Early 30s here. Started with Simcity 2000, and found The Sims Double Deluxe shortly after its release (around 2003 I believe?) and have been a simmer ever since! I almost miss have all those sims expansion boxes on a shelf. :D
I'm in my 60's. My daughter played Sims 2 and got me interested in it. I enjoyed it so much I still play sometimes! Ended up with Sims 3, Sims Medieval and now Sims 4! I enjoy each of them still, just tend to play differently depending on which game I am playing. When I am getting bored with one, I switch to another, with my Skyrim and other games I like in-between.
I will be 45 in a few months. I played Sims Bustin Out on Gamecube ,I think. I tried playing Sims 1 on a computer, but I liked playing on the cube better at the time. It wasn't until Sims 2 came out I started playing in the pc completely.
Early 50's, I tried playing TS1 when it first came out and it was dreadful. I couldn't get into it. I took a long break and jumped into TS3 when it only had a couple of years left in it's life span.
I completely missed TS2, was in the Navy and kind of swamped with life. Literally very little downtime to play anything. I tried it out when it was free but didn't see the allure. I found it hard to figure out and kind of annoying. I was super addicted to TS3 and resistant towards TS4. I was one of those who was dragged kicking and screaming to TS4. Now? I can't play TS3. I find everything about it ugly...plus...my computer is too advanced and will barely play it. Pity because I have never been addicted to TS4, it just has never had to ability to drag me in like TS3 did.
Anyways, that's my simming story!
I don't consider us "old coots" because we have every right to enjoy this game, just like those barely out of diapers (hahaha) do. It's all about doing what brings you joy and peace. Once this game (and it's countless issues) stops doing that? I will move on.
I’m in my mid forties. I’ve been playing since Sims 2 days. I then progressed to Sims 3 and now 4. I still play 2 and 3 regularly, and love them all as they’ve all got their own strengths and weaknesses.
I’m another … been playing video games since video games were a thing. Played The Sins but didn’t get fully hooked until TS2. Then I was a goner. Retired now, playing and writing stories about my sims.
Isn’t it strange that corporations assume that older people don’t “game?” I mean, some of us broke this industry in with arcades and early computer games. No reason to assume we lost interest.
Isn’t it strange that corporations assume that older people don’t “game?” I mean, some of us broke this industry in with arcades and early computer games. No reason to assume we lost interest.
Exactly!
My timeline of being a "gamer":
- From the 90s to now: Playing both computer and console games.
- Late 80s: Playing text-based computer games (like D&D) on dial-up internet.
- Mid 80s: Saved up money from my first real job and bought my first Atari gaming console.
- Early 80s: Spent my babysitting money hanging out at the local arcade playing Gyruss (my all-time favourite), Galaga (my second all-time favourite), Pac Man, Donkey Kong, etc
- Late 70s: Playing the old paddle-style pinball games at our local pool hall, and playing tv Pong with my brother at home.
- Early to late 70s: Playing board games and card games (family game nights).
I'm also an avid Snooker player and Darts player (both hubby and I used to play in local league tourneys).
What gives me a good chuckle now is how my daughter (who's in her early 30s) is playing board games (cosplay) with her pals at each other's homes.... basically what we used to do in the 70s. Things seem to have come full circle in the gaming world.
My Gallery ID: AncientMuse2
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~ Mark Twain
I remember having & playing the board game called The Game of Life back in the late 70s to early 80s. I also remember my Dad having an Avar TV Game machine back in the late 70s. Furthermore, I remember enjoying playing Sinbad the Sailor & the first Civilization game on my Dad's Amiga Compu PC Desktop back in the late 80s & early 90s. This was way before Windows & the internet.
I just turned 61, and I have been gaming since I was 16.
I started with the original Atari playing Pac-Man, Pitfall, and Donkey Kong. I was able to complete the game many times over the years. I could actually do the patterns in my head. My favorite game on the Atari was Raiders of the Lost Ark which came out in 1982. You had to play with two controllers, so I would sit in a beanbag chair and put the second controller between my knees (the one you used mostly for the buttons).
