I wasn't sure where to post this since it really involves all the games, but I'm currently playing sims 3 so I guess here will do.
I always wanted to know how people got into this community, not just mts, but everywhere. I first played the sims waaay back when blockbuster was still a thing xD
I rented The Sims Bustin' Out for gamecube when I was a little girl and kinda became obsessed! It wasn't til a few years later when my sister got the sims 2 for pc and I played it night and day. We lived separate as kids, so when I had to go home I would always look up the trailers for the expansion packs on youtube to kinda get my fix? I was like 7 or 8, don't judge. While I was watching those I would see the sims 2 machinimas everyone use to do back in the day. I guess that's where I originally got introduced to the community. I always wanted so badly to make my own sims 2 movies, but never did it. Moving on I got the sims 2 myself with all the EP's, the story games, and eventually got sims 3 when it came out. I HATED sims 3 at first. I don't know why, cause now I am really in love with it. When late night came out, I really started playing it. I ended up moving states a little while after. It was during the summer, so I couldn't make friends yet and was bored all the time. I went on tumblr and randomly searched sims 3 and I was so amazed to see how many people loved the sims series as much as I did. I made a 'simblr' and was introduced to so many people and places such as mts. I never really looked back.
Anyways, that's my story, what's yours?

When Sims 1 was released and hit the store shelves, I was completely hooked by it. Naturally I started to look for custom content and ways to do it myself and that way got introduced to the Simming community. I still remember my go-to site during Sims 1 years (and Sims 2, as well) and that site is amazingly still up. I consider Dincer as one of the best Sims 1 creators... even today. I loved Sims 2 but when Sims 3 came out, it was a little 'meh' at first. I couldn't stand the basic pudding faces and the lack of things to do and went back to playing Sims 2. When World Adventures was released I started to play SIms 3 again and haven't touched the Sims 1 or 2 since.

If any Sims 1 players are interested in Dincer's work: http://moonsims.asi.org/dh-sims-site/

I was at my home town public library in 2000 looking at the software shelves. They had The Sims 1 there and I borrowed it. I borrowed it a few times and lost hours playing it! Later I bought a copy. I had one or two eps I think (maybe more?). I got Sims 2 for Christmas the year it came out and was so happy!! . I didn't do much downloading until I found Mod the Sims. I had all the EPS for Sims 2. Sims 3 I bought myself for my birthday in 2009. I think it had just come out and I spent $60 on it! That was the last time I had that much to spend on a game for myself. I only have a few eps. which have been carefully purchased because my finances haven't improved since 2009. I have not bought Sims 4 and probably won't for a long time. I use as much free content as I can for Sims 3 and dream of a decent computer!

My best friend was playing it on her phone. It looked interesting (particularly having to almost throw your phone across the room to fish), so a few months after its launch I got it for PC. Spent a while playing it within the limitations. Just as I was getting bored, WA came out and offered even more possibilities. I wasn't even bored of it by the time LN came out, but I'd discovered CC in the meantime too Awful, photoskinned CC. Those were dark times.

So, unlike a lot of people, I haven't played the series since the beginning. I remember seeing an ad in the paper about Sims 2 University once, but I was hooked on Quake and the likes at the time so I didn't pay much attention to it

As for the community, I did join MTS but didn't participate until recently. I lurked MATY and all the trendy CC creators' sites. Now I post here most of the time and visit Simsecret on Fridays (even though I hardly know the people/Simblrs in the secrets, lol).

I've been trying to get myself to learn how to mesh for years, but that implies work. So I'd rather leave it to more capable folk.

I spotted The Sims 1 in a game store and bought it, along with House Party (circa 2001). A few months later I saw Hot Date in a store, and bought that too. Unfortunately, anything past Hot Date refused to work on my computer, and I wasn't knowledgeable enough about computer specs that I just gave up on it.

