I've been gaming since Atari and with puters since my brother built his first one. I played Kings Quest which was on a floppy disk when I was on break from school. I have a feeling we around the same age. I played mostly text based games as well as RPG's once Nintendo came out, so it was not the Sims that drew me into gaming. It is the fantasy and the stories that you become a part of that fascinates me.
I did not play Sims until Sims 3 in 2012, although I did play several versions of Sim City prior to that. I loved playing dress up when I was a girl and messing with my dolls and barbies. My sims are my adult dolls and yep, I love telling stories with them. I spend as much time picking outfits and decorating the houses as I do telling their stories and adventures. I love all facets of the game and have stayed with Sims 3 as it suits me much better than version 4.
Female here. I was just as likely to be found playing video games with my dad and little brother as I was playing barbie dolls, also with my brother. Our first console was the Sega Genesis and we would spend hours taking turns playing Sonic, Mrs. Pac-man and the original Mortal Kombat. We eventually moved on to ps1/ps2 where our games of choice Gauntlet, Tomb Raider, Bust-A-Groove, WWE Wrestling games, Crash Bandicoot, Kingdom Hearts, and many others. My brother would also play dolls with me and we had just as much fun doing that as playing video games.
I started to play the sims because it combined my love of video games with my love of dolls so I kinda see the argument of it being a virtual dollhouse and don't find it inaccurate. I love playing the game but my favorite thing to do is to make sims in CAS. Both my dad and brother love making sims as well but while my brother will play for a little while, my dad will stop there and not play the game at all. So I don't really think its a gender thing just personal preference.
Have a super fantastic awesome splendid amazing day! -TheQxxn
The game is a sandbox and you play it how you want. It's a dollhouse for some, a building or time management for others and something else for even more others. Mods allows for even more customization. The sims has always have a broad mass appeal.
I have to agree with the people who say that old gaming = exclusively male player base is a skewed stereotype. Something that people don't really think about or realize, is that we're talking about a long gaming era filled with male-oriented societal control and perspectives. Game developers were almost exclusively male so they catered to predominantly male ideals of entertainment, right down to avatar designs where most lead characters were male, overly buff, gritty, and full of testosterone, and if female, they were designed to appease the "male gaze" so they were excessively curvaceous, skimpily clad, beautiful, and almost always in need of assistance by men. I can tell you that those tropes just didn't appeal to me personally, and I would avoid most of those games (if I could) with an eyeroll. And socially, boys could be quite harsh with girl gamers because, in my experience, if they didn't know you, you had to "prove" yourself to them, and they just couldn't wait to mock your mistakes. So I think that a lot of girls/women went kind of underground with their gaming hobby. I know that when I played MMOs like City of Heroes, Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft, I would pretend to be male to avoid instant discrimination and/or harassment, and I knew other gals who did this too. Even in my tabletop games, I've had DMs who disallowed what they called "gender bending", which was playing a character of the opposite sex. Apparently, too many females wanted to avoid the sexist tropes by playing males. But I also think that, had earlier games catered a little more to creativity, balance, or diverse interests it would have seemed more "normal" to have girls and women who were gamers. we wanted to be gamers. We just weren't always interested in what was offered.
My gaming journey actually began with the classic tabletop, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons when I was at the end of high school. Yeah, it was with a group of boys, but they didn't even blink when I chose to play a fumbling, male thief (I'm female and a proclaimed "Tom Boy") and that was the beginning of a lifelong love for tabletop gaming. I've always had male buddies since I was a child and I never liked playing "house" or "mommy" with babydolls. I remember a time when I was about seven, out in front of my building looking for something to do, and a little girl was playing "House" and asked me to play...it lasted about ten minutes, lol. There was a ruckus and a roar coming from around the building and one boy was chasing another because they were playing "monster", and I abandoned the little girl to join that game instead. The first thing they wanted to do was make me the victim who got devoured, to which I protested that I wanted to destroy the monster, and we finally came to an agreement that while the other boy distracted "it" with an attack, I could at least make an escape. I was a little miffed because I didn't think they played very fairly, lol. It's funny to think of the things that stick in your mind from childhood.
As for tech gaming, I used to manage a retro arcade that had all kinds of vintage games and I got really good at Golden Axe, could beat the game on one token, using only one life, with any of the characters. Then I got my first console, a vintage Sega Genesis, that was given to me by a friend because he wasn't playing it anymore due to the Playstation craze, and I absolutely loved it. I actually still have it and all the awesome games I collected and played, like Shining Force 2, Master of Monsters, X-Men, The Tick, Shadowrun, Toe Jam and Earl (a favorite), Rastan, and others. I've been wanting to hook it back up for another go at nostalgia.
I was a little late to the PC gaming craze. My first PC game was Vampire the Masquerade, which was now my favorite tabletop game of the same name (and still is. They just released a new edition last year!) But this was the game that actually "forced" me to buy my first desktop PC. I had to play it. This opened a new world of PC gaming, though I had played a couple of really old, vintage games on an ex boyfriend's old computer that were hilarious; Tank Wars and Worms. Worms was especially awesome because we could have up to four people play it at a time and we could name our teams and throw bombs at each other and have people switch out. But once I entered the PC gaming world, I still stuck to mainly RPG style games, like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, etc and a few MMOs and, of course, Vampire's Bloodlines. (There's a new one coming out this year, Bloodlines 2! Squee!) And I learned how to connect and play with other people via LAN gaming.
