The Sims4Network

The Sims is a casual life simulation video game series developed by Electronic Arts and later by The Sims Studio published by Electronic Arts. It is one of the most successful video games series of all time. As of May 2011, the franchise has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide, and is also the best-selling PC franchise in history.

The games in The Sims series are largely sandbox games, in that they lack any defined goals (except for some later expansion packs and console versions which introduced this gameplay style). The player creates virtual people called "Sims" and places them in houses and helps direct their moods and satisfy their desires. Players can either place their Sims in pre-constructed homes or build them themselves. Each successive expansion pack and game in the series augmented what the player could do with their Sims.

The Sims is the first game in the series. Developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts, it was released for Microsoft Windows in February 2000. The game uses isometric projection and features open-ended simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual persons ("Sims") in a suburban area near SimCity. Seven expansion packs and two bonafide deluxe editions with exclusive content have been released for this game. It was repackaged in several different formats and different versions of it were released on several different platforms. By March 22, 2002, The Sims had sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling P.C. game in history, surpassing Myst. The original game, all seven expansion packs, and the two exclusive deluxe edition content packs constitute the first generation of the series on the PC. All PC releases in this generation were developed by Maxis.