Fast forward to 2005, where I headed off to university and found out about TS2. Base game+Uni+Nightlife, with Open for Business soon after. My home PC was just about over spec for the expansions up to Pets, and was under-spec for Seasons (though I still managed to play it). A portion of my time was spent on my husband's laptop playing the game. 2005 was also when I started to find out about the Sims community -- I'd had a brief look-in during my TS1 days, but the only stuff I ever found was paid-for content. 2005 was when I found MTS and the discussion boards, and it went from there.

2010 I got TS3 plus WA and AMB expansion packs (yeah, there's a pattern there) and in 2012 I signed up for a Simblr. I don't tend to interact too much though, life issues.

Edit: Oh, I remember how I got into the community! TS2: Seasons was annoying me with the sims' constant need to get up and look at the weather multiple times in a day, including when they were asleep. Searched for something to stop it, and it all spiralled from there.

My sims playing gos all the back to SimCity '89, which is part of the Sim family. I still have Theme Park World lol. I don't remember how I got the TS1 base game, probably birthday or christmas present. After that they just kept piling up.. Though I only have 6 EP's of TS3 becouse now I have to pay for them myself.

I somehow got to beta-test Sims1, I forget exactly how; but probably because at the time I was active in the SimCity community. I then proceeded to get every EP/SP/gift/store item/etc. for !, 2 , and 3. When the turd called Sims 4 got dropped, I stopped playing and switched to alpha testing 7 Days to Die. I recently started to play Sims 3 again, and it's sad to see how many sites are closed and how many people have left the game behind like I did. Did some reading up on Sims 4 and realize that EA still doesn't get why this happened. I think more people still play Sims 2 than play Sims 4. Thankfully, it looks like there will never be a 5. Hopefully, after EA drops the series someone will come out with a version that combines the play of Sims 2, plus some of 3, and the open world of 3.

My college son bought Sims 1 used on Amazon. He quickly realized his game time should be study time. When home on break, he gave the game to me saying he thought i "would enjoy it". Obviously, that was years ago. When Sims 2 came out, I bought a new computer so I could play it. Did the same with 3. I have not gone into 4. Didn't like the demo download. I like to play families (big ones - thanks Twallan). But I spend way too much time playing.

I thought Sims was an amazing concept getting to play god, or rather, seeing/mimicking real life. I touched TS1 for a short while, then TS2 came out. Things were "3D" and so much more moddable. But I was held back at all the zoning (not open world) and unable to recolor clothing and furniture. I almost immediately jumped onto TS3 because of that open-worldness and CasT screen. Then shortly regretted because TS3 took forever to offer something close to OFB and ability to build more than 5 stories buildings. TS3' mods and CC are very satisfying, but the amount of technical issues still pile up. At least they stop patching at 1.67. So at least that part is stable along with all NRAAS mods.

Not planning to go to TS4, don't want to relive being beta tester for the next 3 years again, especially when I have to pay to be their beta tester.

Was really bored in 2007. Felt like I wanted to do something other than watch TV or browse the interwebs. Thought I'd try to find something to do on the computer. I don't care for puzzle or card games, they make me bored really quick. Didn't really care for the popular FPS games at the time either. I can only take so much of killing people and monsters. So I was browsing through various game sites and came across a promo image of Sims 2. I thought they looked really cute, and I liked that the image portrayed a game with female characters (back then, not many games had female protagonists). I also thought it might be fun to try a game that's more than just killing stuff. Once I started playing, I was hooked.

I joined the community because I'm a pervy dude and wondered if anybody ever made a mod to give sims girls bigger boobs. So I Googled it and found a discussion on the MTS forum about it. I registered on the forum and perused the mods and saw some great looking CC skin and hair, so I downloaded a few. Not long after, I wanted to learn how to make my own mods so I read some tutorials and made a few things for TS2. Then TS3 came out and of course being a Sims fan thanks to TS2, I had to get that. Wasn't in love with it at first since some things I missed from 2, but grew to love it. Over a few years, made a few simple mods & CC for it too. Then TS4 came out and I had to get that as well. Can't say I love it as much as I did the previous 2, but I do like it. Haven't been motivated to make any CC for it though.