As for The Sims, I remember my ex boyfriend playing a Sim City game (not sure which version) and just watching in fascination. But it looked way too complicated for me so I didn't play it myself, but I considered it. He told me about The Sims and said it was a pretty good game, but honestly, I thought the concept was kind of stupid, lol. I don't think he made it sound interesting because he didn't mention the Grim Reaper or the satire of it. I remember asking, "why in the world would anyone want to play out a person going to work and living a normal life? Just go live your life!" So I didn't have a very high opinion of the concept. To me, it sounded like "playing House" all over again. Boring. But...
I got deeply into Final Fantasy 7 and it's extensive storyline, had the Advent Children digital movie and used to research all of the easter eggs, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, Before Crisis, and hidden background stories, etc. I really fell in love with all of the characters. Strangely, this led me to Sims 2 via a Youtube video of someone who had used custom content to make FF7 characters in their Sims game and I just freaked out. I watched the gameplay and was immediately obsessed with it. The Youtuber had put links to the CC and pack that they had, and I promptly bought Sims 2 Deluxe with the Holiday Stuff extra disc and Nightlife and downloaded the CC. It was the beginning of a long-term love affair and I eventually bought every pack for Sims 2 and, using all of the amazing CC out there, was able to create an amalgamation of my nerdy life in one Sims world that included Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, FF7, The Tick, X-Men, Dark Elves, LoTR, Steampunk, villains, heroes, punk, gothic, my Sim self and companions, and anything else I could dream up. It was my own personal, geeky paradise.
So you could say that I sometimes play "House" with my Sims, only the characters are a little stranger. But I still prefer to have drama and adventure in my games and playing "Monster" or with my beloved Vampires, rather than playing domestically. And I still love to create Sims, probably even more than I used to because the Sims 4 allows for more flexibility and diversity of appearance in CAS without CC, and even some fantastical designs, if you own the right packs, so I can create them all myself instead of finding someone else's design and downloading it. And now, after all these years, I'm even finding a brand new interest for building. I had tried it before in Sims 2, but it seemed very complicated and I couldn't maneuver it very well. And although I'm still quite an amateur in that, I'm still proud that I've successfully built my first complete house and am working on a tiny mushroom house now, lol. So my play style continues to expand, which I'm grateful for.
It's been quite a gaming journey and although I still dabble in other games like TESO online, The Secret World, Fe and some others, I always come back "home" to the same two ongoing games: The Sims 4 and Lord of the Rings Online (which is turning 13 this year!) Maybe one day I'll look into getting Sims 2 optimized on Windows 10 when I have the time.
I'm female and I started with pong, nintendo mario bros, and my favoutite The kings quests series by Seirra shortly after that Sim City and then The Sims. Also I was introduced to these games by females and none of my male friends were ever interested in video games. As to this day most of the people I know who play video games are female.
@davina1221 My husband and I always played dr. Mario against each other at level 17 and 18 It would get quite intense. Unfortunately our T.V. is unable to play this game now. We still have it sitting on our shelf beside the t.v. and talk about figuring out how we can hook it up to our 55 inch screen. It's the only game he every played.
I have always shared my gaming life with my sisters. Twins, they will be 53 next month. One plays over my shoulder in The Sims every week. The other has introduced me to most of my online games, and it was actually her daughter who got me into The Sims. This shared experience goes way back to childhood and Atari games like Pitfall, and arcade games as well. Also, table-top roleplaying games, which we actually began playing separately, but about the same time.
That gaming was seen as a male hobby, and marketed toward boys, doesn't change the fact that girls and women have played all along.
Further, I have always turned to the phrase "electronic dollhouse" when I describe how I play The Sims. Sure, it's story for me. But I do spend lavish amounts of time on design - clothing and interiors. My Simming sister doesn't bother - if it's functional, it's fine. Since we're under the EA umbrella here, I'll mention the housing system in Star Wars: The Old Republic, in that game called "Strongholds". I spend a significant amount of my in-game currency on decorating my home base, and also rather a lot on making my characters dress like I want. My sister who also plays? Well, she doesn't.
Pirateer Bucky Jaxo raiding an adrenal refinery with a Mandalorian accomplice, Hutt Cartel security footage, Quesh
(Some of my characters get a biography for roleplaying purposes. Bucky gets a rap-sheet. But I digress.)
My Simming sis only really enjoys watching me play what she calls the "barbie-doll" aspect of my MMOs, but the MMO-ing twin has no time for it. And even the Simming twin enjoys other games - like Tropico, a Sim City type build game where you manage a small Caribbean island. But of us three, I am the doll house player.
Now, some would say, "interior design and fashion? How gay!" and a superficial glance at my posting history, my households and so on would confirm "Yeah. So what?" Gaming is not a gendered activity. That's all projection, and social pressures (namely, economics and marketing) skewing results. I am not a fashionista in real life. But I am a giant nerd - and I maintain that gaming is nerdy, in the best sense of the word.
So I challenge some of the assumptions of the original post. I will readily admit that The Sims did have an unanticipated success, and likely does appeal to a broader demographic than your typical shoot-em-up. But I also contend that other games have similarly broken those barriers by finding an unexpectedly broad audience - while it is perhaps past its prime, World of Warcraft was runaway success story, and yes, among both men and women. And where we have these breakout games, it is because they have unexpected, broad, general appeal, which reminds us - to the bafflement of Marketing, who likes niche demographics to market to - gaming is (and always has been) for everyone.