Then I got a Nintendo NES and played Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. When I bought The Legend of Zelda, I became obsessed. I actually drew out maps of the game on graph paper with crayons!
I bought a Commodore 64 in 1985 and played some games on it. I entered the code into the Commodore 64 from gaming magazines. At that time, my children were four and two, and they learned to spell list and load and were able to play games on it without my help.
I got my first PC, an IBM AT in 1987. I had enrolled in a computer programming course through the mail, and it included the AT computer which I had to put together myself. From there, I upgraded all of my PCs by either installing parts or purchasing the next model. I have owned almost all of the models of PC throughout the years.
Over the years, I have played Dig Dug, Centipede, Frogger, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Gremlins, the Kings Quest series, Oil's Well, River Raid, You Don't Know Jack, Bards Tale, and countless others whose names I can't recall.
My first online game was Gemstone IV, which was a text-based roleplay game. I played that game for years. In 2000, my brother-in-law gave us a copy of EverQuest with a 3-month subscription already paid. We got hooked and ended up buying another copy so we could play together. At the time, the subscription was $7.99 and $1.00 per additional character. When we stopped playing it, we had five accounts and were paying $14.99 a month for three of them. The other two were free, but they were limited in what you could do with the characters.
I've played Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 (online game) and enjoyed playing them, but my go-to game has always been The Sims games.
I have owned all of the following:
1. The Sims with Livin' Large, Hot Date, Vacation, and Makin' Magic.
2. The Sims 2 with Nightlife and Pets. I now own the entire package as they had a promotion where anyone who could show proof that they owned the game could get the entire package for free.
3. The Sims Life Stories
4. The Sims 3 with all of the expansion packs and most of the stuff packs. I am only missing Fast Lane, Outdoor Living, and Town Life Stuff packs. I also own everything in the store and play with all of the expansions activated. I love this game and take a lot of screenshots. I have over GB stored on my external drive.
I haven't tried The Sims 4 yet. I am having too much fun with The Sims 3 to consider switching to The Sims 4
We always got our computers second hand though, so I grew up with games on cassette with the Spectrum 48k/128k, Commodore 64, and later on 3.5" floppies with Atari and Amiga. I think we got a Sega Master System around the time the Mega Drive came out and even had an old Atari cartridge console for a little while.
I think the first PC we had was a Compaq, so that's probably what I played the first Sims game on.
I'll turn 61 in a few months, but feel and act much younger...most days. I didn't really get into the gaming world until I met my future husband when I was 16 in 1978. My family was more into playing card and board games. Hubby's family had an Atari in their basement family room with Pong, the first console game I'd ever seen in my life. While dating we loved to go to local truck stops and play pinball games and then later arcade video games such as Defender, Pac Man, Centipede, Asteroids, etc.
The first computer I ever used was when my work place upgraded to them. It was an IBM in 1980. It wasn't the first computer I'd ever seen though. Hubby's Dad had a Commodore 64. We still have it somewhere. Anyway, the first video game I ever played was something called G-Nome that came with our first home PC we bought in 1997 or 1998. The first computer game we ever bought was Field & Stream Trophy Buck in 1999 followed by Trophy Bass and later Rollercoaster Tycoon. We bought a PS1 when it first came out and started playing games on that as well. Some of my favorites were Frogger, Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, but later would play Madden, COD, Halo, 007, etc. on a PS2. We still have all those, but don't play on a console anymore. Youngest daughter gave us her Xbox 360 with some games, but we've never hooked it up.
For her 13th birthday, our oldest daughter requested a new computer video game called The Sims in November, 2000. It was her game, but we all played and loved it! Eventually the girls stopped playing it and our Son, along with Hubby, were more into the console games, but I continued to play. Building/decorating was my passion for the game back then. I still love it to this day. The Sims 2 was released and that's when things really took off for me in various ways. I call those years the Golden years.
