing TS3, I prefer TS4’s gameplay style. It just suits me more and I like micromanaging every aspect of my story.
@@sydneydunn1456 micromanaging is FANTASTIC in sims 2, I cant play 3 for the same reason
i think a big part of why the community likes the sims 3 more than the sims 4 is what it was like when it launched. TS3 did not have microtransactions forced down your throat starting in 2009, i don't remember when they were added but the store was low key for a long time. instead, TS3 had so many features which, while not perfect, made the gameplay new, exciting and a step up from earlier games. (though i personally will always love the sims 2 the most, many features exclusive to the sims 3 are top tier) the sims 4 on the other hand launched as a partly unfinished game in 2014. basic features such as terrain tools, pools, ghosts, likes and dislikes, non-ojbect babies (coming in a few weeks), the moveobjects cheat, story progression, TODDLERS and probably more that i'm forgetting did not exist in the game and were added several years down the line. those were features that were expected by the community, which made the sims 4 a disappointment to many when it launched. not to forget that the sims 4, while always having a clear style, also was uglier than it currently is at launch. many textures have been updated, improved items were added to the base game, the map was completely revamped (it used to be grey), skin tones used to be patchy, many meshes were badly made, and there was a big lighting update at one point. so not only did we get a game with so much less than the sims 3, which at that point had 11 expansion packs and so many things to do, we also didn't get a great visual experience. another issue with the sims 4 is its lack of lore. the previous sims games, especially 2 and 3, had a lot of storytelling in the neighbourhoods already, with rivalries, tensions, stories, love and secrets. in the sims 4, the most storytelling we get is the descriptions of families. no one knows anyone outside of their family. the pancakes, who are supposed to have a rocky relationship according to their bio, have the same relationship as any married couple. it's a big disappointment and makes the game feel flat and boring, as well as being uninviting to play with preexisting households. when compared to the sims 2, which had so many stories in so many pre made families that were bound to create storytelling, drama and action, the sims 4 does not have the same feeling. i'll stop ranting about the sims now but i loved this video, it really is a great analysis btw you can change eye colors, you just can't click on the eyes through the glasses.
Yes! Glad somebody else said that about the glasses/eye color. As for Sims 3...yeah, when I first played it, I did NOT remember all that stuff. It had weird glitches like the magically-appearing babies (in single-Sim households where they had no close relationships with any other Sims yet) but it just opened and played LIKE A REGULAR GAME. Sims 4...there's a REASON I did not get it until summer of 2020. (The reason _then_ was that: it was summer of 2020. We ALL needed something to cheer us up.) The no-toddlers-and-no-pools thing was NOTORIOUS. I remember a bit in a Sims 2 blog story where someone screenshotted a toddler sitting next to a pool, and captioned it "(Toddler's Name) throws shade at Sims 4." XD I only got it once I heard that toddlers were in the game now, and in fact they were adorable and actually toddler-ish in behaviour. I mean, an ENTIRE LIFE STAGE that the series had been able to handle since 2004, gone? That's inexcusable. To be far, since I _did_ get Sims 4 in July 2020, they have been updating the basegame alone like CRAZY. Bendable stairs were new when I got it, platforms, round walls (which I've wanted FOREVER! since I like making sci-fi looking buildings), scenarios, likes and dislikes, pond/updated terrain tools, neighborhood stories, the ability to customise them, the new Aspirations that have to do with them, Sims Xpress itself, and at least TWO major gender updates, all happened _in those two years and change_ . And the infant update--a NEW new life stage!--is coming out next week as I write this! I've actually got my main legacy family currently on hold, so that their newborn twins don't age up early. I want them to be my first infants. (They'll also be werewolf infants, and their mom and older sibling are both wizards. Because that's how I roll. :P) That's still no excuse for originally leaving out toddlers, though. And I still think teens should be a different height from adults. Heh.
@@robinchesterfield42 definitely agree with everything you said. maxis has made massive improvements to the base game in the past few years, and many features that were anticipated and sought after were well made when they finally were added into the game. i don't think the community expected to get all the gender and pronoun updates, platforms, angular stairs or even the infant update. and at one point we got a huge update which added hundreds of swatches to base game objects! so there have been a lot of improvements to TS4 base game since launch. while TS3 base game only got worse with time as they didn't really add features in updates and mostly just added a billion ads. but really, no pools? no ghosts? no toddlers? those are core parts of any sims player's experience! (murdering sims in the pool, collecting gravestones of victims and having a haunted house, and reproducing/having a family)
Well said, also would like to add that some of the more praised returning features in the sims 4 (likes and dislikes, story progression, and terrains) were only just added around a year or so ago. Even the new praised features like pronouns, all the skintone options, etc) were only recently added. So for many years the game felt even more lacking in features and barebones than it does currently. Better late than never I guess, still for me personally I have issues with the game at it’s core so (maybe) only a new entry would turn things around for me
Ghosts! Literally sims 4 lacked ghosts at release. Also, idk but I feel like some of the things that werent in the game at first were meant to be added in some EP's. The map in ts4 was blue with some grey parts. But when it comes to ts3, people like it because it serves you better quality for less $. Thats it.
And ironically the reason it was like that on release was because it was originally supposed to be an online game lol There's photos, videos, and even a commercial of TS4 Beta (called "Olympus" at the time; just like how TS5 is called "Project Renee" rn as it is in development) and it's evidently clear that they perhaps didn't have much time to start over from scratch and absorb certain elements of the previous installments into something fresh once the online concepts/development was scrapped. There's even some code still left over mentioning multiplayer/online features. I think that's why they heavily depended on the "Weirder Sims" shtick, the "Emotions" shtick, and the Multi-task system on release to help keep momentum for the player base, esp. since most of us were still young and naïve/gullible at the time (I was in HS during release), although a lot of older simmers (mid twenties and older) of the time were extremely not happy and still boycott the game to this day lol.
Everything you'd said about the sims 4 is so accurate. The game survived this long off the backs of the modding community.
You correctly identified the Sims 4 interrupting tasks as buggy rather than intentional. Also the festival game play is not basegame, it's from the city living expansion.
i was about to say.. they added it as a part of basegame or did he just think it was basegame? also if they did add it as bg .. wth.
The biggest issue with the Sims 4 is that a lot of things which should be base game you have to buy. Majority of city living, grow together etc should be base game (i personally dont include weather and pets since they've always been extras)
It’s half buggy and half settings turning down “free will” in setting significantly improves the issue
@@absolutelyjolly4925 lol disabling a major feature to prevent a bug is not a reasonable solution.
@@karaluchyiworsuchy I will never get over the fact you have to buy BUTLERS! I don't know if they were ever fixed, but they didn't even work!
An important thing to remember is that many of the features you mentioned for Sims 4 have been added very late into the game along with new dlc, which fleshes these systems out to create an incentive to buy it. People sometimes defend the huge number of packs by saying it lets you personalize the game according to playstyle, but its pretty clear ea tries really hard to just maximize the amount of things you have to buy.
they come as free patches though
@@userjoao Oop, what I meant is that the free patches are just severely watered down versions of dlc features, and while it csn be argued its just a marketing tactic, its also clear we wouldnt get any of these features at all if it wasnt for the dlc, because the care isnt placed on delivering people a good product, but making them pay as much as possible. And also it highlights how barebones the base game really was for a really long time.
This. Likes/dislikes and fears were added super recently. The visual aesthetic has been revamped many times. Whims were a hot mess for the longest time. Not having toddlers (or pools) at launch for a 4th gen life simulator was absurd. The entire lifespan of TS4 has been a big cashgrab, like making 5 packs about babies/toddlers/kids/teens/parenting and still barely meeting the gameplay of Sims 3 Generations (let alone actually expanding the concept). CAS and build mode are amazing, gameplay is a wash.
@@sebakisniesebakisnie6109 I mean, honestly, with the Sims four ever have added infants, if they didn’t know if they could capitalize off of them, and their other features?
sims 4 is just bad bad bad,
i found the "guilt" segment really interesting because i never really thought of the sims as a harmful coping mechanism, for lack of a better phrase. you say it gets bad when it's "desperation over aspiration" and i absolutely agree, and i think i fall into the aspiration category. the sims has helped me a lot in the real world funnily enough because it takes a lot of concepts we see daily and makes them a lot more digestible. to me, if a sim can socialize or do chores through just clicking a button... then the action itself, in the real world, isn't nearly as scary or as complicated as my brain has tricked me into thinking it is. that way of thinking or even turning everyday tasks into a game really helps me get through the day w my adhd "i need to be stimulated right now or i'll die" brain. this was a really cool analysis of the sims series though :)
i relate so much to this !! 🖤
I’ve heard of “gamifying” your life that way as a great strategy for ADHD brains. I wish it worked for mine, but I’m so glad it works for yours! Your life sounds much more fun!
