Maybe this question has been asked before. I was thinking or wondering here, we all are still with Sims 2, and the game is now 20-year-old as of September 14, 2024.
But I think there is just something about Sims 2 that keep us from not letting go and moving on to newer re-releases. Is it that we have become so attached that maybe we have a deep emotional connection to our Sims?

Or is it that the Sims world seem more peaceful than the real world us players live in? Or maybe we feel the need to control that which we cannot control in the real world where we live in real time? In the Sims world we can play the Sims in ways to be happy, sad, rich or poor with their own set of rules and laws, we can create a place or build them a neighborhood or world where everyone is equal or not.

Why I ask these questions I have no ideas accept maybe other players at time wonder why themselves, or maybe we just enjoy escaping to a world we all created in our own game.
Where there is no judgement as to how we play the Sims 2 but for me I could never move on to other version of Sims, especially if you have built a special neighborhood and community. So my last words is no matter how old Sims 2 is as long as we all enjoy that what count and matter.

Because I still have fun with it. And because other games don't let me do what I want to do. I have always wanted to write a novel or collection of short stories in which every household in a community -- a small town, an apartment building, something manageable like that -- gets its own story that is part of the larger story of the whole place, the main character in one story being a small but pivotal part of another character's story, the characters from one household reacting to events in another household and precipitating events in a third, and so on.

Sims 2 is set up this way. Everyone gets to be the hero of their own story and it all happens in front of me so I can see all the little connections.

I grew up with it, during both my elementary school and high school years. Only returning back 3 years ago since I have not been into games from 2010s and beyond, nor wanting to spend any on Sims 4 despite Sims 4 being far superior as far as modification is concerned.

I enjoy modifying the game, having gone through many old games helped quite a bit. Caring for most Sims, paving their paths and making stories in form of snapshots work well, but also tires me out. Maxis getting cussed by me every now and then with their poorly-executed features only gives me more inspiration to see their flawed work perfected.

And the last part is all I need to stick by this site.

You can play TS2 as you like. There isn't a set path you have to follow to "win". If you want lots of conflict, you can create that. If you want an idealistic world, you can have that. If you want to be the all powerful overlord of your Sims, you can be that. If you want to be a passive observer of your Sims, you can do that. It's a sandbox where you set up the rules you want (if any) and just play. They are your actors and you are the playwright.

For some, it's the level of detail. Whether in the gameplay, interactions, animations, objects, the sims- themselves, or even the textures. Love, care, and artistry that is unmatched in the series and in a lot of games, to this day.
For me? It's the vibes, man. I never played TS2 or The Sims as a series in my early childhood (I got it back in April 2016 when EA still offered the Ultimate Collection to those who had proof of owning a physical copy of the base game, shoutouts to that one Origin support agent), but whenever I get into The Sims 2, it's like I'm back in 2003. Funny, considering 2's release date. So much of the game's atmosphere oozes early 2000's in such a charmingly comforting way. So much so that it inspired me to recreate my early childhood hometowns in-game. As well as grab SimCity 4 to make terrains for those neighborhoods.

Dear ModTheSims!

Well, I'm still here because Veronaville is a great place to live, if you're young and gay like I am.

Why my Player is still here is harder to say, but I like to think it's because he likes me and my friends.

Yours with Love,
Andrew XXX

I just like the freedom of 2 that I don't feel you get with 3 & 4. I like open world or sandbox games were there is no predetermined goal, no end, no game over and the Sims 2 gives me that.

Because there is no reason to leave?

I can (but I won't) write down a thousand reasons to stay, but will stand by this one: not a single playing session goes by without things making me smile, making me cry, making me sigh....)

How else am I going to find out what happens with my pixels in Arundel?

Why am I still here?
Well, from where I stand, it's a hell of a lot better than real life right now....

I'm here because Sims 4 is shite. Plus I don't have any friends and you lot are the only people who ever talk to me.

I would offer you a beer, but we only have juice

Why not?

Life is short, we can all enjoy a good game that makes us laugh. It doesn't matter if it's old or someone thinks we shouldn't.

Alcohol mod. XD And that's one of the reasons that I still play (the ability to mod it to your taste, not because of alcohol :P).

I'm here because I think TS2 is still the best game out of the four options. It's the one I always come back to, and I manage to somehow be obsessed with it even if I don't play for half a year (but I plan stuff, write stories for it, download CC, hang out on sim forums, make CC, etc.). It's fun, I prefer it over the competition when it comes to taking pictures (my fave thing to do), and I like how the sims look (the way I just need my trusty default skins + eyes, and it makes pretty much all the sims look alright). I love the animations, I love the little details everywhere. I love the way the neighborhoods are set up (perfect for my kind of storytelling preferences - also never been a fan of story progression, not the way TS3/TS4 does it, anyway).

It's not a perfect game - it has bugs, annoyances, and several "I wish I had that thing from 3 or 4" - but it's still a good game. Better than the ones coming after it, because somebody clearly cared when they made it (unlike how things currently are with the "cash-cow" TS4)

Been playing TS2 since 2006, and if the game still works (somehow?) don't be surprised if I end up as a gamer-gran in a nursing home, still playing that "ancient" game from my late childhood

While, personally, I'd be happy for a more modern Sims/Sims-like game that meets my needs, one that let's me do some things in build/buy/character creation mode that jsut aren't possible in Sims 2...

Sims 2 is just the only one that gives me control over the whole town and lets me play out my sprawling, neighbourhood-wide storylines and challenges without the game mucking it up with story progression and/or playing my inactive Sim households for me (and thus making them change in some way, even without story progression)

That's why I'm here.