Female here. I play the Sims as a semi "dollhouse"- I like to use CAS as a character creation tool for my writing. I can spend hours creating, shopping for CC hair/clothes/shoes, etc, and perfecting a Sim's look. My Sims also get backstories (usually) unless they're a throwaway for starting up a fresh save. I'm not a family player or a builder.
I'm female and I started with pong, nintendo mario bros, and my favoutite The kings quests series by Seirra shortly after that Sim City and then The Sims. Also I was introduced to these games by females and none of my male friends were ever interested in video games. As to this day most of the people I know who play video games are female.
@davina1221 My husband and I always played dr. Mario against each other at level 17 and 18 It would get quite intense. Unfortunately our T.V. is unable to play this game now. We still have it sitting on our shelf beside the t.v. and talk about figuring out how we can hook it up to our 55 inch screen. It's the only game he every played.
They now sell a system on eBay that has most all the games preloaded. That might help.
I remember when my dad showed up at home with a spectrum zx back in 84. It was my first gaming experience. Me (female) and my brothers played together for hours. All kinds of games, fight games, war games, rpg, puzzle, adventure... all kind. Always together. We got into simcity, sim ant and so on in the 90's. In 2000 i found out about the sims in a gaming magazine. I bought it but i played alone. One of my brothers didn't play any more. The other got into simulation games, but he never got interested in the sims. I did. I don't play the sims as a dollhouse though. I can't care less about cas and build mode. I do whatever i have to do in cas and bb mode quickly just to make it functional.I play the sims as a game. That's maybe why im not that much into sims 4, i find it too much of a dollhouse with great graphics but not that much of a game.
I didn't begin gaming until 2005. I can't drink Ensure because they put Soy into it! (I'm allergic.) Else, it might be helpful. I'll be officially a "Seasoned Citizen" in a very short time. I'm not afraid to admit I'll be the big 65. Yes, I'm a female and I don't give a wit about how 'old' I am because age is just a number. And it's a crying shame that we can't 'talk' about how the Sims changed the gaming market. I hate this PC crappola. It's just another way to control the conversation, frankly. To shut down the dissenting opinion.
First of all, I love this type of discussion. OP: thank you for a thoughtful post.
I always feel that the Sims franchise is not only a game changer, but an industry game changer. Starting with SimCity (Sims Ant?) in 1989 and the Sims in 2000, the game industry (well, some companies anyway) realized a potential for combat-free/minimal combat type of game. Alternatively in Japan, the first Harvest Moon was released in 1996 which I like to think is the genesis of combat-free farming sims of today.
When I was a kid, "video games" in our house meant Zelda or Street Fighter or Mortal Combat. To be honest, they bore me. I played enough of them as a kid with my siblings to know that I was not (still am not) into them. I even ignored mmorpg during their heyday. Although most in my social circle played some sort of mmorpg one time or another, I had zero interest in playing them. Thankfully I discovered Sims and later, point-and-click puzzle-based adventure games. Without them I would not have gamed at all. And I would have grown up into a very weird nerd. I mean have you ever heard of a nerd who loves math and science and work as an engineer but don't game at all? Egad!
I didn't begin gaming until 2005. I can't drink Ensure because they put Soy into it! (I'm allergic.) Else, it might be helpful. I'll be officially a "Seasoned Citizen" in a very short time. I'm not afraid to admit I'll be the big 65. Yes, I'm a female and I don't give a wit about how 'old' I am because age is just a number. And it's a crying shame that we can't 'talk' about how the Sims changed the gaming market. I hate this PC crappola. It's just another way to control the conversation, frankly. To shut down the dissenting opinion.
First of all, I love this type of discussion. OP: thank you for a thoughtful post.
I always feel that the Sims franchise is not only a game changer, but an industry game changer. Starting with SimCity (Sims Ant?) in 1989 and the Sims in 2000, the game industry (well, some companies anyway) realized a potential for combat-free/minimal combat type of game. Alternatively in Japan, the first Harvest Moon was released in 1996 which I like to think is the genesis of combat-free farming sims of today.
When I was a kid, "video games" in our house meant Zelda or Street Fighter or Mortal Combat. To be honest, they bore me. I played enough of them as a kid with my siblings to know that I was not (still am not) into them. I even ignored mmorpg during their heyday. Although most in my social circle played some sort of mmorpg one time or another, I had zero interest in playing them. Thankfully I discovered Sims and later, point-and-click puzzle-based adventure games. Without them I would not have gamed at all. And I would have grown up into a very weird nerd. I mean have you ever heard of a nerd who loves math and science and work as an engineer but don't game at all? Egad!
I'm with you, I'll be 65 in July and I'm a female and I love the sims.