I agree! Pus, me being a ball of unregulated stress that I am, can very much make anything my harmful coping mechanism, and Sims is far from being the worst enabler of that.
As a person with ADHD I can agree with this to the max!!
ahhh... theres nothing like a 3 hour video on a hyperfixation i've had for over 20 years. Thank you so much for this video, it was literally music to my ears. This was so well done. Your time is so very much appreciated. Are you sure you dont want to get married?
Glad you enjoyed it!
Everyday for the last 6 days I have gotten into bed with my iPad on my chest and my fiance has said “you’re still watching that video?” Yes, it took me 6 days to get through this whole video, but I’m glad i took the time to finish it. You made some wonderful points and deserve way more credit!
Kids nowadays will never understand how big of a deal this game was when it came out. I remember riding the bus home with my pal, and we would immediately rush to her family computer to play The Sims. The commercials that would air were wild as well. The kid, clown, and girls in the hot tub commercial has lived rent-free in my head for over 20 years. I'm in my early 30s, and I still enjoy the series- specifically 3.
@@39Edon_ lol chill out.
I used to do that too! My childhood best friend and I used to play The Sims 1 and 2 every chance we got. That's part of why I look back so fondly at those games; it brings me back to a time where I could excitedly play them for hours! I'm in my early 30s too and still play 2 and 3 whenever I get the chance.
I hope I'm not the only dude who loves the sims.
@@edstar83 no way. There are tons of men who enjoy sims. My SO will watch me play it, but he doesn't play it himself.
it's still a huge thing for kids. im a teenager and my boyfriend will listen to me tell him INSANE stories from my sims game for hours and just smile and call my fascination with it cute lol. i remember having a sleepover with a friend in 6th grade where we spent the night downloading custom content and woke up to actually use it
I work in the video games industry and this is an extremely well done analysis not only of game design but of the commercial viability of each game in the context of time of release as well. Great stuff man, keep this level of quality up and your channel is sure to explode!
One tiny bit of feedback though. I was looking for a sims design analysis when stumbling upon this. Think I just searched "sims game design retrospective". But I nearly didn't watch this video - simply because of the title "What is the point of the sims?" As I feared it would be a philosophical analysis of the games instead of a design analysis. Obviously I'm only a sample size of one here and could be totally in the minority but just figured that I'd share anyway, as this is seriously great content, and you so deserve a trillion views. Great passion, research, and effort put into this - and it was exactly what I was looking for! :)
No worries, thanks for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed it!
@@michaelaguero8209 I actually clicked it because the title intrigued me (I also thought it was only going to be a philosophical analysis) and I was pleasantly surprised by it being a bit of that and so much more
@@michaelaguero8209 Stumbled upon this video again, and very happy to see that it did indeed blow up! Do you have any upcoming retroperspective/analysis videos in the works? :)
I wanna thank The Sims 3 for making me friendless during highschool and for giving me a morbid obsession with downloading resources (furnitures, hairs etc) to the point i would wake up at 3 in the morning just to check if the downloads were finished... My stepdad put a 2h restriction to the usage of the pc. Life story dump apart, this video was a fantastic and super interesting analysis on the overall franchise, loved it.
Jesus thats relatable 😭😭
Step dads suck, I punched mine out....
@@anthonyt219 Sucks to hear that :/ My og comment wasn't being negative to my step dad tho cause if I have to be honest, I only got good things to say to him. When they good, they good, sorry to hear you had to do something like that tho.
Sims 1: Best writing (product descriptions and other things) It had a sort of quirky and eerie even at times sort of vibe that I liked Sims 2: Best gameplay Sims 3: Best neighborhood mechanics (open world, plus time passed for the whole neighborhood rather than one household) Sims 4: Best aesthetc
My Sims in 4 are homebodies because of neighborhood mechanics. They leave for work/school and sometimes events. That's pretty much it. I've done the vacation thing a few times - meh. A lot of the DLC for me is more about the "stuff" I get rather than the mechanics. It's very much of "I've done it one to three times and I'm all set." The thing I hate the most in Sims 4 is how the Sims (even the ones who you waste an animal trait on!) don't do anything autonomous with their pets (or livestock if you're playing cottage core). It relies on the player ensuring the Sims interact with the pet, or the pet will run away. And worse, the entire household gets a sad moonlet. Like, Fluffy ran away because no one was interacting with them! Your relationship bar has gone from 75% to 25% how sad can you actually be that the dog is gone?! They interact far more with babies, infants, and toddlers (and will not leave the kids the hell alone) than they do with pets or their barnyard animals :( Even Sims without the family focus trait or aspirations interact with the babies, infants, and toddlers. Meanwhile, no one interacts with Fluffy....and I have to turn off the thunderstorm system because there are too damn many and my Sim & their pets (or livestock) keep getting fear moodlets from the thunderstorms.
The Sims 4 is also the most flexible when it comes to creating Sims and building. In the Sims 3 its hard to make houses and Sims to look good, but not identical
Yeahhhh I respectfully disagree with the unfinished, failed online sims 4 game being the best aesthetically- it only has the "best graphics" because it came out over a decade after the first one. Some of the polygons in the sims 4 are just hideous, and the cartoonish look really feels like a step down- just to me
@@annam3088 I will never understand Sims 4 being acknowledged for its graphics. It has always looked terrible to me. Everything looks worse than clay, the Sims feel very puddingy, more so than 3, and you need mods to fix both the lighting and cosmetics to make it look nice. I also hate the way the ground looks, it's just flat and lifeless.
No argument there.
For the Sims 4 section I wanted to let you know the reason you couldn't edit eye color. Not only does it seem you were in detail edit mode, used primarily to edit tiny details as the name implies but you were also trying to do so with glasses on the sim. If you have glasses on you cant click on the eyes after, which is annoying but at least it does have an explanation.
Spent so long searching the comments to see if someone mentioned this. I'm a devoted Sims 4 player and it was bothering me knowing the answers to what he was complaining about and not seeing anyone else mention it in the comments 😭
@@AlexFizzy literally same hahaha like its a small detail but irked me
@@AlexFizzy yep me too!
I will say from a gameplay design standpoint, that's just terrible. A new player shouldn't *have* to crowd source the Internet to find out how to change the eye color of their character, especially in a game like the Sims where literally that's one of the main features of the game (character creation/customization).
@@cordeliaface im going to be honest, i started playing when i was 12, you typically touch the face/eyes before you think about putting on accessories and all of that. it's truly not that difficult to figure out; i've never seen a post of someone trying to figure out how to change the eye colour before, i think it was just a very rushed oversight in his position.
Also loved your commentary on Sims 4 being an empty REBOOT….once I heard the game being marketed as sims 1 in an alternate universe that’s exactly what they meant.
this. i haven't watched the video yet but the sims 4 was absolutely described by the devs as being an alternate timeline splitting off of the sims 1. even beyond that though, a lot of the sims 4's game mechanics (the static, immovable lots for example) always made it feel like the sims 1.5 to me, and not in a good way.
Sims4 lore has never been cannon
It's alternate universe where sims 3 Bella succeeded to sent message about the kidnapping via book and made the small Bella realized that and her other self avoid the kidnapping and that's how Bella in sims 4.
The escapism part is so uncannily true. Of which i might even say that a great measurement of my mental state is how much i play the sims in a given day. When i felt fine, i barely touch the sims. But after or during a period of stress and stagnation in my life, i binge it for 20 hours a day. And it felt like i dont want to leave my own room just to play the sims. It was only after the 4th day i realize that my laundry basket is full, trash everywhere and i forgot to take a bath for 2 days. It felt like i snapped out of a drug binge. But it's so easy to keep going, you dont want to snap out of it
I felt so called out when you talked about the sim giving up on tasks randomly to clean the house because of their neat personality, as someone with adhd and slight ocd that’s my life almost every day and you calling it buggy AI makes my disorders that much funnier lol thank you, loved the video
That smudge in the sims 3 creation mode or CAS is the mark of a vampire bite. All vampire sims have it and for some reason it is also available as a cosmetic mark for non vampires too. Now... it did NOT come with the base game, so I don't know what's up with that.