The Sims 3 looked amazing to me when some of the first screenshots and features were revealed, except for one thing. I didn't like the Sims themselves. I didn't have a computer that could handle the graphics anyway, so I stuck with playing TS2 and running my forum for it. I did run into some ageism myself on the old BBS back then, which was unfortunate. I was ridiculed for being 'an old lady playing a kids game' and was told to 'get off the boards old lady.' I was 42, not exactly 'old' in my eyes. However, I found an ad at the end of a story on the Exchange for a forum and joined it, eventually taking it over when the creator left. The members used to call me Mother Goose.
The forum is closed now, but I had some of my happiest years with the Sims there. Anyway, then I saw an article online about TS4 and rejoined the official forums in July, 2014. I've been playing it every day that I can since then. Love this game, warts and all! Like someone else said, it's my creative outlet. I can't imagine not playing, I'll play it until the franchise ends or I end.
Just had a look at the how long have you been playing ooll.59% started with TS1 and an additional 24% started in the TS 2 & 3 era. That's 83% being veterans of the older games. Surely that says something about the presence of older players and the value of their input.
Just had a look at the how long have you been playing ooll.59% started with TS1 and an additional 24% started in the TS 2 & 3 era. That's 83% being veterans of the older games. Surely that says something about the presence of older players and the value of their input.
It might say more about the forum being the go to place for veteran simmers.
I saw this thread today when I googled something about the sims today. I was surprised that there were so many of us older people on here. I’m 67, remember getting an Atari when i was 23 and had my first baby, my Dad gif us the system for Christmas. asteroids was our favorite game, at the time we were just finishing college and paying off loans so didn’t have much money to buy many games. I remember playing Pac-Man, centipede, and a submarine game at pizza parlors and remember playing my first home game, pong before we git our Atari. And, I certainly remember playing the old fashion games arcade games with the balls you shot off. The name slips my mind right now. My oldest daughter had a couple Nintendo’s and a game boy. Our first computer was used, with a black and white IBM monitor, and it was basic, not windows, we got it several years after we got out of college. In college, I had to type up my ( and my husbands ) term papers and projects with an electric typewriter, such a chore considering what computers and printers can do nowadays.
Our first sims game was Sims 1. My youngest daughter, about 7 at the time came home one day from a friends house regaling is with this game her friends mother played, it was called The Sims! Well, My older daughter who was in her late teens, and I listened enthusiastically….lol. And, we had our first new computer, a gateway, and had just moved to our new home, and we got The Sims! I shared our computer with my 2 girls who loved the sims too. When sims 2 came out, my oldest got a gateway, and the sims 2….. which was a favorite, I shared her computer and game this time! When sims 3 came out my daughter bought it for me and I my first gaming laptop, but I wasn’t happy with the game because it had so many rabbit holes, and i couldn’t play rotationally with it, I didn’t continue with expansions, though my older daughter later played it. Sims 4 I got for Christmas 2014, but didn’t have a gaming computer, so In 2018 with a 2 year break, I got another gaming computer. This is the first sims game I have had all the DLC for.
Nice to know there are so many of us playing The Sims 4. Was especially nice to see there is someone else in my age bracket - I'm mid 70s and absolutely adore this game. Got hooked on Sims 1 and have never looked back!
Won't say am old but I remember Harry Truman as President. Just a nipper at the time but do remember him. 1st computer & game was around 1993 on an old IBM XT 8088. 1st Sims game was The Sims on day 1. Learned about it while researching for an economics paper when it was only a promising project. How times have changed!
I'm in my mid-30s. Does that really make me one of the "older" generations now? lol. I guess, since I can say I started playing The Sims two whole decades ago, it's true! Wow.
Late thirties. Closing in on forty. I have only been playing since November 15th 2022, so almost a year (I mean I am pretty sure, maybe it was December 15th?), but it definitely has been a fun year of Sims 4 gaming.
All my daily trances, and all my nightly dreams, are where thy grey eye glances, and where thy footstep gleams.
I dance to the beat of my own drum, no matter how measured or far away.
I do love a road. You can always be wondering what is at the end of it.
Late 40’s here. I remember playing Little Computer People on a Commodore 64 in the school library in the 80s. When The Sims came out, I was all over it. I never played 2 or 3, though. Lockdown 2020 brought me to TS4.