I think the Sims introduced a lot of people to PC games in general and is a big factor in the creation of simulation games as a genre but I don't know if it really introduced women into gaming. But then again I was approximately 7 when the Sims 1 base game came out in 1999 so maybe this would apply to older generations more. But by the time the Sims came out I was already pretty acquainted with playing video games due to the massive Pokemon popularity boom and my mom letting my play Zelda on her old NES. Nintendo games were extremely popular with both genders and girls especially were really into Tamagotchi and Neopets. And I had plenty of Barbie PC games because a lot of companies realized in the mid 90s they were missing a huge chunk on of revenue by not marketing video games to little girls as well as boys. In fact the whole "women aren't interested in gaming" really started as a marketing technique in the 80s! Nintendo is often credited with starting the unfortunate trend when they decided to market the NES as a boy's toy rather than a gaming console. Which on one hand saved the industry but on the other caused a lot of discrimination against women within it. (Source)
So I think The Sims was released during a wider movement of advertising to women and girls but not necessarily the primary reason more women got into gaming.
Unrelated I got interested in the Sims because I thought lighting stuff on fire was funny (what this says about younger me I don't know).
Contrary to my avatar, I'm a guy. When I was a snot-nosed youngster - personal computing was practically non-existent. In 1976 when I was in Grade 1, Wozniak just managed to figure out his Apple 1. It would be 1977 before the Apple II was released and even then it was so expensive that my parents wouldn't bother buying one. I'd be eyeing the Commodore 1530 at our school, thinking, "Man...that's a computer..." I remember my dad scoffing that video games were a waste of time and that time could be better used studying. Asian families for ya... If you're not a Dr. Doogie Howser by the time you're 16... you're an abysmal failure. So no Atari VCS for me. And of course that was the same year that they brought out the TRS "Trash" 80 (nope...didn't get that...and no PET (Commodore) either).
About the only thing that I'd get to do every ONCE in a blue moon was to play an arcade console that was scattered around places like the laundromat or in threes at the shopping mall. And we played Asteroids...or the very basic line-graphics Star Wars Trench Run.
And frankly...some of the best Asteroids players I've seen were women.
My games growing up were Asteroids, Pong, Zaxxon, SW Trench Run and believe me...that's definitely dating myself.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
As I recall, my main reason for not playing many computer games when I was a girl was that we only had one computer in the house and my brother and mom were always hogging it.
And back before flat screen LCD monitors, I couldn't use a computer very long without getting a bad headache. The old ray-trace monitors really bothered my eyes for some reason. So I tended to use our computer only in short bursts, and once my brother or mom got on the machine it was hard to get another chance.
But the OP is right in that a lot of the type of games back then didn't appeal much to me anyway. There were a few though. When I was able to get time on the computer, I played Tetris and other similar games, and I loved playing this one point and click adventure series that I think was called Space Quest. I was (still am) a huge sci-fi and fantasy nerd, and I love satire and parodies of stories I am familiar with, so Space Quest, which poked fun at Star Wars, Star Trek, and various other works in those genres was right up my alley.
I was really intrigued by the detailed 3D buildings and labyrinths in the early first person shooter games, but I had no interest in fighting enemies. So when I was in college, my brother (who had by then learned a lot of programming) modded one of the popular shooter games of the time (I forget which one) and created a whole new three volume game series just for me that involved spying on and sneaking past the bad guys instead of fighting them. We just called it the "Spy Game", and it was totally awesome, because he's both a good programmer and a great storyteller. That was probably one of the coolest and most elaborate "homemade" gifts anyone has ever given me.
Sims 3 and Sims 4 are the only other games I have every really gotten hooked on. Mainly, my problem with most other games I've tried is that they don't let me use my own imagination enough. The sims games do, so they're much more fun for me than other games.
As a female nerd I bought my ZX Spectrum for £99 (16 KB version as I couldn't afford the better 48KB version), at an Ideal Home show in the '80s in London and might have seen Sinclair there as he had just started selling it. I also bought the printer with the black print on silver paper and the tape peripherals to go with it eventually.
The fun was making your own programs and there were many magazines and much tearing out of hair when I couldn't get the game to play properly and found out later that it was a magazine misprint. Those spiral bound books were the best to copy codes out of as they lay flat. I learned a bit of Sinclair BASIC, played Jet pac and Pac man
I ended up with a whole ottoman full of games, manuals and peripherals and gave away the lot to a charity some time ago.
The main problem with it was having to fight for access to the television when my brother was home and broken or scrambled tapes and I eventually defected to the BBC micro at work, the Atari. and then a Compaq laptop where I favoured the Adventure 'what do I do now' types,
The best thing about being in at the (almost) start was that it gave me great kudos at work at the time I remember!
I agree that few females were much interested at the start but I didn't worry about that and, yes, I did see The Sims as a kind of dolls house as I never had one of my own as a child and bought it immediately it came out.
I remember playing pinball machines in the late 60s. As I grew up I would play arcade games whenever I went out with my siblings but once I discovered travel I didn't have much time for it although my siblings and I would occasionally play them after eating out well into the 80s. My brother was interested in computers and I remember playing the occasional game but that didn't last long because he married and took his computer with him. I can't remember when it was but I won a $1000 shopping spree at a big department store and, as part of that spree, I bought a Super Nintendo. I was already a fully fledged adult at that point as was my sister but she would come over after work and we would play together for hours. Timeline is vague but I also remember having a Gameboy at some point.