Ah! Okay, that makes sense. Never would have occurred to me it was a vampire bite without thinking about the expansions.
@Michael Aguero I think it looks like a blur because maybe you have texures set to low?
@@michaelaguero8209 Yep, remember seeing it for the first time after installing Supernatural (didn't have Late Night), it definitley wasn't there without the expansions adding vampires in 2012ish Also the advertising and micro transactions weren't as bad in the early days of Sims 3. I think the ads in loading screens (which can be deactivated in options) were added with the patch for the last expansion Into the Future and I think the micro transactions in CAS/build mode etc (everything that costs sim points) are related to being logged into an ea/origin account. I didn't have those when I started my game via CD instead of Origin laucher. Back when you _needed_ the disk of your newest expansion or the game wouldn't run Also neat to see they didn't change the original cell phone in the base game. It was changed to a smartphone with the University expansion
I have wondered this for so long!
it was included in a patch
The first time I played sims 3 was so surreal. I’d previously played MySims on DS & my friend’s Sims 2 Strangetown on PSP, so TS3 was my first sims PC game. I spent HOURS playing and didn’t even feel that time was going by. I was around 12 years old and remember having dinner somewhere in the middle of the day, but soon enough, it was already time for bed. When I fell asleep, I felt like I was STILL playing sims in my dreams. It was crazy but also really exciting. That game will forever have my heart.
relatable. i remember being ages 10-12 spending my entire summer break playing sims 3 on xbox every year i was completely content. and my life got 10x better when i got the pc version
Sims 3 was my first sims game, and i absolutely loved it. Its still my favorite if for no other reason, just because of it being my introduction. I played it for hours daily, and i still love it so much. I dont have a computer right now and it is genuinely painful wanting to play so much. Haha i can waste hours on that damn game
I also can relate to the guilt part of it all. Sometimes I want to put off important things or real life social activities just to have a quiet night to myself playing sims in peace. I then wonder am I wasting time playing this fake life when I could be living my own? I try to do something productive then I don't feel as bad for spending so many hours doing this one thing. On the other side, I really enjoy it and I work for the money I spend on the sims. There are far worse things a person could do than spend time playing their favorite game.
In The Sims 3 there is an option in the menu to hide all "microtransactions". There is also an option to switch back to a regular old loading screen (that also loads faster than the interactive one)! I don't know why they even enabled these things nowadays from the beginning, because they are just so dumb. I remember back then you didn't even have advertisements for ANYTHING in the game. The interactive loading screens however were in it from the beginning. I think they just added those to play with something, while having to wait for so long in a loading screen.
Omg thank you! I must find this setting
Also, you actually get some small rewards from the interactive screens, so there's that. Lifetime points, I think.
That's exactly why they had interactive loading screens - and btw, Sims 3 wasn't actually the first game in the series to do that. I vividly remember being a kid, installing Sims 2 on a new computer, and playing the mini game that it had available while it was installing. I always thought it was really cool.
The interactive loading screens were not there from the beginning. I don't remember when they were added but definitely later. Google says "added with patch 1.63".
what are microtransactions? what's the interactive loading screen? the only thing I notice is that the game takes over 2 minutes to start up, but don't see any microtransactions as far as I know.
This is the first time I heard someone say Don's a innocent Sim 😂(in the Sims 2 Chapter) Really enjoying this video
Yeah, my reaction to him and Cassandra's relationship was to break them up not to get Cassandra for my own Sim, but simply because I hated Don. :P I deliberately invited Cassie and BOTH Caliente sisters at the same time and made him woo-hoo Nina while Cassie was right in the next room, so she could catch him. He eventually married the maid and got kidnapped by aliens, but that's another story. :P
Yeeeeaaah…. Don is an asshole!🤣
He doesn’t know the sims lore.🥺
Yeah, that cracked me up too.
same, lol. I guess he doesn't know the history. Maybe we can look forward to him investigating the Bella Goth mystery, lol.
great video! btw you can change the eye color in the sims 4! your character has glasses which is why it wasnt working when you clicked on their eyes, because technically you were clicking the glasses. remove the glasses or rotate your sim to the side to click on their actual eyes, unobstructed, and you will see the eye options :D
Being an adult wanting to play the sims constantly since it’s what makes me feel in touch with inner child, the “Guilt” part hits home and make me appreciate this video as a whole, even more
I'm presently 65. So I was an adult when I got hooked on the original Sims. With each expansion and addition it became better and better. Then Sims 4 came out and my friend and I gave up rather quickly and returned to Sims 3. Its only recently when they made the base game free that I reinstalled it and found it was much improved. But unlike the three prior versions, I only buy expansions during sales. Oh and one thing about Sims 3. You could simply go to any workplace and apply directly for a job. Newspapers be damned.
As a hardcore Sims 2 player I can't look at that overly bright CAS 😂 In July 2014 EA gave out The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection (base + all packs) on Origin, so a lot of people have *legal* access to the game, but it's still a pain in the ass that needs all those fixes you showed and even more! (and Don Lothario is so NOT an innocent man 😆) Great video! It's nice to see such a deep dive into a game that pretty much shaped my life ❤️
Sims 2 is still my favorite overall 💯
I have installed that game on so many friends computers over the years from that free ultimate collection! I still have not played any of the newer sims games, I'm not done with it yet!
@@tnstaf From experience, you never will be lol. I've tried both 3 and a little bit of 4, but keep going back.
It's kind of ridiculous that they stopped providing access to the game legally. Now people have to navigate slightly shady sources like abandonware sites + unofficial patches to access it.
Does anyone here know how to get TS2? I have a Windows 10 PC. It’s my favorite game of the franchise and all of my TS2 discs were stolen from me 🥲 I found a subreddit with links to it, but it was a shady site that didn’t even have working links anymore. I just wanna play my favorite sims game. I still cannot BELIEVE how Origin only released the game for free for a small period of time. How horrible 😞
I was quite surprised to find this video isnt one of those up and coming videos with like 100k videos and getting more each day, but actually a video from 4 months ago with barely 4K views. This feels up there with other popular analyzing of games - seriously hope more people get to see it!!
20k in 3 days... it must have caught the eye of the algorithm
@@reginasinko8559 I added the phrase "Full Documentary" to the title and suddenly everyone is here. The algorithm is nuts.
40k views today
@@michaelaguero8209 i remember how i saw that vid in my recommendations a week or two ago with barely 600-700 hundreds clicks (or mb it was already at 6000 im not sure) but now I clicked on the vid and ur at 50000! Holy cow!!!
@@michaelaguero8209 rightfully so! It’s an amazing video and analysis. I hope your channel gets more traction!
Just want to add on to the number of comments praising this video, it's excellent. I've been a Simmer since the beginning and feel SO SEEN by your experience of fantasy fulfillment as a child turning into guilt as an adult. I always thought I'd grow up to be a musician and made so many Sims to live that dream through. Now I avoid that career path in the games because it feels a little too personal and painful. It's no longer "These are all my possible futures." It's more "These are all the things I could've done but didn't... Partially because I was wasting time on this damn game."
when you talked about guilt, i felt that. i make my sims go to the gym, maximize athletic skills and aspirations, looking their best all while not taking a good care of my own body. it felt so depressing and self-deprecating :( forget how i come to snap out of it but i'm so glad i did. we need to be mindful when pleasing/indulging in our fantasy.
This video was incredible! Found this gem in my recommended today, I hope the algorithm spreads this video to more simmers
Well, it did to me! That's one thing I've started noticing lately--it seems the algorithm has gotten a hair smarter in terms of your actual interests, vs. just "is this popular"? Because lately I've been seeing videos of "Here's a let's play of a normally obscure game that you happen to like, from a channel with 43 subscribers and it's got like 5 views"...instead of obscure-interest things ONLY showing up in my recommended if they were _also_ popular in terms of views. So the algorithm is still horrible in other ways, but it seems to be improving a little? yay...?
it did to me!
it definitely has!
