# The Sims

7 Hacker News commenters recommended The Sims and 5 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Long-running life simulation game that people recommend for its huge success and for staying enjoyable across versions. Later Sims 4 is called safe and unambitious.

## Why people recommend it

- Huge commercial success (3 comments): "one single game, The Sims, earning the studio many billions of dollars, continuing to this day." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48191364)) "the billions of dollars The Sims made and its hundreds of millions of happy players" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48204392)) "becomes the best-selling PC game of all time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48834054))
- Still enjoyable across versions (2 comments): "Not once did I ever play The Sims as intended. And enjoyed it enough to buy another version or two." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234898)) "The Sims 1 Was Made in 2000...and it's still amazing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49107638))

## What people warn about

- Technical glitches on some versions (3 comments): "The game worked. After some time the disc would fail at a file called voice1.package." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47347860)) "games that were tricky to get working because I used a 4K monitor (Sims 2, Crysis 2)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46445914)) "The Sims (up to version 3, anyway) didn't want to deal with collisions on stairs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49946259))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Stardew Valley](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stardew-valley.md): 37 recommend
- [Spore by Maxis](https://hackerapproved.com/p/spore.md): 7 recommend
- [Pokémon Pokopia](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pokopia.md): 7 recommend
- [Animal Crossing](https://hackerapproved.com/p/animal-crossing.md): 5 recommend
- [Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tomodachi-life.md): 5 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Sims", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sims/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).