History YMMV / TheSims

** The fantasy/sci-fi elements of the Sims franchise. Some fans prefer playing with a more realistic and grounded version of the Sims while others love to play as some of their supernatural creatures from fiction.
*** And, presumably in a backlash to the backlash, some fans of the more paranormal-themed expansions will now often complain bitterly when a very obviously family-gameplay-oriented pack is released, accusing the devs of ignoring the fans who find the realistic life simulation side of things boring.

** Also Bella Goth to an extent since she got abducted by aliens in ''The Sims 2''. Her family could count as this as well as one must imagine what they must have went through after what happened with Bella.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Any Sim is subject to this. In particular, any Sim in ''The Sims 2'' who has ended up with the Grilled Cheese aspiration: folks who have shed the burden of ambition and learned to enjoy the simple things in life (even if it is only grilled cheese sandwiches), or mindless, emotionless zombies whose desire for grilled cheese is all-consuming?

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The Pleasent siblings in the first game and the Fyres siblings in ''The Sims 4: Get Together'' have too different of skin tones to be related as siblings and they must have meant to be step siblings, correct? Actually, it is possible for full blooded siblings to have skin tones as different as them, including twins.

** The game in general is popular for generating these (complete with original characters to boot). ''[[TheWikiRule The Sims Wiki]]'' has a dedicated page for fanon characters titled "Fanon:<Insert Sim Name>".

* ViewerPronunciationConfusion: The "Live Mode vs Live Mode" debate has raged for literal decades between those who pronounce it like the verb "to live" and those who think it should sound like the adjective à la "live TV". WordOfGod from the Sim Gurus as confirmed that it's the verb form (so that Live, Buy, and Build modes all match grammatically), but many fans of the adjective are nevertheless adamant on retaining their preferred pronunciation.

** Among those who primarily joined during ''The Sims 4'' era, ''Eco Lifestyle'' in 2020 was seen as the point where the ''Sims'' team began to flounder in their execution, delivering an expansion that was seen as having an interesting concept but a rather boring and unsatisfying gameplay loop, in addition to several game-breaking bugs that left users crashing ''thirty minutes into their game''. However, what sank ''The Sims 4'' firmly into the Dork Age for most of these fans (and indeed, most of the Simsdom in general) was the reveal and release of the near-universally derided ''Journey to Baatu'', a ''Franchise/StarWars''-themed game pack that had blatant Disney shilling (or at least EA milking the ''Star Wars'' license) painted all over its cover. While ''Snowy Escape'', released later in the year, managed to win back some small amount of goodwill from the fanbase, the shoddy, bug-ridden quality of recent releases has prompted a wave of retroactive introspection as to the hollow nature of the core ''Sims 4'' experience.
*** As of 2021, ''The Sims 4'' has firmly sunk into Dork Age for many of the older era Simmers, compounded by a wave of even more game-breaking bugs, the arrival of the much-derided game kits (which, among other things, offers the ''ability to vacuum for $5''), and a lackluster game pack. It's gotten bad enough to the point where prominent reviewers and Sims players such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC2fda9k0yc Carl's Sims Guide]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqaprLT7zic&list=PLbBZM9aUMsjH0ugWCCkcFxNPtvqRoi9la&index=24&t=210s LGRPlays]] have become extremely vocal about their disdain for the franchise's direction, with [=LGRPlays=] swearing off of reviewing and playing Sims 4 content entirely.

** In ''The Sims 2: Castaway'', coffee beans reduce the bladder need by 10, over twice as much as any other spice. This is probably because caffeine is a natural diuretic.

* DifficultySpike: First-time players will likely choose to play as Claire Ursine, expecting it to be an event-less routine of fishing and going to work. [[spoiler:Then she becomes a single parent, which tests the player's time management capabilities as they juggle work with parenting.]]

** Basically every Sim that has the loser and/or unlucky trait. Even ''Death'' takes pity on the latter; giving immunity to death by anything other than old age.

** ''The Sims 3''[='=]s ''Supernatural'' expansion adds a new town based on [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest the Pacific Northwest]] that's home to [[FurAgainstFang feuding families of vampires and werewolves]], the former having an expy of Edward Cullen in its ranks, as well as a human family who are based on Bella and Charles Swan. In short, it's the closest thing there is to a ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' video game. As if that wasn't enough, the Roommates Supernatural household is pretty much the main characters of ''Series/BeingHumanUS'', while Marigold Maldano is an expy of [[Series/TrueBlood Sookie Stackhouse]].

** In terms of fashion, the clothing options available in the first game still reflected TheNineties, with a particular focus on clothes that would look and feel right at home in a DomCom from that decade. The second and third games, meanwhile, featured popular fashion items from the TurnOfTheMillennium, particularly with the prevalence of low-rise hip-hugging pants for female Sims designed to [[BareYourMidriff bare the midriff]], which were trendy among young women in that decade but experienced a major backlash in the next. Finally, the clothing in the fourth game reflects contemporary fashions in TheNewTens, particularly the {{hipster}} and [[WorkoutFanservice athleisure]] trends.

** Agnes too. She wanted to have a perfect family life with her new husband, and he died. They even had a nursery. Now she lives a depressed life and becomes the purse-wielding grump we know in ''Hot Date''.

* AudienceAlienatingEra: See above re: BrokenBase. The first game was a hit, and the second is thought to have [[EvenBetterSequel improved on everything]], but after that, fans are divided over whether the third game put the series in this and the fourth game pulled it out, or the third game was still good and the fourth one grew mired in this.