For me the biggest difference between ts3 and ts4 has always been in the expansion packs. I only ever had two EPs for ts3 (generations and world adventures). Each one added hundreds more hours of gameplay for me. The imaginary friend mechanic in generations alone would keep me playing for multiple in-game generations, trying to get each new kid's imaginary friend turned into a real sim. I was a kid at the time so maybe I was just bad at the game, but it was a genuine challenge. World Adventures was always buggy and poorly optimized but adding 3 new worlds to explore made me want to fight with the lag and crashes to see what I could find. And this is on top of the hundreds of hours I gladly sunk into the game before I ever got a single EP. For ts4 I eventually had to cut myself off from buying packs because after spending an ungodly amount of money I realized I never felt like I had gotten my money's worth or added more than a few small, shallow features. Around My First Pet Stuff I started feeling like a gacha game addict, mindlessly spending money for sound effects and colorful images. Sometimes I still load it up to make a family and a house because I like the CAS and BB tools a lot. But I usually uninstall again by the second generation. I watch reviews for each new pack and it never sounds like I'm missing much.
All the reviews pushed me to just play TS3 and get 2 packs. I am not bored.
I'm glad KZhead suggested this video to me! I wrote my master's thesis on Create-a-Sim with the main focus being The Sims 4 through the lenses of intersectional feminism and reception theory (the idea of the meaning being interpreted by the player). The series is so vast due to the open-ended nature of the game, so there's a lot of different focuses someone can hone in on and end up discussing for hours. My thesis ended up being 79 pages, and I didn't cover build mode, supernatural elements, or pets. I love seeing where people explore discourse on The Sims series, because the avenues to explore are as vast as the play styles of people who enjoy playing The Sims games.
yes! it is more than carrots and game loops...
Ooh do you have a copy of your thesis? I would love to read it.
I'd love to read that thesis if possible!
so it's official: people are encouraged to never progress intellectually beyond childhood. Adults now watch Marvel movies, read Harry Potter, and write their "masters"' on an insignificant feature of a video game geared towards 12 year olds. What university allows this?
@@likmijnreet4542 you do realize you just commented a reply to a comment on a 3-hour long video about The Sims, right?
I never understood why people found sims 3 graphics ugly… I’ve always really liked them. Maybe just for nostalgia purposes 😅
Nothing wrong with it honestly it’s just the art style they went with it like sims 4 and 2
For me it's the UI moreso. The Sims 4 blows every game out of the water with its UI, looking at a picture of a house/room and clicking on the type of furniture/addition you want to add is just so intuitive.
Sims 3 is my fav but i admit the sims got potato faces.
As a die hard and active sims 3 fan I find it hard to move to sims 4 because of of all the mechanics they removed. That said, I feel the sims 4 outshined all other sims game in another area. That area being clubs from sims 4: get together DLC. The clubs system allowed you to create permeant groups with different hierarchs. And I feel we can expand a pond the club system in sims 5. Like you can create a club that is basically a political party. The clubs system is what is as the start for a potentials grander system. Like in the sims 3 late night they say that there are two rival vampire clans, but they have no system of facilitating that gameplay except for that some sims disliking one other.
That's really cool, I wasn't aware of that. Sims with a faction system sounds pretty neat.
@@michaelaguero8209 like a religion
You're not alone! Active Sims 3 player here. It took me 4 years to buy the Sims 4 (2018) at the time it was on sale for $6. I played it with mods because the base game is boring for roughly 6 months. After never touched it again. I've since built my own PC and haven't downloaded Sims 4, yet it's been 3 years 😅
The clubs are cool. The only tiny problem is that to me it seems they've kinda forgotten about them, like they don't try to make cross pack functionalities to add even more activities to them from other packs ecc. The base game should be covered though.
Same!! Also personally, I can see how people prefer the looks of the Sims themselves in Sims 4, but the general cartooney aesthetic is not for me - and the environment looks straight up ugly in comparison to Sims 3.
For EA executives the purpose of The Sims 4 is clearly to be able to sell us another Sims game. For the devs on the ground in the sims team I think there is something else, one they state quite openly, its about telling your own story. The problem comes from that being treated as the core of the whole game. Past sims games all were great in creating emergent stories through your interaction, and that was great. The reason The Sims 4 doesn't seem to be "about" anything is because it really isn't, instead its all now present as stage to play out your own stories. The game seems designed to easy getting the result you want, starting with picking your starting aspiration which conveniently comes with a trait that make goals associated with it easier.
And the Sims 4 is not even good for the purpose of playing out your own stories, especially considering the towns themselves are bland and empty. Unlike the Sims 2 and 3, where even when you create your own character, you have something to go off of- doubly so if you are a role-play type of player like me. If you create your own character in the Sims 3, for example, you can play them as they slowly acclimate themselves into the town, learn about and befriend the locals- even visiting their houses to get a sense of what is going on over there, and even potentially getting involved in their drama. You create your own story in the CONTEXT of the preexisting storyline. The Sims 4, for that matter, has hardly any context, and that is a disappointment in and of itself.
The Sims at it's core is the ultimate "power fantasy" simulator game as from the very start you are put into a world where you have a free house/ a job/ a car/ rent and bills you can afford/ people you can make friends with constantly/ a job that offers promotion AND the ability to quit the job and start another . basically The Sims is everything people want from real life and why we love it is BECAUSE creating something that "works" is a nice way to distract yourself from the real world
I feel like someone could get away with making a pretentious video essay called "the socialist utopia of The Sims" or some shit. You get PTO, you get paid on holidays, easy access to freelance/self-employed work, incredibly easy mobility through the classes. It feels like how cities in CS1 and CS2 have to be properly funded with city services and public transport in order for the game to be any fun. If The Sims was more realistic with its economy, every single player would immediately hit a wall and stop playing 5 minutes in.
I had forgotten how much I loved the proposal cutscene in sims 2
It's crazy how the Algorithm will just serve up seemingly random videos from smaller creators these days. Excellent video! Wish I found it earlier.
It's incredibly frustrating. This video got 10 to 20 views a day for MONTHS based solely on search traffic. Then I added "Full Documentary" to the title and BOOM thousands of views. Makes me feel bad for other creators out there who don't know what magic words to do.
@@michaelaguero8209 Perhaps as a smaller creator, a possible idea could be to look at similarities of names and tags for reccomended videos just before you upload. If you notice a trend, maybe put tha tin your next video title/tags to hop on whatever the algorithm is spreading that week aha
@michaelaguero8209 I credible insight...wowee!! Glad you changed it :)
@@michaelaguero8209 It is frustrating that you have to play KZhead's game, but hey. Great video! I'll be checking your other stuff out :)
It's a long video but I am glad I watched the whole thing. I love that you nailed it on the head on how gameplay mechanics work and how it affects things in game. Also I like the aspect how Sims 1 and Sims 2 had a sense of identity, you managed to explain why Sims 2 is so good in the gameplay aspect, which happens to be my favorite in the series.
Thanks! It's what pushed me to make the video. I always remembered the sense of identity that Sims 1 and 2 had, while struggling to remember 3 and especially 4's. Got me to sit down and play through them all again!
@@michaelaguero8209 I do agree Sims 3 had an identity of being in a community and everyone is inter connected within the town and life is beyond the walls of the house. Sims 4 had an identity crisis even after nine years of "refining" gameplay
@@michaelaguero8209 The sense of identity was what the very first trailer of each game was about: The Sims2 was The Sims but generational gameplay, The Sims3 was The Sims2 but open world, and the Sims4 was The Sims (not 3, they clearly abandoned the open world by that point) but emotions. After release everyone obviously complained how revolving around emotions didn't account for gameplay and so many gameplay features are just missing... You should really review The Sims4 in its pre-patched version, there was so much change between then and now, not all of it for the better...
The fact that you called Don Lothario "innocent man" is SO FUNNY to me as a Sims' lore nerd aaa
I’m glad you mentioned how annoying the mischief skill and ‘free will’ in sims 4 is. I turn the ‘free will’ off because if they have ‘free will’ they will go do something mischievous which just makes them into an annoying mean person which makes relationships hard. I wish mischief could only be learned by evil sims or something
What an absolute beast of a video! Love how thorough it was, that script must've taken foreveeer. And gosh, when you pointed out how much advertising the Sims 3 had, I was quite shocked. I started playing the sims 3 back when it first came out and they introduced all of those "BUY NOW!!!" features so gradually throughout the years with updates that I never fully realized just how bad it really is. I'm like that analogy of the frog in boiling water, huh.