Just as a back history, I've been a SimCity player since it came out in 1989. I've bought every single iteration since. On one of these games, there was an insert in my brand new game (SC2000 I think - I didn't buy it at launch but much later) and on this insert was an advert for The Sims. I read it then put it back in the box and said "I will NEVER, EVER play THAT game period."

Fast forward to 2007 - my husband just had surgery for a torn rotator cuff and he wanted a new game to play on his PS2. So he and a friend went to the store to find a game and he came home with (to my horror) The Sims 2 for the PS2!! He had a ton of fun with that game. I watched - NO WAY I WAS EVEN COMING NEAR THE BLOODY THING!!! Then this same friend told him that his wife plays The Sims 2 on the PC and you could woohoo and make babies and grow them up. Off to the store they went and got him a copy of The Sims 2. I watched him play on his computer. By this time, he had gone back to work. Anyway, he was playing his game (and had been encouraging me to play as well - I steadfastly refused) when he got a call from work saying they needed him for a few hours because someone had called in sick. So... off he went to get ready and go but asked me to please save his game after what he queued up was finished and off he went. I said OK fine I will. I did save his game - then I thought, ok I'll try it. I created a sim self, then played her (intending on deleting her before he got home). Well I was so immersed in the game that when he walked in, I was busted. Needless to say, I got The Sims 2 Double Deluxe with Night Life and Bon Voyage for Christmas and thus started this addiction. The rest as they say is history.

As for getting introduced to CC and the community. After getting my new shiny TS2 game for Christmas and having fun playing, I was getting annoyed that my sims looked the same drab sims, boring and ugly clothes and mismatched furniture. I was bored one day and sorta decided I was going to uninstall the game cause I figured, it was time to call it quits with it. But... something told me I wasn't done yet. So I googled sims clothing and furniture and voila!! The world opened up. First site I went to was MTS - read the forums, create an account, asked questions and started downloading. Then I found TSR - did the same thing there. Which started my 2nd addiction to The Sims - custom content and has continued to this day. Today I am a dedicated TS3 player and very part time player of TS2 and loving all of it!!

TS4 - thanks but no thanks, not touching that one with a 10 foot pole. I have to thank TS4 for all the new goodies I'm getting for my TS3 and TS2 games though. I'm loving all the conversions

I saw a commerical for either Sims 2 or one of the Sims 2 spinoffs and I was like "Ooooh, I want that!" but I didn't know what platform carried it. Then I saw commercials for Sims 3 and I looked up that it was a computer game and decided to ask for it after I got my first laptop. Of course, my mom accidentally got Sims 2 Stories instead and so I bought TS3 online and then when I started hearing about TS2, I bought that. The rest is history.

I was walking along, merrily wistling a tune, and some guy in a dark ally called "hey buddy, got something for ya!"

"Really mister!" i naively pranced down the alley. "What would that be."

"A game!" he said, pulling a copy of Sims 3 out of his trench-coat. "Wanna play? Just $19 dollars."

i frowned. "Well, I don't know... I heard computer games were bad."

"Phh!!" he waved his arms dismissively. "Those folks don't play games. Besides, you can try it, and if you don't like it, just return it!"

I scratched my head. "Well, okay. Hey, what's your name, mister?"

"EA. My friends call me EA"

And that's how I became an Sims 3 junky. EA now has a big pile of my money, my computer is burning up, and my life is a mess because all I do anymore is play Sims 3.

My brother and I played Sim City way back when I was younger and then he bought Sims 1 but I didn't play it often. I was 9 and had other things on my mind. But as the expansions came out, I played more, learned you can download new things (whoa...), and then grabbed Sims 2 when it hit shelves.
My brother isn't too into Sims now compared to myself, but I must give him credit for introducing me to the series.
After that, I learned more of the CC community with Sims 2 and Modthesims2 (flashback time~)

My history with the sims?

Sims 1: July 2000 - mac port (friends on RATSA - rec.arts.tv.soaps.abc - were having a ball making their own versions of Port Charles. I seem to recall Carly dying in a fire a lot.).

