I’ve always been addicted to Sims. Since Sims 1 came out when I was in middle school it’s been my favorite game. That was 15 years ago. There is just something so fascinating about building (and at times ruining) virtual lives. It was the ultimate sandbox game before Minecraft, and in my opinion is still a worthy competitor despite its focus being different.
Early last year it was announced that Sims 4 would be released that fall. I was ecstatic. I read every rumor and hint I could find about what the new Sims would include. I waited with bated breath until it was released in September…..for PCs. Only. A serious blow. Our fleet of computers are all Mac and I believe Mac has a greater share of personal computers than PCs. And yet Maxis and EA either decided to release PC first or, more likely, did not have the Mac version ready by the launch date. A serious blow.
In my tech induced craze I thought about helping to fund the Gaming PC my partner had mentioned he was saving up for – just so I could play Sims. I thought about splitting my Mac so it could run Windows as well – just so I could play Sims. Something I’m sure my little Air would not recover from or even be able to handle in the first place. And then I quickly realized – all this planning was ridiculous. I should not spend hundreds of dollars just to be able to immediately play a then $60 game. That’s straight ludicrous.
So instead I waited. I waited until the Mac version came out in February. In the meantime I watched walkthroughs of other people playing the Sims (a phenomenon I never understood and was confused by when I saw other people watching others play a game instead of playing it themselves). Embarrassingly, I’ve watched several days worth of other people playing this game. And then the day finally arrived. Ironically right after I had spent the weekend with a few of my friends who are also die-hard Sims fans and the day after a national holiday (three-day weekend) they released the game. Possibly the worst timing ever.
But! my patience was rewarded. Instead of paying the original list price of $60, the cost had been reduced in February to $39.99 – a 33% discount. And as an added bonus if you purchase the Mac game, you received the PC version as well. So even if we eventually get that gaming PC I can play Sims 4 on it without buying another copy. And the cherry on top is when I discovered that I could play my one game on multiple computers – as long as they were not playing at the same time. Which was perfect since my little Air seems to freak out when trying to play and is only successful a small percentage of the time, my work computer (a MacBook Pro) handles the game like a beast.
So I learned a valuable lesson. Take a deep breath, focus on what’s important and wait. It pays off.