I got seriously addicted to The Sims 2 in my early teenage years after our mom bought it for us. I don't know why, it wasn't something I'd still think my parents would do (and now they know better not to get us anything that addicting, expensive and time consuming). Before that I had tried The Sims at my friend's, and liked it. I had never played a "real" PC game before and it opened a new world for me. I think we may have had a few fights with my sister that who gets to play today... I also had a friend who played it aswell, and when we got to use the internet (Yes, I was a kid when internet connection at homa was a new a potentially dangerous thing) we found a Finnish website dedicated to the game, Radola, that still exists as a forum and is way more active than the Official one today. A few years later we had all the expansions and lots of CC. I also tried to make some of my own, because it was so easy with The Sims 2, but my computer skills weren't that high... :D I played rather actively The Sims 2 to somewhere 2010, 2011. That is all thanks to the CC there was. If I can still get my Old PC open, I'll get you pictures! At least I'm interested to see what's in there...
I didn't want to switch to The Sims 3 when it came. I was already so used to seeing my sims with CC that the new sims seemed to be ugly and had dough faces. It was also too expensive for me and it would take long to get enough expansions and enough good CC. I was meant to skip The Sims 3 and wait for The Sims 4. Luckily it didn't go that way.
I started playing The Sims 3, I have to make a confession, when it was downloaded for me. I didn't even know you could do that, so I was completely innocent! :D I played it... I liked it... And I downloaded it too. I was sold and then the games were bought, and now I have almost all there is to buy. So, it wasn't that bad? EA got a valuable player who now advertises at least the game series, if not the latest product, with her work, for free. Or actually I payed for them. Like with The Sims 2, it's the CC that keeps be addicted. And after 2012, the community I've found with the US Sims Forum.
Over a year ago, before I moved in with my bf, I spent some time at his appartment alone from time to time. My laptop didn't run The Sims 3 anymore and it was heavy to carry around, so he was so sweet that he bought me The Sims Medieval with Pirates and Nobles expansion. Before that I didn't know what it really was, and red reviews that it didn't work either as a Sims game nor a RPG, but some people still liked it. I liked it too, although it took me some time to get it work at all. There was the same damn Launcher again that caused most frequent bugs I had with The Sims 3. I spent three days looking for an answer. (I love you, EA, but you're not making it easy all the time) Unfortunately the game was soon repeating itself and got boring, but I get inspiration to play it once in a while. I guess it was a flop, but rather cheap in Origin, so I think I have to recommend it as a fan. Just get the game started and somehow fix the bugs preventing you from getting married or having babies, and what else, and you spend a good while with it.
Did I planned to buy The Sims 4? No. But I didn't plan to buy The Sims 3 either. This time though I had better reasons. The Sims was a spectacular game when it arrived and a trendsetter. The Sims 2 topped that, and The Sims 3 did even better, whether I agreed with it first or not. It added new features and upgraded others. It was near perfection, if you forget the buginess and the performance issues. When the long waited Sims 4 came, something had happened. As I now have the base game and the first EP, I'm going to find out what.
How did you end up with the series? Have you played them all? Please share you story too.