This was a great video, I always struggle to put into words why I like something so this helps greatly. I have played the Sims 3 since I was little and spotted a few things that you got wrong. One of the things I both love and hate is how much of the game is there but you have to find it yourself with no guidance. For example there actually are career rewards in the Sims 3, my sim became a level 10 chef and received a fridge that makes food never go bad. This is not the only career with a reward. It means there there's always new things to discover in the game and finding them exciting but makes it extremely hard to do as there's nothing to go off.
Just wanted to say this is one of the few mega-long essays on KZhead that really deserves its length! As someone who was drawn in by this series' mechanics, it's nice to finally find something that digs into to the subtle way the gameplay has had to evolve over time, and how the games really *feel*. It's quite hard to find that around KZhead, since most game-focused channels don't touch more casual stuff, and most Sims-focused channels focus on 4 and have very set opinions about 4 being bad but worth it for house building, and all the others probably being good. I also wanted to thank you for taking the time to write up the Guilt section - it doesn't sound like something that was easy to divulge, but it's important to analyse the impact of games on their players, especially something like the Sims that makes such an effort to emulate (one very particular style of) life. Looking at the comments, it seems to be a more common experience than is often talked about, and it was really enlightening as someone who played during lockdown to inspire themself, and then moved on. The messages games send to individuals are probably one of the most interesting parts of game analysis, and it makes the video that much more interesting! With that said, I thought it'd be an interesting thing to add that Sims 1 was supposed to be a criticism of endless consumerism according to Wright, where it's a nightmare to keep yourself alive, and even as you get 'better' items, everything keeps breaking and it never stops. I think there's at least one video on KZhead that shows 1 is unwinnable when you start off poor, and only divine intervention will save you. Kind of worrying when you look at the drip feeding of transactions in 3 and 4 :/
I want to add on that you have explained the ""gameplay loop" very well and it is based on the loop SimCity is designed, and that is the reason why Sims 1 and 2 is so addicting! Sims 1 is the base where needs needs to be met, before social life and skill building and then moving up to the career track. Sims 2 aspiration as well as wants and fears system really play into the loop very well. Sims will want bigger and better things when the current want has achieved. Fortune Sims want to earn more, family Sims want more kids, Knowledge gains more skills, Popularity more friends and Romance, well, more woohoo and lovers lol.
Yes! TS1 had a real vision and theoretical concept behind it that enhanced the game. More than just fun or addicting, it was interesting, and Ts2 built on that. I have no idea what the TS4 gameplay loop even is.
“Next thing you know.. Its 4 o’clock in the morning and you’re getting nuked by Gandhi” You good sir, have won the internet for the week
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Civ games were the first time I was like "...holy crap, is that the SUN?!" from playing so long at a stretch and not noticing. Good times...good times. :P
I believe I played Sims 2, but I don’t have specific memories of it. Sims 3 was the one I was playing in high school though. I turned 30 in June and, back in 2020 during pandemic times, I noticed I was returning to video games I played in high school. I played all the Nancy Drew games I played when I was in my tweens. And, even after the quarantine ended, I returned to the sims 4 - after I recently decided I’d make a move to another city and actively look for a new job after a decade in the job I’ve been in. It’s one million % easier to make a change to my sims’ lives than it is my own. Not even life-changing level, but I walked up 20 floors of stairs total yesterday trying to do my laundry, and still didn’t have clean clothes. So, today, my sims have clean clothes. It’s rough out here. And this video is very excellent and well done. Congrats on some work very well done.
This is a random detail but one of my favorite things a KZheadr can do is say “don’t worry, we’ll get back to that” with a little pop up telling us that no, we actually won’t, like you did with community lots in Sims 2
As a simmer from the start, my best friend and I would rush home and play it for hours since she had the computer. I remember getting my first computer and the sims 2. I would play for hours, by myself. It was the best. Sims 3 came out and it was amazing. I loved it. I pre-ordered sims 4, played it for 5 hours and put it down for months. It seemed like it was a sims 1 to get younger players to play it and learn everything that us, long term players didn't need or want. It was so lackluster. But wonderful video, glad it came across my videos to watch.
As somebody who has played The Sims since I was 11 back in 2002....I think you did this justice.
Thanks!
WHY DOES EVERY SIMS VIDEO ON KZhead ALWAYS RETURN TO THIS VIDEO OMG I HAVE LISTENED TO THIS PASSIVELY LIKE 1000 TIMES HOW TF DID YOU CREATE THIS GOLDMINE OF A VIDEO WHO DID YOU HURT
The Algorithm, and it deserved it.
SAME FOR ME, but I can't seem to click off once it starts playing. I thought I was buggin'.
Sims 2 music makes me so happy and nostalgic holy shit
Your effort in this video is appreciated! Entertained me the whole way through. I even booted up my Sims 3 after watching.
Thanks!
An extraordinarily detailed work you accomplished, Michael! I don't think I've ever watched a video of this length with such attention and enjoyment. This work should reach every simmer out there. Thank you so much for the huge amount of time invested in this analysis. I've just grabbed a copy of Trial of Atlas to show my appreciation. Wishing you good luck pursuing your Aspirations! 😃
Hey thanks, I really appreciate that! It was really heartwarming to see I had a sale this morning. Hope you like the book!
Sims 3 needing books for skills and lvls for new food recipes went well with the opportunities function. Making the "quest" more challenging. For example, I had a sim in the cooking career. An opportunity to advance came as a quest to prepare a rare dish and deliver it to the high end restaurant. But the recipe was in a book you could only get in a another country... Get the book only to realize you needed a special ingredient, 2 very good crocodiles. You needed a high fishing skill to catch it. Books were the way if you didn't have days to fish to raise the skill. (Which you don't since traveling to Sims version of Egypt was expensive.) But you could only get it from a completely different country than the first, & only with really good bait. You could only get that lvl bait by growing it yourself. Even after all of that, you could only make the dish IF you had a high enough cooking skill. This meant you needed the right skill book, if you wanted to learn faster than watching TV or cooking a bunch. And it all had to be done in a limited time. (if everything was available easily, such as meal options and skill levels without books, there is no quest) I really enjoyed this video. So much nostalgia.
This is quite literally some of the best content on KZhead that I've seen in a long time. Thanks for your time and effort - we share all the same opinions
I really think sims 4 is my most played specifically because my favorite part of the series is the making of my digital dolls and their little houses. custom content is more widely avalible compared to other games so i can get any clothes, eyes, skin details, or hair i want, and i can mold and shape their faces with a click. compare that to the other entries where my doll is either highly polygonal or look like clay and sims 4 is superior in (honestly only) in that aspect.
Nothing wrong with that! It's a testament to the series that so many people can come to it for different reasons and still get something out of it.
Delusional comment but ok
@@aturchomicz821 ? i'm just expressing that i like sims 4 CAS best, and it is the most customizable and in depth, i still highly favor the third entry for gameplay.
I’ve been trying to figure out why I enjoy this game so much and you’ve put it in words. This was a great video! So well researched and explained and I hope it blows up soon so other people can see it too. I would love the gameplay elements of sims 2/3 in sims 5. Although I enjoy playing the sims 4 for the graphics and building it does feel like a shell when it comes to actual gameplay sometimes. I want more tongue in cheek humour outside of build and buy descriptions too as it’s sprinkled in but doesn’t feel as baked in as earlier sims entries.
The humor is absolutely crucial to the series, wouldn't be the same without it. Makes me wonder how funny Paradox's attempt is going to be.
As a simmer who adores sims 3, thank you for this video! I want better for future sims games.