Comments
I completely missed TS2, was in the Navy and kind of swamped with life. Literally very little downtime to play anything. I tried it out when it was free but didn't see the allure. I found it hard to figure out and kind of annoying. I was super addicted to TS3 and resistant towards TS4. I was one of those who was dragged kicking and screaming to TS4. Now? I can't play TS3. I find everything about it ugly...plus...my computer is too advanced and will barely play it. Pity because I have never been addicted to TS4, it just has never had to ability to drag me in like TS3 did.
Anyways, that's my simming story!
I don't consider us "old coots" because we have every right to enjoy this game, just like those barely out of diapers (hahaha) do. It's all about doing what brings you joy and peace. Once this game (and it's countless issues) stops doing that? I will move on.
Tales From The Myst
The Blue Moon Jukebox
Exactly!
My timeline of being a "gamer":
- From the 90s to now: Playing both computer and console games.
- Late 80s: Playing text-based computer games (like D&D) on dial-up internet.
- Mid 80s: Saved up money from my first real job and bought my first Atari gaming console.
- Early 80s: Spent my babysitting money hanging out at the local arcade playing Gyruss (my all-time favourite), Galaga (my second all-time favourite), Pac Man, Donkey Kong, etc
- Late 70s: Playing the old paddle-style pinball games at our local pool hall, and playing tv Pong with my brother at home.
- Early to late 70s: Playing board games and card games (family game nights).
I'm also an avid Snooker player and Darts player (both hubby and I used to play in local league tourneys).
What gives me a good chuckle now is how my daughter (who's in her early 30s) is playing board games (cosplay) with her pals at each other's homes.... basically what we used to do in the 70s. Things seem to have come full circle in the gaming world.
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~ Mark Twain
I just turned 61, and I have been gaming since I was 16.
I started with the original Atari playing Pac-Man, Pitfall, and Donkey Kong. I was able to complete the game many times over the years. I could actually do the patterns in my head. My favorite game on the Atari was Raiders of the Lost Ark which came out in 1982. You had to play with two controllers, so I would sit in a beanbag chair and put the second controller between my knees (the one you used mostly for the buttons).
Then I got a Nintendo NES and played Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. When I bought The Legend of Zelda, I became obsessed. I actually drew out maps of the game on graph paper with crayons!
I bought a Commodore 64 in 1985 and played some games on it. I entered the code into the Commodore 64 from gaming magazines. At that time, my children were four and two, and they learned to spell list and load and were able to play games on it without my help.
I got my first PC, an IBM AT in 1987. I had enrolled in a computer programming course through the mail, and it included the AT computer which I had to put together myself. From there, I upgraded all of my PCs by either installing parts or purchasing the next model. I have owned almost all of the models of PC throughout the years.
Over the years, I have played Dig Dug, Centipede, Frogger, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Gremlins, the Kings Quest series, Oil's Well, River Raid, You Don't Know Jack, Bards Tale, and countless others whose names I can't recall.
My first online game was Gemstone IV, which was a text-based roleplay game. I played that game for years. In 2000, my brother-in-law gave us a copy of EverQuest with a 3-month subscription already paid. We got hooked and ended up buying another copy so we could play together. At the time, the subscription was $7.99 and $1.00 per additional character. When we stopped playing it, we had five accounts and were paying $14.99 a month for three of them. The other two were free, but they were limited in what you could do with the characters.
I've played Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 (online game) and enjoyed playing them, but my go-to game has always been The Sims games.
I have owned all of the following:
1. The Sims with Livin' Large, Hot Date, Vacation, and Makin' Magic.
2. The Sims 2 with Nightlife and Pets. I now own the entire package as they had a promotion where anyone who could show proof that they owned the game could get the entire package for free.
3. The Sims Life Stories
4. The Sims 3 with all of the expansion packs and most of the stuff packs. I am only missing Fast Lane, Outdoor Living, and Town Life Stuff packs. I also own everything in the store and play with all of the expansions activated. I love this game and take a lot of screenshots. I have over GB stored on my external drive.