* DorkAge: See above re: BrokenBase. The first game was a hit, and the second is thought to have [[EvenBetterSequel improved on everything]], but after that, fans are divided over whether the third game put the series in this and the fourth game pulled it out, or the third game was still good and the fourth one grew mired in this.
** The general consensus among older fans of the franchise who started with the first two games is that ''The Sims 3'' was horribly optimized and ran like garbage upon release, and while the worst problems would later be patched, each new ExpansionPack made the game that much more of a resource hog. That said, many still admire its ambition, especially its WideOpenSandbox design and its deep customization features, and more modern computers have much less of a problem running it (especially with [[https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Game_guide:Multiple_ways_to_improve_The_Sims_3%27s_performance mods]] that clean up lingering issues), causing it to be VindicatedByHistory for many -- especially in light of where the series would later go.
** Fans of ''The Sims 3'' will say that the series began slipping into a Dork Age during the later part of that game's life thanks to buggy and unappealing releases such as ''Showtime'', ''Island Paradise'' and ''Into the Future'', and fully nosedived into it when it became clear that ''The Sims 4'' was going to divide and separately sell (or otherwise water down) previous fully-fledged expansion themes and features (such as vacations, nightlife, and most notably occult states) into separate DLC packs. In addition to that, ''The Sims 4'' is often derided for having shallow gameplay beyond Build Mode and Create-a-Sim, buggy Sims with terrible AI and little to no personality, LighterAndSofter marketing that is clearly aimed more towards young teenagers and pre-pubescent girls, and a [[SequelDifficultyDrop reduced difficulty]] that takes away from the unpredictable life simulator aspects that the previous games had.
** Among those who primarily joined during ''The Sims 4'' era, ''Eco Lifestyle'' in 2020 was seen as the point where the ''Sims'' team began to flounder in their execution, delivering an expansion that was seen as having an interesting concept but a rather boring and unsatisfying gameplay loop, in addition to several game-breaking bugs that left users crashing ''thirty minutes into their game''. However, what sank ''The Sims 4'' firmly into the Dork Age for most of these fans (and indeed, most of the Simsdom in general) was the reveal and release of the near-universally derided ''Journey to Baatu'', a ''Franchise/StarWars''-themed game pack that had blatant Disney shilling (or at least EA milking the ''Star Wars'' license) painted all over its cover. While ''Snowy Escape'', released later in the year, managed to win back some small amount of goodwill from the fanbase, the shoddy, bug-ridden quality of recent releases has prompted a wave of retroactive introspection as to the hollow nature of the core ''Sims 4'' experience.
*** As of 2021, ''The Sims 4'' has firmly sunk into Dork Age for many of the older era Simmers, compounded by a wave of even more game-breaking bugs, the arrival of the much-derided game kits (which, among other things, offers the ''ability to vacuum for $5''), and a lackluster game pack. It's gotten bad enough to the point where prominent reviewers and Sims players such as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC2fda9k0yc Carl's Sims Guide]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqaprLT7zic&list=PLbBZM9aUMsjH0ugWCCkcFxNPtvqRoi9la&index=24&t=210s LGRPlays]] have become extremely vocal about their disdain for the franchise's direction, with [=LGRPlays=] swearing off of reviewing and playing Sims 4 content entirely.

** ''The Sims 4'' has received complaints from players of the previous two games over its numerous drastic changes, from the mostly hated ones (such as the removal of many features introduced in the base games of ''2'' and ''3'' or their move to expansion packs[[labelnote:For instance]]Toddlers, swimming pools, cars, and customizable neighborhoods.[[/labelnote]], and the radically different user interfaces), and also some with a better reception (the overhauled "needs" and "wants" system, the new emotion system, new smartphone interaction features, and in-game video games being more than just a fun-filling machine[[note]]Although in ''The Sims 3'', video games can be used to improve relationship with distant Sims through the online feature.[[/note]]). Even though these complaints have lessened over time due to most of the aforementioned features being restored via free patches, detractors still persist.

** ''The Sims 4'' has received complaints from players of the previous two games over its numerous drastic changes, from the bad ones such as removal of many features already introduced in base games of ''2'' and ''3'' (such as toddlers, swimming pools, cars, customizable neighborhood) to the radically different user interfaces, and also some good ones (the overhauled "needs" and "wants" system, the new emotion system, new smartphone interaction features, and in-game video games being more than just a fun-filling machine[[note]]Although in ''The Sims 3'', video games can be used to improve relationship with distant Sims through the online feature.[[/note]]). Although these complaints have lessened over time due to most of the aforementioned features being restored via free patches, detractors still persist.

** ''The Sims 4'' has received complaints from players of the previous two games over its numerous drastic changes, from the bad ones such as removal of many features already introduced in base games of ''2'' and ''3'' (such as toddlers, swimming pools, cars, customizable neighborhood) to the radically different user interfaces, and also some good ones (the overhauled "needs" and "wants" system, the new emotion system, new smartphone interaction features, and also in game videogames being more than just a fun-filling machine, although in ''Sims 3'' videogames can be used to improve relationship with distant Sims through the online feature). Although these complaints have lessened over time due to most of the aforementioned features being restored via free patches, detractors still persist.

** Many of the utterly sadistic things players can do with the VideoGameCrueltyPotential downright cross the line so many times they obliterate any semblance of a line.

** Many of the utterly sadistic things players can do with the VideoGameCrueltyPotential downright cross the line so many times they utterly obliterate any semblance of a line.