The Sims is 25 years old. So how did a game that started as a tiny spin-off become a cultural phenomenon?

Jey recalls the feeling of playing The Sims for the first time more than two decades ago, completely immersed in the world of building digital dollhouses. She said, "I just thought it was so cool that you could control a simulated world, a life that wasn't your own, but you could create your own life within the game."

"I would sit there and [watch my sister play](https://www.instagram.com/p/DFjq-AoJ6Mb/) for hours, and then when it was finally my turn, I would sit there and play for hours more. It's addicting because there's so much you can do in the game." JeyJey Bink, a professional game creator, streams herself playing The Sims 4 online, attracting thousands of fans. The game also inspired her to further her studies.

"I actually applied to be an interior architect, and I also applied to architecture courses because I loved building houses in The Sims growing up." She said, "You have a blank plot of land, and you can draw walls, add windows and doors, and design your own architectural style, and that showed me those possibilities." The Sims has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, a quarter of a century of building houses, developing relationships, and sparking creativity.

Many people who grew up playing The Sims will remember a strange quirk: you could use cheat codes to remove the ladder from the swimming pool and let your Sims drown. Jini Maxwell, a games curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), says it's these unexpected scenarios that have had a big impact on people. ACMI is hosting a special event celebrating the Y2K aesthetic of the early 2000s and the nostalgia of the game series.

Maxwell said, "The Sims created a domestic sandbox that fostered a lot of social, creative and imaginative play, and I think that gives you a sense of control." She added, "The Sims lets you hone a skill or develop a skill, lets you explore different social dynamics, you know, exorcise demons, remove swimming pool ladders."

While the video game series has had approximately 500 million players to date, it was initially thought to be a relatively niche spin-off of the popular city-building and planning game series SimCity (created by designer Will Wright). Maxwell believes that this smaller scope meant that some game design decisions ended up being very groundbreaking socially, including [the first same-sex kiss to appear in a video game](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-kiss-that-changed-video-games).

"The Sims wasn't originally envisioned as a big-budget, high-production video game," they said. "So when engineer Jamie Doornbos decided that same-sex relationships would be an option, no one really saw a reason not to, no one really saw a reason to remove it."

Game researcher Jacqueline Burgess says The Sims' sense of humor and degree of wish fulfillment make it widely and enduringly appealing, especially to women and girls. "The Sims is funny in many ways," she said. "The tone of the game is satirical and tongue-in-cheek, and the fact that the whole game is a satire of suburbia - that makes the game and its humor familiar and accessible to players."

"For some people, it's also a dream simulator: maybe you live in an apartment or in the city, but you can move your Sims into the suburban dream home. By entering cheat codes, you can build and buy all sorts of house combinations, which gives players a lot of autonomy and control." She added, "Because the game focuses on creativity, it also attracts and will continue to attract female players, who, while they make up almost half of all video game players, are not traditionally thought of as gamers."

Maxwell says these games continue to evolve along with society. "Video game history is not just technological history, it's also cultural history, and thinking about it in that way is a way of humanizing the experience, both for players and developers," they said. "In addition to the shocking and scandalous same-sex kiss, recent expansion packs have introduced polyamorous relationships, because that's part of the cultural zeitgeist now."

"The Sims is a really perfect example of how games are constantly expanding and reflecting the society we're in." EA Presents: The Sims 25th Anniversary will be held at ACMI from February 21-23. A ticketed panel discussion about the game will be held on Saturday, February 22 at ACMI.