^ My biggest pet-peeve with TS4. Play a household with story progression (and everything else related) off. Switch to a different lot, play it for a day or so. Come back to the first lot. Everything is in shambles - motives down, sims are anywhere but where you left them, someone is probably crying in the corner, and it's no longer 7 PM but 10 AM and everyone who should be at work/school is still at home (with homework they haven't done, of course), and somehow the plants have STILL not grown... something of the sort, anyway - pure chaos

With TS2, play one lot, play another lot, come back to first lot - it's exactly how you left it, same time, sims in the same positions, perfect!

The Sims 2 is still the best Sim game, so why would we move on to newer worse releases? Some people do both of course, play old and newer releases.
Sims 2 not only looks good but is the only one that lets me do most of what I want to do. As @simmer22 said about Sims 4 and I use to find years ago also in Sims 3, move on and go back and things will be a shambles.

I don't have any deep emotions connected to it, although I do get sad when sims who were born into the game finally die of old age. I just like making hoods and sims and working towards goals or making up small stories or building.
Gaming is my long standing hobby love though. I was one of the early Gen X gamers, I think I started on Pong at a friends house but what I really remember from about 13 years old was Space Invaders and Pac Man as arcade games. I do miss those even today.
Now a days I also enjoy playing the older Sid Meiers's Alpha Centauri, Skyrim, Dragon Age Origins and Inquisition; as well as a couple of small detective games now and then. Basically I am an older game fan.

For me, it boils down to surprise: TS2 Sims are the only ones who can, and do, surprise me all the time. The way their personalities are defined seems simple but is actually devilishly clever and efficient; no other life simulator has managed to achieve something similar. TS3 (after Twallan) is a nice game but the only time its Sims really surprised me was when they unexpectedly dropped dead. TS4 Sims and Zois did not even surprise me that way because I've never seen them grow old - I became bored long before that point and went back to TS2, often with a perfect plan that was just as often destroyed almost immediately.

In short, TS2 Sims are the cats of life simulators. Cute and you think you know them, but you don't.

It's funny, because I don't see myself as a gamer, and no one who knows me would describe me as a gamer, but like Jo said too, I've grown up with games - from the time my early computer nerd grandfather built his own version of a pong-game, to the wii dance mat my sister got to kick herself into exercising. The Sims franchise is just the game that's caught me hardest - I need a rest from the game now and then, and don't play anything or play other games - then I start thinking of something an old sim once did, or see a shiny, new piece of CC that I just have to try, and I'm playing Sims 2 again. It's been exclusively Sims 2 for years because 3 and 4 don't feel the same (even if both have their good sides!) and don't run on the kind of computers I can afford either, and Sims 1 hasn't worked for me since forever. I think my imagination thrives on randomness and whimsy too, and Sims 1 and 2 are very good at giving me that! I loved the random phone calls my Sims 1 sims would get, and I go all warm and fuzzy inside when two townies spontaneously develop a crush on a community lot or something, or one of the headmasters spawns with a mohawk,

Because I enjoy it. And it's not the only old game I still enjoy, either; there are some games from the early 1990s that I come back to every so often, and I played them when they were new.

I will take an orange juice

I read this somewhere else:

"If you play computer games, there is no question: you are a gamer, no matter what game you're playing."

There is no shame in enjoyment of something that makes you happy.

I will brook no gamer shame! :P

I sprained my ankle playing Wii tennis lol.



Or mobile games, tablet games, board games, tabletop games. It'd be hard to find a non gamer!

That's why I like to call Sims 4 "the worst of both worlds" (open and closed), you get all the randomness and the game messing with your inactive households like it happened with Sims 3, but you don't even have the open world from Sims 3, so there isn't even any reason for that to happen.

So I was thinking about this a bit more, and I made a better answer than my last one

I think with Sims 1, I loved it and played the heck out of it (and still do sometimes), but I felt like I was watching (in the same way as I feel when playing SC4 or Cities Skylines).

In Sims 2, I feel like I'm there, I'm part of it. I can talk to them, shout obscenities at them when they do silly things, and help them out of trouble. I laugh and cry with them and I can really care about them.

Sims 3 could be played like that, but if you play the whole world and control the population, I felt again slightly detached, like an observer- it is very fun, and I do love Sims 3 and play it from time to time, but for me, the world is the main character, and the Sims are the pieces on the game board.

For Sims 4, I hardly got off the ground- I dislike everything about the game. I hate that I cannot control what happens in the towns, I hate that the interesting bits of the neighbourhood aren't playable, I hate that teens, young adults and adults all look the same... Sims 1, 2 and 3 I can play right out of the box, no mods needed to have fun. But Sims 4 needs to be a completely different game to even get me interested.

Sims 2 was the first game that I was following and talking about before release. I watched the first mods and custom content being made, I saw people learning to make actual new meshes and get them into game (not just converting other game models as has become common). I saw the tools being developed, I tested out the first new hairstyles on my sims, I learned to fix my game and make my own camera mods and I downloaded sooo much! All the time I was talking to people who also loved the game, and sharing stories and entering contests and showing pictures. And now, there are new modders building on what those first modders learned, and we have so much cool content and we can make our game play and appear however we like. The game has such depth and well thought out design, that we can play for quarter of a century without losing interest, and we can adapt the game to whatever style we choose to make new gameplay. And still, there are friendly people who talk to me about my sims, and share their sims' lives with me, and who will find content and fix mods for me. New friends and old friends, here because of this game.

This is why I'm still here!