You’ve very much opened my eyes about the point of every sim game! I want to add my opinion: I think the sims 4 is all about build mode. Some people buy some of the packs just for the items, sadly. And the fact that there is a gallery filled with beautiful builds from other players, it answers a prayer of mine because I hate building lol. I’m all about the story, so sims 4 is basically a little boring for me. And the sims easily have no personality on this game. I can go on and on about sims 4 and the cons, but I’m basically saying build/buy mode is the point of sims 4. I wonder what sims 5 will be all about
Great video! You taught me a lot about game theory. I never noticed how much micro-transaction stuff was in Sims 3. I guess a have just trained myself to look beyond it. I think the Sims 3 is beautiful, by the way. I like its aesthetic better than Sims 4. I appreciate the long hours you put into this presentation. It was awesome.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
it's crazy I always knew the sims 3 was chock full of microtransactions on top of the standard "game updates you have to pay for because we called it dlc" crap but I pirated the sims 3 never pressed the store button or anything microtransaction related and I didn't even notice half this shit like the store button glowing let alone that I could make it stop glowing or even half of how bad i really is ads for the game ingame wise even though I probably have enough hours in 3 alone to dwarf his total time spent playing every game in the franchise as an adult(never picked up the series as a kid myself or I'd probably have a literal eternity worth of playtime in it) its alot like how once you spend long enough around a smell you just stop noticing it generally even if it stinks
I am watching this in bits, but so far its amazing... well done i cant imagine doing a video this detailed. I'll share it once im done
With your TS1 analysis the only thing that's missing is the fact that many mechanics already in TS2 were added over time in the first game, but with expansion packs. NPCs, community lots and the divide between daily and long-tierm relations were at least since the Hot Date EP. In fact it was like that with each generation - something introduced in expansion packs (like leftovers in TS2: Seasons or Young Adults in TS2: University) were later included in the base of future generations. Edit: Also, as I understand the idea of this analysis, you only look into base of each game (which is understandable). And yet you mention festivals in TS4 section, even though festivals are added in various expansions. The ones you show specifically are from City Living.
When it came to the build mode section, and you talking about your love for architecture it made me understand I'm the same way, not in the building of the house but rather interior design. I think I've always been interested in how a room could be put together differently, added to my "creative mind".. thank you for inspiring me again and reminding me that life is cool and dreams can sometimes become a reality
A very good video! Just wanted to add some facts and opinions about The Sims 4... It's a bit harder to play the original (aka release date) The Sims 4 game; some of the features listed here only came out later (ex.: toddlers, pools, detailed bills, electronics' power consumption, festivals, etc.) or quite recently (ex.: likes/dislikes, scenarios, relationship dossiers, sentiments, etc.). Mostly because with some new DLCs, the base game got an update as well (ex.: power consumption and detailed bills came into base game after Eco Living DLC came out, since it introduced a lot type that does not have electricity or water pipes and you must rely on other sources to get it (like a solar panel. Which isn't a new thing. The Sims 2 also had functional solar panels that could reduce the bills or even make profits)) . The wishes (here - called whims) were added in the release version of The Sims 4, but later they were hidden under settings and default became "no whims". Now they tried reworking them and added fears, so wants&fears became a default option again... But from your video I see that the wants themselves didn't improve much :D I also strongly dislike The Sims 4 aspirations. In The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 your lifetime wish was an additional info about the character. It gave more details about them, made them feel more alive. In The Sims 4 these felt meaningless, because they could be changed at any moment and showed the sim's current mid goal instead of their ultimate lifetime wish... Sims feel directionless and I kinda dislike such people in real life, so this easily translated to me in disliking sims that were perceived that way :D Also, heard that The Sims 4 does not have open world because it started being developed as a multiplayer game and developers had to change it back to singleplayer quite far into development... This late change may have influenced the lack of focus and main goal in The Sims 4... Though in my opinion it's so bad compared to earlier versions of the game, that it's weird to even defend it :D EA executives still love to talk about "The Sims multiplayer game", even adding this discussion AGAIN, right before the first rumors about The Sims 5 started to spread. Overall, I don't hold much hope for The Sims 5 to get better than The Sims 4. But Rod Humble (yes, the same Rod Humble after which The Sims 2 NPC was created!) and Paradox Interactive seem to develop a new competitor to The Sims. It's a bit too early to talk about how similar these games will be, but if you look at "Life By You" trailer, you can quickly see some undeniable similarities between that game and The Sims 3.
As a forever directionless person I feel personally attacked 😂😂 I guess I was designed like a sims 4 sim. 😢
Very good analysis ! It got recommended to me right before bed, time flew by, and I went to sleep at 2:30 🤣 Maybe it's the goth in me, or I'm too much of a die-hard sims 3 fan, but I like that the graphics in TS3 are a bit darker, and more textured. It makes more of an incentive to design your house with windows and lights in mind, and to spend more money on expensive-looking bay windows x) TS4 feels like everything is plastic to me. Wood has no grain, nothing is shiny or matte... all plastic : / This is my hill and I'll die on it ! x) Sims 3 microtransactions can be fully hidden by tweaking the settings a bit, and then you can play without being bothered at all. And the expansion packs were a bit of a cash-grab, but they still had good value, and were an added experience to a strong foundation. TS4 just went off the walls with it : / The base game is very empty, and the expansions are teeny-tiny pieces of extra content to try to fill the void with. It's also worth noting, with TS4, that a lot of features you talked about (and many more) weren't available on release and were added or modified much later in updates. The base game on release famously didn't have toddlers or pools, but also no file (and work schedules) for your friends, no wishes and fears of course, no scenario mode, very few different skin colors, no likes and dislikes, taxes weren't broken down, and a ton of other systems they later tacked on in updates or expansions. Imo, it shows the lack of forethought that went into gameplay, and the lack of cohesion in all this mess : / They keep adding features fans are asking for to try and appease them, but it can't do much because the basic gameplay doesn't work. This comment is getting very long, but it's also worth noting that TS4 will be 10 years old next year ! The game has had twice the lifespan of TS2 and 3, and it shows. There's an accumulation of updated features, an absolutely preposterous amount of DLC, and if you have a decent amount of it the game performance takes a hit. The idea for the non-open-world was to have a lot of loading screen, but very short ones, but because of all the DLC and updates they're getting longer and longer.
Wow has TS4 really been out that long? Time goes quick. I do remember it being really bare bones when it came out. The lightning remark for TS3 is a good one, and I probably should have included it in the video. The spaces in that game do look far better when properly lighted.
@@michaelaguero8209 yeah, it came out in 2014 ! It's nuts, and besides some vague sneak peeks, there's still almost no info on the next game, and packs upon packs coming out for TS4 !
I also love the aesthetic of ts3 ! I get mad sometimes I’ve already established a years long storyline and a bunch of mods into ts4. Otherwise, I would’ve probs spent that time, effort, and $ into ts3. I was a teen when it was popular but I couldn’t afford to play games much as a teen so I played ts2 cause my friend had left a CD of it and never asked for it back :))). So, I had no idea what ts3 was like or how cool the storylines were until I was already deep into ts4. Which was when I was an adult with $ to buy games. I look at midnight hollow and the whole aesthetic and characters based on horror movies and I’m just like, wow, ts4 vampires and other occults could never lol (although werewolves actually had some lore so that’s cool).
something that I wish would happen, but know never will, are improvements to the base game to make it more fleshed out and substantial. But since those changes would be a free update and therefore wouldn't make EA money (especially now that TS4 is free) that won't happen. It's sad to that people who want to play TS4 have to pay for a decent experience, and even after paying for dlc it's still not as good as previous games. At this point I don't even have high hopes for TS5, I fully expect it to be another soulless cash grab of a game. If that doesn't happen I'll be pleasantly surprised.
If the opening minutes of this video essay has done anything, its immediately make me realize how impressive the subtleties of game design in my childhood really are. Not 20 minutes in and now im questioning my perception of my modern game log. Easy sub my dude. *Now to binge this video*
Best sims analysis by far. I’ve definitely heard these complaints but I think you’ve captured the comparison and downgrades in the franchise eloquently. Sims 4 is pretty and the building and customization is definitely its biggest strength, but I wish more fans realized how goal oriented, challenged based game play is important in game design and Maxis really let down a huge portion of their fan base when they just slapped together some mechanics and called it a day. And without a concentrated effort to dig into the function of core mechanics (which will never be profitable) they will just keep throwing new gimmicks onto a weak/broken gameplay system. While DLC has brought plenty of content, most of it has failed to truely fix the lack of satisfying gameplay loops. I have meager hope for sims 5 based of off rumors of its direction, but there are at least 2 competitors now so maybe, even if it’s not the sims, we will see a solid life simulator game that can satisfy both the creators and the achievement seekers that’s not butt ugly lol
I just wanted to say that this is a great video and I actually enjoyed watching a 3hr retrospective on the sims series😭 your closing chapters and honestly the whole video in general was very thought provoking and very fun to watch! Keep making great content like this, you will for sure blow up
The Sims 4 base game was far far worse than what it is today. Content was criminally absent. The Sims 4, since its release, had always been Mt least favourite to play. However, after the avalanche of DLC, they've given the main Gameplay far more depth
Oh yeah, like I said in another (way too long) comment, the Sims 4 has been majorly improved since _I_ bought it in July 2020, let alone since 2014. The stuff they've added in those two and a half years! Like, whoah.