I was still spending most of my money traveling up until 1999 when I married (yeah, late starter) but some time in the early 90s I put aside enough money to buy my first PC. I can't remember what games I played but my favourite game in the 90s was Creatures. Breeding and raising those adorable little Norns has probably influenced my Sim play style. I am not into dressing up my sims since I don't have any interest in clothes/makeup but I do love big families and playing sims from cradle to grave. I also remember playing and enjoying SimCity and a couple of the later ones but, by then, I was married and raising a child and games didn't really figure much in my life. I was living in America when I married but would go home to Australia for a couple months each year. My husband tried The Sims while I was visiting home in the early 2000s but didn't like it and left the disc on my desk. I installed it on my return and played a little but found it hard to keep my sims happy so didn't get far into it. I saw an ad for TS2 and decided to give it a try since my son was no longer a baby and didn't take up so much of my time. I spent many hours playing TS2 with my son on my lap and I loved it! When TS3 came out I rushed out to buy it as soon as it became available. I don't even want to think about how many hours I have put into the game - probably more than is healthy and haven't lost interest yet. I have often thought of it as a digital dollhouse but only in the way I play it. For others it is a creative outlet, be it building or story writing.
My son played it for a short time when he was younger but has since moved on to what he considers to be "real" games. I know there are many male players but I can see how it could be more attractive to females. Perhaps female gaming has become more common as time was freed up by changing cooking styles - I don't remember any "meal on the table in 10 minutes" when I was young - and improvements to household appliances. Now I can play while my clothes practically wash and dry themselves instead of having to put the washing through the hand turned wringer and then the time spent hanging it outside, bringing it in and ironing it.
I've never seen Sims as a dollhouse. But for me Sims is something to fulfill my very first job wishes, which was an architect and interior designer. Later I've learnt some else, but here I can romp without risking a marriage crisis, in due re-arrange everything withing weeks. In cas instead, I'm getting very impatient if it takes too long. In reallife I'm not interested in clothes and makeup either.
Boys played with dolls back in the 70's. Little green army dolls, barbie sized dolls with buzz cuts and cowboy hats and my favorite, crazy dolls that came with air pump rocket motorcycles. But they sure got mad if you called any of those dolls. Easiest way ever to tease my brother. I have always wondered how many of those guys grew up and found the Sims.
but I do think the sims did make woman more comfortable with idea of trying gaming because it has things we like in it
I've always liked gi joe dolls as well as barbie my most played sim is male
even if there were always women playing games it help women who didn't know that
start playing
I have never thought as computing being something only men were into. I suppose that's because I was in more or less at the start of the games' machine era. As a library student then, in the '60s we were all talking about more serious uses for computers than games, for cataloguing books instead of card cataloguing.
Other things were more important to us women generally like book censorship, women's freedom and popstars! I think girls got a bit more interested in the latter two to think about games then!
What makes the Sims franchise so different from more traditional games, in my opinion, is the fact it has universal appeal. As humans we are incurably nosy about our fellow humans regardless of our age or gender. What better then than a game which allows us to set up scenarios with miniature humans and then watch all their activity. Long may it continue.
I think this life simulation game has helped break down the barriers of gaming being the exclusive territory of the young. I think it works as an introduction to gaming for both young and old. I had never really considered gaming until my forties and it was the Sims that got me started. I will also say it was my nephew who introduced me to it and while I have been happy to go on playing dolls house he has moved on to games which appeal to him more.
I will add that it has also made me learn a great deal more about computers. As the OP said home computers were very rare when I was young and it was not until my twenties that I started using one for work. Now I have a very good idea of what my next computer should be capable of in order to run TS3 properly. All other considered uses for the computer are secondary to this
I never thought my gaming life would dictate so much. This brings me to my final point that the Sims, like most games, is addictive. Maybe this is because you, the player are in control, or the fact the game is open ended. In my case I suspect it has more to do with the fact that I am not only ancient but incurably nosy.
I no longer use Origin or My Page. You can find me on YouTube or Twitter as Bettyboop711000. You are welcome to contact me as I explore options for a PC sandbox life simulation game.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Regardless what others think ... gender has nothing to do with my gaming experience. My first experience with a console game was Atari. It was around 1978 and it came with 3 games. My grown up brother bought it and I used to play it when we went to his house. Just say that pong was boring but I enjoyed Space Invaders and not sure what the other game was. The first console I bought on my own was Nintendo w/the game pad. I bought a Dreamcast for my kids plus more through the years. My first computer game was Sim Ant.
The Sims 1 and 2 were more like a doll house for me. Now The Sims 4 is just an open ended life simulation. IMO it has been saved by mods right now. Such a creative and hard working bunch! I am sure the Gurus will fix issues but for now mods do it for them. I can say the same thing for The Sims 3 because it never worked long enough to play much of anything. It always crashed after a couple of hours. It finally ran well with the right mods but by then 4 came out.
Regardless what others think ... gender has nothing to do with my gaming experience. My first experience with a console game was Atari. It was around 1978 and it came with 3 games. My grown up brother bought it and I used to play it when we went to his house. Just say that pong was boring but I enjoyed Space Invaders and not sure what the other game was. The first console I bought on my own was Nintendo w/the game pad. I bought a Dreamcast for my kids plus more through the years. My first computer game was Sim Ant.
The Sims 1 and 2 were more like a doll house for me. Now The Sims 4 is just an open ended life simulation. IMO it has been saved by mods right now. Such a creative and hard working bunch! I am sure the Gurus will fix issues but for now mods do it for them. I can say the same thing for The Sims 3 because it never worked long enough to play much of anything. It always crashed after a couple of hours. It finally ran well with the right mods but by then 4 came out.
