As The Sims franchise fast approaches its 20th anniversary, at the end of January 2020, it’s made me think back on how the game has influenced my life over that time. The impact of this life simulation reaches much deeper than I expected and I suspect I’m far from alone in this.
While tales of how the game has helped players explore their sexuality are common, there’s another side of me that the game helped me come to terms with: my autism.
Better Late Than Never
December 2019 heralded a couple of big events in my life. It marked my last birthday before I hit the, frankly quite terrifying, big 4-0 and it also marked the first anniversary of my official autism diagnosis.
Being diagnosed autistic as a woman in my late 30’s was an oddly liberating experience. It felt like the final piece of a puzzle I’d been trying to solve my whole life had slotted into place, giving me a full picture that suddenly all made sense. However, thanks in no small part to The Sims, I’d already learned some ways to cope with different aspects of being autistic.
The Sims As A Comfort
The first way The Sims helped me was as a comfort and a safe space to retreat into. This is still the case today but it first started back in 2000 when The Sims came out.
I was 19 when I saw the intriguing packaging on the shelf. It was a rough time in my life with a lot of changes happening, something which is difficult for autistic people to deal with. I was trying to find my feet, learn to drive and navigate the challenges of university, something that wasn’t easy for me.
I bought the game and took it home to play on my brand new PC that I’d gotten just weeks before. As soon as the game booted up, I was in love.
The Sims was a world in which I was in control. Having spent my life feeling out of my depth and far from in charge, this was a revelation. Here I could immerse myself and explore my life long love of storytelling in a place where finally I called the shots.
The building, storytelling, and exploring offered would become my comfort. In times of anxiety, I’d come back to my Sims world, where everything was as I wanted it to be. It would give me back a feeling of control that would help ground me and keep me going.
The Timely Release Of The Sims 2
The Sims 2 was released the day before I gave birth to my oldest child. As once again I struggled with the huge life changes this brought, the franchise stepped in as an even more in-depth safe space to retreat into.
This time around the game was even more complex and the range of emotions Sims had also helped me deal with my own. It also helped me explore family life and what that may look like for me.
I find processing emotions difficult, even to this day. There’s a myth that autistic people don’t feel emotion. The truth for most of us is that we do, more than you’ll ever know, we just feel it in a different way than others. We are prone to get more upset by injustice and rule-breaking, and those who lie often confuse us. Big things are hard to comprehend, and some little things fly over our heads because they don’t fit our view of the world.
We don’t fail to empathize - instead, we struggle to process this empathy because our emotions are simply too much to handle at times. Other times, they are difficult to understand. A large number of autistic people don’t tend to lie, and struggle to spot manipulation. This means we are often seen as blunt, unfeeling or weird.
The Sims 2 helped me with this. The characters react realistically to each other and show a “normal” reaction to certain actions. Autistic people often find themselves coping by learning the “proper response” towards things. A game like The Sims gives a safe space to explore this and learn more about how people interact.
Exploring Emotions
As the years passed, the games continued to come and I played as many as I could. To this day I still play The Sims 4, including all the DLC I can lay my hands on.
The franchise has helped me learn about the world around me, about emotions, and about how people interact. While Sims socializing is far from super realistic - allowing you to make a friend in a day and have a family by the end of the week - the basics are all there.
It allows me to break up families and watch the fallout, seeing how it affects different sims. I can see how sad the ending of a friendship is and how grief can be random and unexpected. There are some players who slate the latest incarnation, but to me, it’s perfect.
I can’t handle too much complexity and depth. I want the game to be realistic but not too much. I couldn’t fully handle it if everything was 100% true to life. My brain just wouldn’t process it.
Encouraging Creativity
As well as learning about emotions, socializing, and interaction, the franchise has also allowed me to explore my creativity.
I’ve always been a storyteller at heart and The Sims has let me unleash that. I can tell stories in ways I never thought possible and the possibilities are endless.
I have so many saved stored on my PC and each one has a different purpose. I have some which contain stories of chaos, some that are calmer and others that are supernatural based. I’ve also got save files entirely for building and others just for fun.
However I want to express myself, The Sims has always been there for me. It’s taught me about myself, my creativity and my autism. It’s helped me process the world around me and offered me an escape in times of need.
Thank you Will Wright, Maxis, EA and everyone who has ever been involved in this franchise. You’ve enriched my life in ways you’ll never know.
Here’s to the next 20 years!
NEXT: The Sims: Putting Virtual Lives Before Our Own