I haven't tried The Sims 4 yet. I am having too much fun with The Sims 3 to consider switching to The Sims 4
We always got our computers second hand though, so I grew up with games on cassette with the Spectrum 48k/128k, Commodore 64, and later on 3.5" floppies with Atari and Amiga. I think we got a Sega Master System around the time the Mega Drive came out and even had an old Atari cartridge console for a little while.
I think the first PC we had was a Compaq, so that's probably what I played the first Sims game on.
The first computer I ever used was when my work place upgraded to them. It was an IBM in 1980. It wasn't the first computer I'd ever seen though. Hubby's Dad had a Commodore 64. We still have it somewhere. Anyway, the first video game I ever played was something called G-Nome that came with our first home PC we bought in 1997 or 1998. The first computer game we ever bought was Field & Stream Trophy Buck in 1999 followed by Trophy Bass and later Rollercoaster Tycoon. We bought a PS1 when it first came out and started playing games on that as well. Some of my favorites were Frogger, Spyro and Crash Bandicoot, but later would play Madden, COD, Halo, 007, etc. on a PS2. We still have all those, but don't play on a console anymore. Youngest daughter gave us her Xbox 360 with some games, but we've never hooked it up.
For her 13th birthday, our oldest daughter requested a new computer video game called The Sims in November, 2000. It was her game, but we all played and loved it! Eventually the girls stopped playing it and our Son, along with Hubby, were more into the console games, but I continued to play. Building/decorating was my passion for the game back then. I still love it to this day. The Sims 2 was released and that's when things really took off for me in various ways. I call those years the Golden years.
The Sims 3 looked amazing to me when some of the first screenshots and features were revealed, except for one thing. I didn't like the Sims themselves. I didn't have a computer that could handle the graphics anyway, so I stuck with playing TS2 and running my forum for it. I did run into some ageism myself on the old BBS back then, which was unfortunate. I was ridiculed for being 'an old lady playing a kids game' and was told to 'get off the boards old lady.' I was 42, not exactly 'old' in my eyes. However, I found an ad at the end of a story on the Exchange for a forum and joined it, eventually taking it over when the creator left. The members used to call me Mother Goose.
The forum is closed now, but I had some of my happiest years with the Sims there. Anyway, then I saw an article online about TS4 and rejoined the official forums in July, 2014. I've been playing it every day that I can since then. Love this game, warts and all! Like someone else said, it's my creative outlet. I can't imagine not playing, I'll play it until the franchise ends or I end.
Happy Simming!
It might say more about the forum being the go to place for veteran simmers.
Our first sims game was Sims 1. My youngest daughter, about 7 at the time came home one day from a friends house regaling is with this game her friends mother played, it was called The Sims! Well, My older daughter who was in her late teens, and I listened enthusiastically….lol. And, we had our first new computer, a gateway, and had just moved to our new home, and we got The Sims! I shared our computer with my 2 girls who loved the sims too. When sims 2 came out, my oldest got a gateway, and the sims 2….. which was a favorite, I shared her computer and game this time! When sims 3 came out my daughter bought it for me and I my first gaming laptop, but I wasn’t happy with the game because it had so many rabbit holes, and i couldn’t play rotationally with it, I didn’t continue with expansions, though my older daughter later played it. Sims 4 I got for Christmas 2014, but didn’t have a gaming computer, so In 2018 with a 2 year break, I got another gaming computer. This is the first sims game I have had all the DLC for.
C.
Traits: 🐶Dog Lover, 🎨Creative, 😑Loner
Social Media: 🐘@caerfinon@mastodon.social | My Stories: 🤷🏻🐕 Simmer Tales a comic look at Sims 4 | 🌐A Sim's Life - Comic observations
My CC: 🎨 Jac related CAS and Build CC | 🖼️ Film Noir Wall Decorations | 👩🎨Pauline King Art
I dance to the beat of my own drum, no matter how measured or far away.
I do love a road. You can always be wondering what is at the end of it.