Comments
I've been gaming since Atari and with puters since my brother built his first one. I played Kings Quest which was on a floppy disk when I was on break from school. I have a feeling we around the same age. I played mostly text based games as well as RPG's once Nintendo came out, so it was not the Sims that drew me into gaming. It is the fantasy and the stories that you become a part of that fascinates me.
I did not play Sims until Sims 3 in 2012, although I did play several versions of Sim City prior to that. I loved playing dress up when I was a girl and messing with my dolls and barbies. My sims are my adult dolls and yep, I love telling stories with them. I spend as much time picking outfits and decorating the houses as I do telling their stories and adventures. I love all facets of the game and have stayed with Sims 3 as it suits me much better than version 4.
The Cowboy and the Mermaid
I started to play the sims because it combined my love of video games with my love of dolls so I kinda see the argument of it being a virtual dollhouse and don't find it inaccurate. I love playing the game but my favorite thing to do is to make sims in CAS. Both my dad and brother love making sims as well but while my brother will play for a little while, my dad will stop there and not play the game at all. So I don't really think its a gender thing just personal preference.
The game is a sandbox and you play it how you want. It's a dollhouse for some, a building or time management for others and something else for even more others. Mods allows for even more customization. The sims has always have a broad mass appeal.
My gaming journey actually began with the classic tabletop, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons when I was at the end of high school. Yeah, it was with a group of boys, but they didn't even blink when I chose to play a fumbling, male thief (I'm female and a proclaimed "Tom Boy") and that was the beginning of a lifelong love for tabletop gaming. I've always had male buddies since I was a child and I never liked playing "house" or "mommy" with babydolls. I remember a time when I was about seven, out in front of my building looking for something to do, and a little girl was playing "House" and asked me to play...it lasted about ten minutes, lol. There was a ruckus and a roar coming from around the building and one boy was chasing another because they were playing "monster", and I abandoned the little girl to join that game instead. The first thing they wanted to do was make me the victim who got devoured, to which I protested that I wanted to destroy the monster, and we finally came to an agreement that while the other boy distracted "it" with an attack, I could at least make an escape. I was a little miffed because I didn't think they played very fairly, lol. It's funny to think of the things that stick in your mind from childhood.
As for tech gaming, I used to manage a retro arcade that had all kinds of vintage games and I got really good at Golden Axe, could beat the game on one token, using only one life, with any of the characters. Then I got my first console, a vintage Sega Genesis, that was given to me by a friend because he wasn't playing it anymore due to the Playstation craze, and I absolutely loved it. I actually still have it and all the awesome games I collected and played, like Shining Force 2, Master of Monsters, X-Men, The Tick, Shadowrun, Toe Jam and Earl (a favorite), Rastan, and others. I've been wanting to hook it back up for another go at nostalgia.
I was a little late to the PC gaming craze. My first PC game was Vampire the Masquerade, which was now my favorite tabletop game of the same name (and still is. They just released a new edition last year!) But this was the game that actually "forced" me to buy my first desktop PC. I had to play it. This opened a new world of PC gaming, though I had played a couple of really old, vintage games on an ex boyfriend's old computer that were hilarious; Tank Wars and Worms. Worms was especially awesome because we could have up to four people play it at a time and we could name our teams and throw bombs at each other and have people switch out. But once I entered the PC gaming world, I still stuck to mainly RPG style games, like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, etc and a few MMOs and, of course, Vampire's Bloodlines. (There's a new one coming out this year, Bloodlines 2! Squee!) And I learned how to connect and play with other people via LAN gaming.
As for The Sims, I remember my ex boyfriend playing a Sim City game (not sure which version) and just watching in fascination. But it looked way too complicated for me so I didn't play it myself, but I considered it. He told me about The Sims and said it was a pretty good game, but honestly, I thought the concept was kind of stupid, lol. I don't think he made it sound interesting because he didn't mention the Grim Reaper or the satire of it. I remember asking, "why in the world would anyone want to play out a person going to work and living a normal life? Just go live your life!" So I didn't have a very high opinion of the concept. To me, it sounded like "playing House" all over again. Boring. But...
I got deeply into Final Fantasy 7 and it's extensive storyline, had the Advent Children digital movie and used to research all of the easter eggs, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, Before Crisis, and hidden background stories, etc. I really fell in love with all of the characters. Strangely, this led me to Sims 2 via a Youtube video of someone who had used custom content to make FF7 characters in their Sims game and I just freaked out. I watched the gameplay and was immediately obsessed with it. The Youtuber had put links to the CC and pack that they had, and I promptly bought Sims 2 Deluxe with the Holiday Stuff extra disc and Nightlife and downloaded the CC. It was the beginning of a long-term love affair and I eventually bought every pack for Sims 2 and, using all of the amazing CC out there, was able to create an amalgamation of my nerdy life in one Sims world that included Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, FF7, The Tick, X-Men, Dark Elves, LoTR, Steampunk, villains, heroes, punk, gothic, my Sim self and companions, and anything else I could dream up. It was my own personal, geeky paradise.