And problem is, that after sims 4, next series be worst and worst. Because, video games era is ended. So i really dont believe in sims 5. I really loved Sims 2. Sims 3 be interesting, but sims 2 have something, than doesnt have sims 3. In Sims 3 we always get something whoe doesnt expecting, but in other hands, we fear this think. Sims 4 offer you option play this game in really what you imagine, create not creators scripted your imagine story. At now i have sims 3 and sims 4, but my heart always with sims 2. I really hope, that creators doesnt change this game vision. This is doll simulation game, I really dont want see "doing that, go then and be something special". The Sims series means life simulation and trying to be free. It's can be creators story scripted game
That's what I was thinking lol. I wonder how he would have reacted to the load-in screen basically being the TS1 static neighbourhood picture without colour. 😂 Not to mention object babies, no toddlers or ghosts, etc...
@@paulius773 I have no clue what you mean by the video game era has ended. I am drowning in video games, and anticipated video game releases. I have too many video games. I feel more like I'm in some sort of gold rush era of video gaming. Actually, it's the same for novels. If someone wanted to say print was dying, I could see their point, but if you said books were dying... lol, no they ain't. The internet has allowed for a gold rush of books. I think in some ways it's doing the same for games, too. Is every game good? No. But other times they're spectacular experiences. Like Undertale.
Not only after the avalanche of DLC, but also after almost a decade passing by its release
this is quite possibly the best sims video ive ever watched especially the guilt and closing section. Really did hit hard as i feel like most sims players have been at that cross roads before
When he started talking about sims 3 I was like "do you know you can turn off the Sims Store?"
Something I appreciate about this video is that you're actually critical towards the sims 3. I've been a fan of the series since childhood and I play all the games, but I've also mingled with the sims community. The problem I've faced in the sim's community is this prevailing idea: "The Sims 3 can do no wrong, the Sims 4 can do no right." And it's very frustrating as someone who loves the Sims 4 and struggles to get into the Sims 3. I think part of my issue with the Sims 3 is how difficult it is to get into. I play all my games with all expansion packs. When you load a new family into 1,2, and 4, you get a welcome party and a gift (magic items/computer/fruitcake) but loading into the sims 3, you get SWAMPED with every expansion pack fighting for your attention. It's a summer festival, take 3 days off work, did you know about this totem?, college llama has arrived, here's what you need to know about the full moon, aw your sim has just made their first meal :), oh look a wild horse, a TELEPORTER HAS APPEARED ON YOUR LAWN. A FUTURE MAN STEPS OUT. HE NEEDS YOUR HELP. HELP HIM NOW!! GO TO THE FUTURE!! Oh hey you just got your first job! Congrats! Also there's now zombies in your yard. I want to explore expansions and new mechanics at my own pace (hell, I still haven't made my sims go on vacation yet in sims 2 despite having that ep for years!), so having them all swamp my notification bar and steal my camera to look at and just constant pop up in the first week of gameplay is... a lot. Every sims game has it's pros and cons, and each game fits certain playstyles more than others, but after only hearing the pros of the sims 3, it's VERY refreshing to hear someone say "it bombards you with micro transactions and it's ugly" Also I forgot about the micro transactions since when that first happened to me I instantly googled how to turn it all off.
I think the sims community is just like this about ts3 because of how badly ts4 was received. They took away coveted systems from ts3 and gave us a stripped down sims that was akin to ts2 with ts1 style static neighborhoods. Ts4 does have it's good points but to a lot of the older sims fans it just isn't enough. These are simply opinions though and just because it seems most fans agree just remember that it is ok to like something, even if it seems like everyone else don't. That said the sims community tends to forget the past a bit. What they remember is often the best bits, they never seem to remember (or perhaps refuses to think about),TS3 had LOADS of issues back when it was released it was a total crapshow, it use to get crapped on relentlessly. I remember the people who would scream and holler about it because their computer that they have had for 10 years wouldn't play ts3, bugs were/are bad. The modding community had to completely fix that game on their own to make it remotely playable. Still to this day even though EA still offers it for download and purchase from origin it still has game breaking bugs that can plague your game that have been there since the very beginning. People also didn't like how ts3 looked and felt compared to ts2 or ts1 even, ts3 probably had the least liked sims style. It was a fun game though despite those things once you could move past them. Every sims game has had its group of naysayers. When TS2 came out there were people against that one too because the sims died and woohoo became more prevalent. They thought it was too dark and mature. Not to mention the plethora of features ts2 was suppose to have and didn't, ts2 also had quite a bit of bugs and glitches.. I can't think of any sims game that didn't need the modding section of the community to fix something tbh lol. Point is it doesn't matter there will always be those who hate the new for not fulfilling some kind of standard.. It is what it is. Me personally i like them all for their own reasons. TS4 has a great foundation for an experience for living off the land for instance. Granted I use mods to fill this out even more .. but being able to basically have a homestead in a sims game is neat.. they can keep the starwars stuff though. I think the art style of the sims themselves is lack luster but i can't think of any sims game i didn't mod the sims in to a more preferable appearance, lol there is always something. All the sims games should be looked at as their own separate games imo..
As someone who's been around since sims 2, I actually prefer 4 over 3. 4 regulary gets fixes and unlike 3 mods I use are to inhance gameplay rather than to fix bugs and get the thing to function. I love sims 3 too there's things I love like the zombies and horses but I like the ease of play of 4. I actually LIKE not being totally bombarded with too many skills or things for sims to do that get used once or twice and that's it once a new ep comes out. But that's a personal thing, I don't expect others to feel that way.
For real, while I have my sentiments and memories with the third game, I love how they managed to bring genuinely unpopular critical points about it. And now that you bring up the bombardment thing, it also doesn't help when you have to use NRAAS mods to manage the open world to avoid the catharsis that eventually happens to avoid features you don't like or the sheer bloat and disorganization (depending on your judgement) that happens from autonomous progression around town. It will also never sit right with me how the DLCs and store content cost approximately 74,486.50 Dollars. That in my home country alone could get me a decent two story house in real life.
@@KH0LRA you can get a house for 74k? im not sure i can even get land for that
@@meikahidenori Totally agree. Sims (1) was literally one of the first games I've ever played and Sims 3 was right around my teen age when I literally devoured it. Yet, I prefer Sims 4. It lets me focus on my narrative and story. As hilarious as all the mishaps, etc. in Sims 3 are, it's just a few too many stones laid in my way. Maybe I've just grown old 😂😂
"Destroy this Innocent man's life," said no one ever about Don Lothario until now. XD
The "look at that tree" story really caught me off guard lmao. I'm near sighted, sometimes when I'm making art I will take my glasses off so I can get up close and personal with the details I'm making. It's really lead me to having an appreciation for the little details, I end up getting close to things to really appriciate the details. One thing I've done this many times with is trees lmao. He definitely could have sold the tree better, their interesting to look at in general, some more so than others, but when you get in close amd take in the millions of cracks running through them, the puzzle like features of the bark, the damage from nature as well as the mini ecosystems living in/on it, the veins in the leaves. The fact that some of them are connected at the roots making it a forest of ONE tree. There truly is beauty to be found everywhere, but sometimes you gotta be more specific for where to look 😅
That's lovely, thanks for sharing.
that second to last section hit close to home as i went through a depression where i played alot of sims while my house and responsibilities suffered
I've been playing Sims since the very first game (am playing Sims 3 right now while I wait for Sims 4 to do their big update). And while I see a lot of your points and enjoyed the video a lot (seriously, this was an incredible video and I respect you a ton for all the effort you went through for this), I do have to point out that a lot of it is projected through your own gaming biases. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, and certainly probably sounds obvious, but I kind of noticed because of how you analyzed the merits of the games versus how I do. In my opinion, Sims 3 is the best of them, but Sims 4 is my favorite. This is in NO WAY saying my opinion is right and yours is wrong. More, I'm just giving my own perspective on this. The reason my I think Sims 3 is the best one is because it legitimately has the most things to *do* as not just a Sim but a Sim family. I think the additions of a lot of individual skills (which plays into my love of Sims 4 as well) makes it so that making Sims into their own people instead of just game characters is far more prominent. And that's why I play these games, for the characters. It's the same reason I love Sims 4 so much. I feel like the characters become more and more of characters. All of the additions of new traits and skills and likes, as well as the more in-depth character creation, are very good for it. (Though I agree about the fears, they really need to fix those being so disconnected, and the music needs less sway on wants.) You're very much a goal-oriented gamer. Which there, of course, is nothing wrong with. I have friends that are much the same way. So I can see how 3 and 4 aren't as appealing to you. And again, that's fine. I feel like I started with a point then went off on a tangent, but hopefully I made it, lol. Basically, you made a lot of valid points and I see how you and other people feel about later games (especially Sims 4) how they do. But I also disagree that certain aspects, like more skills, are pointless to them, and that the games necessarily need to make a "point" or have a message. Sometimes a fun game can just be a fun game.