Sims 2: September 2005, when I got a PC and got Sims 2 at the same time. Played it to death until May 2013, when my PC died and the new one had Windows 8 AND an Intel chip. No Sims 2 for you!

Sims 3: June 2015. It's not Sims 2, but it's a very good game, and I am really enjoying it.

Sims 4: Not happening.

My introduction to CC was with Sims 1 - I know the first I downloaded was some lovely William Morris wallpaper. I discovered MTS after I had Sims 2 - membership here says July 2007. (My motivation: to get rid of "What's This?" Which was driving me batty. Later became a serious CC collector.) Didn't participate in the forums for a while, though.

Wayyyyy back in the day, 1998/1999, my boyfriend's friends randomly popped SimCity 2000 in the Playstation, and I was hooked. In '99 I was looking up cheat codes for it online when I ran across an article about the development of The Sims. Bought it on release day. The rest is history. Have bought every release on or before release day, except Sims 4.

I remember looking up cheat codes and finding TSR at some point during TS1. Twas probably a similar search for content that led me here when this site opened.

One Sunday morning, I noticed that my big sister and I were standing in front of a new house.

Or if you prefer: Around 2009, a friend showed me her TS2 and I felt "I need this." By the time I made the purchase, TS3 was current, and so that is my game life now. (I don't identify as a gamer and I was utterly innocent regarding the differences between TS2 and TS3 -- but as Janet says, "the important thing is that we're all Sims.")

As to "the community", there are various different tribes of Simmers who use that term. I learned about several by Google and following links; but of all those that I found, MTS felt like the one with the most appealing combination of reliable information, useful content and decent people.

(I do want to give props to two other Simming communities. One consists of Sims with in-character Facebook pages, and in a very few cases the gamers who created those. This population grew fast around when LN came out and has since subsided quite a bit, but this dieoff revealed who were/are the ones actually holding up what could properly be called a community. The other -- which apparently came and went before my time -- made themselves known through "By-Sims-For-Sims" blog and story sites. I've seen some such sites for TS2 that were rich and good, but as far as I can tell, no comparable thing ever grew up around TS3.)

I was eight years old and sleeping over at a friend's house. She had practically all of the expansions at the time and whenever I went over we'd play TS2. Then for Christmas I wanted TS2 Double Deluxe (as that was the game my friend owned) and freaked out when I got it. Naturally the first thing I did was create my family in two households. My immediate family died of starvation because we ran out of food and my mother was the only one working for some reason. The my aunt set her house on fire when cooking and everyone there died.

My friend eventually gave me her copies of the expansions she owned: University and Open for Business. I then eventually got Bon Voyage and later on, around the time TS3 first came out, I acquired Apartment Life. Then, right before I turned nine, I visited my friend's house and we played TS3. I finally got my own copy of the game in 2011 and have played it ever since.

I now own every expansion pack and stuff pack TS3 has to offer and have The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection alongside The Sims 4 Premium Edition.

I first joined MTS around the time I had my first copy of Double Deluxe (before I used it so much the disc got scratched). Then after a while I came back, forgot the password to my old account and made this one.

I'm not much of a gamer, like at ALL. My father taught the whole family that "games were evil and rotted the mind". So I avoided them until college (2011). There I met my boyfriend, who's had scores of field days introducing me to different games. Along the way (2013) he said "You know, you like sandbox games. I bet you'd love the Sims." He grabbed his mom's collection of Sims 3 games and he probably regrets it to this day. XD I've been hooked ever since.

How'd I get into the community? I play Sims 3 on a mac, which has a lot of problems. Crashing and lag were something I could deal with, but then one of my save files got corrupted (the very first one) and I panicked. I was terrified of losing my little sims. Lol! XD I took to google and found MTS (2014) and all the answers they could give. Thanks to you guys I'm still playing my very first save file! XD

I remember the Scholastic annual book fair at my school and some old PC games were for sale, SimCity 3000 being one of them. That was when the series caught my attention though I never bought the game. It wasn't until 2005 when news of the Sims 2 popularity drove me to invest my time into the series. I was obsessed with getting my hands on a copy of the Sims 2. I watched trailers and X-Play just to get a taste of what I was missing out. I got the PS2 versions of the Sims 2, Sims 2 Pets, and Sims 2 Castaway. All was great, but I had to get the PC version! In 2007, I got the Deluxe edition. I think I died and went to sim heaven the first time I played it! It was a major step up from the console version. What really amazed me was the building tool. I was always a fan of simulation games, so playing the Sims was the best experience I ever had with the genre.