So you could say that I sometimes play "House" with my Sims, only the characters are a little stranger. But I still prefer to have drama and adventure in my games and playing "Monster" or with my beloved Vampires, rather than playing domestically. And I still love to create Sims, probably even more than I used to because the Sims 4 allows for more flexibility and diversity of appearance in CAS without CC, and even some fantastical designs, if you own the right packs, so I can create them all myself instead of finding someone else's design and downloading it. And now, after all these years, I'm even finding a brand new interest for building. I had tried it before in Sims 2, but it seemed very complicated and I couldn't maneuver it very well. And although I'm still quite an amateur in that, I'm still proud that I've successfully built my first complete house and am working on a tiny mushroom house now, lol. So my play style continues to expand, which I'm grateful for.
It's been quite a gaming journey and although I still dabble in other games like TESO online, The Secret World, Fe and some others, I always come back "home" to the same two ongoing games: The Sims 4 and Lord of the Rings Online (which is turning 13 this year!) Maybe one day I'll look into getting Sims 2 optimized on Windows 10 when I have the time.
@davina1221 My husband and I always played dr. Mario against each other at level 17 and 18 It would get quite intense. Unfortunately our T.V. is unable to play this game now. We still have it sitting on our shelf beside the t.v. and talk about figuring out how we can hook it up to our 55 inch screen. It's the only game he every played.
I have always shared my gaming life with my sisters. Twins, they will be 53 next month. One plays over my shoulder in The Sims every week. The other has introduced me to most of my online games, and it was actually her daughter who got me into The Sims. This shared experience goes way back to childhood and Atari games like Pitfall, and arcade games as well. Also, table-top roleplaying games, which we actually began playing separately, but about the same time.
That gaming was seen as a male hobby, and marketed toward boys, doesn't change the fact that girls and women have played all along.
Further, I have always turned to the phrase "electronic dollhouse" when I describe how I play The Sims. Sure, it's story for me. But I do spend lavish amounts of time on design - clothing and interiors. My Simming sister doesn't bother - if it's functional, it's fine. Since we're under the EA umbrella here, I'll mention the housing system in Star Wars: The Old Republic, in that game called "Strongholds". I spend a significant amount of my in-game currency on decorating my home base, and also rather a lot on making my characters dress like I want. My sister who also plays? Well, she doesn't.
Pirateer Bucky Jaxo raiding an adrenal refinery with a Mandalorian accomplice, Hutt Cartel security footage, Quesh
(Some of my characters get a biography for roleplaying purposes. Bucky gets a rap-sheet. But I digress.)
My Simming sis only really enjoys watching me play what she calls the "barbie-doll" aspect of my MMOs, but the MMO-ing twin has no time for it. And even the Simming twin enjoys other games - like Tropico, a Sim City type build game where you manage a small Caribbean island. But of us three, I am the doll house player.
Now, some would say, "interior design and fashion? How gay!" and a superficial glance at my posting history, my households and so on would confirm "Yeah. So what?" Gaming is not a gendered activity. That's all projection, and social pressures (namely, economics and marketing) skewing results. I am not a fashionista in real life. But I am a giant nerd - and I maintain that gaming is nerdy, in the best sense of the word.
So I challenge some of the assumptions of the original post. I will readily admit that The Sims did have an unanticipated success, and likely does appeal to a broader demographic than your typical shoot-em-up. But I also contend that other games have similarly broken those barriers by finding an unexpectedly broad audience - while it is perhaps past its prime, World of Warcraft was runaway success story, and yes, among both men and women. And where we have these breakout games, it is because they have unexpected, broad, general appeal, which reminds us - to the bafflement of Marketing, who likes niche demographics to market to - gaming is (and always has been) for everyone.
They now sell a system on eBay that has most all the games preloaded. That might help.
OP, you are spot on!
http://www.getfreeebooks.com/star-trek-original-series-fan-fiction-trilogy/
First of all, I love this type of discussion. OP: thank you for a thoughtful post.
I always feel that the Sims franchise is not only a game changer, but an industry game changer. Starting with SimCity (Sims Ant?) in 1989 and the Sims in 2000, the game industry (well, some companies anyway) realized a potential for combat-free/minimal combat type of game. Alternatively in Japan, the first Harvest Moon was released in 1996 which I like to think is the genesis of combat-free farming sims of today.
When I was a kid, "video games" in our house meant Zelda or Street Fighter or Mortal Combat. To be honest, they bore me. I played enough of them as a kid with my siblings to know that I was not (still am not) into them. I even ignored mmorpg during their heyday. Although most in my social circle played some sort of mmorpg one time or another, I had zero interest in playing them. Thankfully I discovered Sims and later, point-and-click puzzle-based adventure games. Without them I would not have gamed at all. And I would have grown up into a very weird nerd. I mean have you ever heard of a nerd who loves math and science and work as an engineer but don't game at all? Egad!
(Source)
So I think The Sims was released during a wider movement of advertising to women and girls but not necessarily the primary reason more women got into gaming.
Unrelated I got interested in the Sims because I thought lighting stuff on fire was funny (what this says about younger me I don't know).
About the only thing that I'd get to do every ONCE in a blue moon was to play an arcade console that was scattered around places like the laundromat or in threes at the shopping mall. And we played Asteroids...or the very basic line-graphics Star Wars Trench Run.
And frankly...some of the best Asteroids players I've seen were women.
My games growing up were Asteroids, Pong, Zaxxon, SW Trench Run and believe me...that's definitely dating myself.