What’s gonna be the update for sims 4?
@Dorian Portillo Back when I made this comment, it was the Infants Update.
As someone who also really likes the Sims 3, I also agree that it has a lot of things to do, probably the most in any Sims game. I really liked that you could visit other people's homes, have a walk around the town, and visit the beach without having to go to a vacation destination or sit through a loading screen (some worlds had beaches in the main town). But yes, how much you enjoy the game really has everything to do with play styles. I play the Sims to relax and explore, and will often enjoy doing mundane things while roleplaying in a massive, immersive open world, something that goal oriented players may not enjoy as much. It is also why I like games like Subnautica and No Man's Sky- you are free to explore and relax, or take on a challenge if you want
Been playing the series since it started. I was in my early 20's when the first game launched, so I never had the childhood nostalgia for it. Years later, I still play the series for relaxation and fun.
Everytime i fall asleep on youtube i wake up to this playing.. ive already watch it in its entirety
This documentary is so well written and endowed with nostalgia. Over the series, I've only ever taken notice to the consumerist satire and replication of 1950s America present in the first installment. Taking the time to analyze the themes surrounding these games, I've pushed my memories aside and began to view them as influential works of art. Even though I may use the games to detach from reality, they also help me to understand the reality I'm trying to run away from...to understand human behaviors. My sim families are always wealthy, happy, compassionate and compatible, the polar opposite of my childhood. I always give my sims the best life that they could have, the life that I didn't get to experience. I found myself nodding in embarrassment during the 'Guilt' section, most Sims player acknowledge their addiction but choose to ignore it, and EA will squeeze our desperation dry. Enough bloviating, thank you for producing this video, I enjoyed it with occasional chuckles :)
Having just finished your video essay I want to say wow! you really did an amazing job analyzing not the just the game mechanics but the psychological grab for people and the mission of the corporation overlord that is EA . From the ages you gave I venture to guess we are around the same age and og sims was the second game (roller coaster tycoon of course was the first) that I really melted into. I really enjoyed and fiercely agree with your closing. I too missed out on sims 3 and 4 due to dark life experiences and being so supremely poor that when I finally tried playing sims 4 it was so foreign I got bored almost immediately. Although now I know, thanks to you, it was because minus dlc it's empty and I feel build mode is the main reason to play it. Living in a time when the wage gap is going the opposite direction and houses, cars, and vacations are just dreams I agree that the predatory dlc mill they created with Sims 4 is not just awful but should be criminal. I am not and never was a fan of micro-transactions. Horse armor be damned. DLC is pushing the line for me but with most games it does give enough, and I don't mind supporting the devs but not the way it's been pushed with Sims 4. Any little item or clothes has been pushed as DLC when I could do that on blender. That's how you know it's not worth paying for lol. I feel old for saying this but I also worry that kids who are actually teens or young adults now are just so used to micro transactions that they aren't aware that they have the power to push against them or can't envision what life is like without them so don't care enough to push back against them. As a psychology grad student and a therapy graduate ( got my sanity card and all lol), I really want to thank you for calling to attention that headspace is important when playing certain games. Especially with ADHD I have adhd and hyperfocus is real forgetting all our real life needs till they are urgent getting lost in the abyss whether happy or spiraling downward. That "the sims should be aspirational not create desperation". (your quote should be on a shirt or something) There was reason I played so many hours as a kid but in the end it's ourselves (mixed with therapy for some) that make our lives what we want them to be and striving for contentment is much better than living a plastic corporatized "dream" people compare themselves to inside the sims or elsewhere. Thank you so much for this wonderful analysis! I'm subscribing so the next time i catch a video when published and not 4 months later lol oh and my black cat is named Mr. Kitty Phd (he's a sociologist lol)
Excellent video so far! I’ve paused to comment in the midst of The Sims 2 section as that’s my game of choice - my channel is actually all Sims 2 speed builds in a highly modded game, which is pretty standard for people playing the game today (it’s quite an active and dedicated community still!). But I’ve been playing TS2 since release, and TS1 before that - my earliest memory of it was installing Sim City 3000 with my mom as a kid and seeing that initial trailer you showed near the beginning of the video. This series has been such a big part of my life (even though I never played 3 and 4, there is so much cross game conversion and just osmosis between the series if you’re active in the player community) so it’s wonderful to see such a well researched and dedicated video to its glory!
2:00:00 You've probably figured it out by now, but you have to click the eyeball area to change the eye colour. And if you have glasses on, you either go to the outfit category that doesn't allow glasses in (like swimwear) and click the eye from there, or rotate the sim to be able to click the eye from the side.
When I first saw this video I thought you were a well known video essay channel of 700k subscribers. can't believe you're only 2k! with a video of this quality i think you deserve much more than that. I'm excited for what's in the future, and thank you for the video :)
Damn I hope your channel blows up soon!! These types of videos rock.
absolutely shoked to see how little subs and likes this channel has! this video is so interesting and well explained, i have never played the sims 1, 2 or 3 but the mechanics and experiences were explained very clearly and i was able to understand everything - the editing was also very nice. really good video!
Thank you so much!
Awesome video!! I'm a lifetime sims player. I think The Sims 3 is the best game in the franchise overall. There are some details that you didn't go over, but awesome video overall. I think you could make an entire video on the sims 3 and go into extreme detail. There is so much to that game and lots to discover. PS I'm glad you found the way to turn off the micro transactions, those were not added until near the end of the game's life cycle.
I love the Sims 3. It's my favorite sims game. You nailed it, I've never heard someone described it so perfectly. On that note, most of your comments can by mitigated with mods nowadays.
I just got through this whole video and it was amazing. I love sims and hearing your analysis scratched an itch I didn’t know I had
Thanks!
It was a long video, but very rewarding to watch it all. As someone who had played 3/4 of the games, I didn't think about the game from a game design perspective. I had a lot of fun watching it and going "Ohh thats why I enjoyed x more than x, it was the game design!" Keep up the good work :)
The career rewards in The Sims 2 occur between level 4 and 6 of any given career, not level 10. They do assist the sim in that career.
I remember being 29 in 1999 and thinking what a weird concept to be “playing Sims…or having a simulated existence that we would play on the computer. Fastforward to 2017 and my wife tells me to go play “Sims 3”. Yeah, now I’m friggin’ hooked.
When I got the sims, yes the orginal I'm that old, I played it for 24 hours straight. Then when I slept I dreamt I was still playing it. I was that hooked. Also Sims 3 back in the day was not so microtransactions in game at the start. That all came later.
I did love Sims 2 as a kid. Then I watched my cousin playing Sims 3. Both I loved with my little brain. Now playing Sims 4 as an adult I thought maybe Sims wasn't as I remembered it, being boring. But looking back at Sims 2 & Sims 3 I realized little me loved the gameplay the most. I was never into building at all, & I liked making people in the games & myself but not spending too much time on it. Gameplay being what I loved is what was lacking in Sims 4 the most. Mods did help though, glad some people taught me how to do that.
I got to say, how you feel about not having an SO and kids really stands out to me. I've gotten so much crap for not wanting to have kids and I'm glad others are being unapologetic about their desires. I see you and I'm grateful for you sharing your story.❤
Listening to your life story was actually pretty relaxing, thanks for the build mode section!