As for the community, I didn't get involved until I discovered custom content. I went the longest without knowing I could download content off the internet for my game. My mind was blown.

I really don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for the Sims

Long, long ago after I had a pc that would run Sims 1 I went looking online and discovered Sims 2. One of my sons suggested that old Mom might enjoy the Sims2 EA Forums. I joined and was active there (PattyHeart) until it was closed down owing to the arrival of Sims 3. Along the way I finally found the Sims One collection. I pre-ordered the Sims 3 base game and (as with 2 ended up with every EP and SP) I also pre-ordered 4 which ( as attractive as it is ) is a disappointment and does not (even with the latest EPs and SPs) hold my interest for long. Perhaps because I prefer more creative freedom and the well rounded 'family' and generational play option offered by 2 and 3. When the original EA sims2 boards went away found a new home here at MTS. The members and generous creators here have added so much enjoyment and variety to my Sims ! Folks here also tend to be friendly and willing to help with questions, game problems and creative requests. ((THANK YOU ALL))

I had been watching LGR for a while and then I found a copy of the base game with Fast Lane stuff and Supernatural(I will never get over the fact that there are no stand ins in this expansion for Dean and Sam)taped together for $6 in goodwill, so I picked it up. Then when I had trouble running it I did a google search for help and I found this site with all of it's great CC. I have only been into the game since this summer but it is on my most played ever list right now.

To be honest if I had paid full price for these games and stuff packs I think I would have felt ripped off but having never paid more then five bucks for any one of them I enjoy them and there is no other game like The Sims 3. I am not really interested in The Sims 4 since they ditched the world exploring aspects and that is my favorite part of this game, just wondering around and finding new stuff and sims in my own time. Yeah I am that one boring guy who used to not even try to solve the puzzles in Myst and instead just explored the world, I am the boring gamer.

This site is great and it makes it worth putting up with all the glitches and problems in the game.

When I was like 5 my dad bought The Sims for our computer. I tried it a bit but didn't really understand anything, my sister really enjoyed it though for a week until our computer broke down.

Then on New Years Eve 2004 my family (dad, sister, me) we're at our relatives/friends house celebrating, and I met a girl in my age. We went up to her room and played The Sims 2 and I was so hooked, it was such an incredible fun game I thought. So from 2004 to 2005 we we're playing The Sims 2.

On my birthday in Mars 2005 dad bought a really expensive, new computer and The Sims 2! And that is where it all started.

I had always wanted to play from the time I saw it advertised. I had played the original SimCity as a child at my cousins house and liked it. However when Sims 1 came out I was in my last years of high school and then with college etc. I never had the chance to buy and play it. I didn't actually end up getting to finally play until really late like 2010. I was at Gamestop and they had the Sims 2 Double Deluxe really cheap, so I picked it up. By the end of the night I was hooked lol. I was introduced to the community via a google search when my game started acting up and I was looking for help and got directed here. Once I started playing 2 it didn't take me long to move to 3 (the open world concept appealed to me), and I've tried 4 ( I don't hate it) but still prefer 2 and 3. I've never played the original though.

My son said "Look at this game, Dad, you can build houses .. " my son was 12 .. So we bought it. As it was just me and him at home we used to 'game' together. He ultimately defected to Minecraft and then onto greater things with his friends, but I carried on.
In 2010 I found out about a place called MTS ... and was amazed ... It took me a while to get the confidence to upload anything to share (about a year, all told) but 36 uploads later I'm still here and happy to be part of the best community ever; Off Topic is my home now, and I am happy to call some pretty amazing people 'friends'.