Always "River McIrish" ...and maybe some Bebe Hart. ~innocent expression~
And back before flat screen LCD monitors, I couldn't use a computer very long without getting a bad headache. The old ray-trace monitors really bothered my eyes for some reason. So I tended to use our computer only in short bursts, and once my brother or mom got on the machine it was hard to get another chance.
But the OP is right in that a lot of the type of games back then didn't appeal much to me anyway. There were a few though. When I was able to get time on the computer, I played Tetris and other similar games, and I loved playing this one point and click adventure series that I think was called Space Quest. I was (still am) a huge sci-fi and fantasy nerd, and I love satire and parodies of stories I am familiar with, so Space Quest, which poked fun at Star Wars, Star Trek, and various other works in those genres was right up my alley.
I was really intrigued by the detailed 3D buildings and labyrinths in the early first person shooter games, but I had no interest in fighting enemies. So when I was in college, my brother (who had by then learned a lot of programming) modded one of the popular shooter games of the time (I forget which one) and created a whole new three volume game series just for me that involved spying on and sneaking past the bad guys instead of fighting them. We just called it the "Spy Game", and it was totally awesome, because he's both a good programmer and a great storyteller. That was probably one of the coolest and most elaborate "homemade" gifts anyone has ever given me.
Sims 3 and Sims 4 are the only other games I have every really gotten hooked on. Mainly, my problem with most other games I've tried is that they don't let me use my own imagination enough. The sims games do, so they're much more fun for me than other games.
The fun was making your own programs and there were many magazines and much tearing out of hair when I couldn't get the game to play properly and found out later that it was a magazine misprint. Those spiral bound books were the best to copy codes out of as they lay flat. I learned a bit of Sinclair BASIC, played Jet pac and Pac man
I ended up with a whole ottoman full of games, manuals and peripherals and gave away the lot to a charity some time ago.
The main problem with it was having to fight for access to the television when my brother was home and broken or scrambled tapes and I eventually defected to the BBC micro at work, the Atari. and then a Compaq laptop where I favoured the Adventure 'what do I do now' types,
The best thing about being in at the (almost) start was that it gave me great kudos at work at the time I remember!
I agree that few females were much interested at the start but I didn't worry about that and, yes, I did see The Sims as a kind of dolls house as I never had one of my own as a child and bought it immediately it came out.
I was still spending most of my money traveling up until 1999 when I married (yeah, late starter) but some time in the early 90s I put aside enough money to buy my first PC. I can't remember what games I played but my favourite game in the 90s was Creatures. Breeding and raising those adorable little Norns has probably influenced my Sim play style. I am not into dressing up my sims since I don't have any interest in clothes/makeup but I do love big families and playing sims from cradle to grave. I also remember playing and enjoying SimCity and a couple of the later ones but, by then, I was married and raising a child and games didn't really figure much in my life. I was living in America when I married but would go home to Australia for a couple months each year. My husband tried The Sims while I was visiting home in the early 2000s but didn't like it and left the disc on my desk. I installed it on my return and played a little but found it hard to keep my sims happy so didn't get far into it. I saw an ad for TS2 and decided to give it a try since my son was no longer a baby and didn't take up so much of my time. I spent many hours playing TS2 with my son on my lap
My son played it for a short time when he was younger but has since moved on to what he considers to be "real" games. I know there are many male players but I can see how it could be more attractive to females. Perhaps female gaming has become more common as time was freed up by changing cooking styles - I don't remember any "meal on the table in 10 minutes" when I was young - and improvements to household appliances. Now I can play while my clothes practically wash and dry themselves instead of having to put the washing through the hand turned wringer and then the time spent hanging it outside, bringing it in and ironing it.
Zumi and the Winchester Brothers
The Watcher's Caretaker - A Limited ISBI
gi joe
I've always liked gi joe dolls as well as barbie my most played sim is male
even if there were always women playing games it help women who didn't know that
start playing
Other things were more important to us women generally like book censorship, women's freedom and popstars! I think girls got a bit more interested in the latter two to think about games then!
I think this life simulation game has helped break down the barriers of gaming being the exclusive territory of the young. I think it works as an introduction to gaming for both young and old. I had never really considered gaming until my forties and it was the Sims that got me started. I will also say it was my nephew who introduced me to it and while I have been happy to go on playing dolls house he has moved on to games which appeal to him more.
I will add that it has also made me learn a great deal more about computers. As the OP said home computers were very rare when I was young and it was not until my twenties that I started using one for work. Now I have a very good idea of what my next computer should be capable of in order to run TS3 properly. All other considered uses for the computer are secondary to this
I never thought my gaming life would dictate so much. This brings me to my final point that the Sims, like most games, is addictive. Maybe this is because you, the player are in control, or the fact the game is open ended. In my case I suspect it has more to do with the fact that I am not only ancient but incurably nosy.
Wherever I am friends call me Betty
Sim enim est vita
The Sims 1 and 2 were more like a doll house for me. Now The Sims 4 is just an open ended life simulation. IMO it has been saved by mods right now. Such a creative and hard working bunch! I am sure the Gurus will fix issues but for now mods do it for them. I can say the same thing for The Sims 3 because it never worked long enough to play much of anything. It always crashed after a couple of hours. It finally ran well with the right mods but by then 4 came out.
Warlords. It was awesome.