Growing up I feel fortunate to have all the games I had available to me, mostly because of my older sisters. Between all the systems and games that we had, as a young primary schooler I found myself mostly fighting over the old computer we had in our study. I used to sit behind my sister who would be playing the Sims waiting for those ‘5 minutes’ until it was my turn, and however many years later I am just as or even more obsessed with the game and how much it has expanded over the years. But is it technically a forgotten game? The original Sims was published in the year 2000, followed by the Sims 2 in 2004. For those who haven’t played or maybe even heard of the Sims, the game is a strategic life simulation video game.
So how would I form an analytical framework using this forgotten game. Through the game you can create people and households, build towns and houses. But in the original sims, the options of how much you could change was limited, and you would be able to buy the expansions to be able to add features to the game. I always found the installation part the hardest, whereas in today’s Sims 4 it can be downloaded straight from the Origin software straight to your computer. So the first part of my analytical framework would come from gameplay, how it is played, where it is played, and how the original game be played.
The game was played primarily on PC or Mac. but was also available on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Boy, Nintendo Ds and so much more. This made the game very versatile and each platform would have its own features. Commonly the game is used simply with your computer mouse and you would insert the game disk to install and play. Nostalgia definitely comes to mind when discussing the original game. Although it is a struggle to play the original in today’s world, there seems to be a range on youtube videos where you can relive its former glory. It would be interesting to see if others still feel the same connection to the original game play to the new and improved.
The sims have grown from this original to now the sims 4 where the original game play still comes to life. Will they possibly keep growing this game series? So when it comes to analysing this forgotten game it is important that I recognise the games progress into what it has developed into today. The newest version (The Sims 4) has surpassed over 33 million players. Whereas the original Sims sold over 200 million copies worldwide. As each Sims version came to life the original slowly became forgotten, and most players of today may not even know the origin of the game. Creating a youtube video or starting a twitch stream would be ideal to continue sharing with a public audience.
ediTORIal. 