The Sims 3

As in previous games of the franchise, in The Sims 3 players control their own Sims' activities and relationships. The gameplay is open-ended and does not have a defined goal. The Sims live in neighborhoods, now being officially referred to as worlds, which can be customized, allowing the player to create their houses, community lots, and Sims, although many of these come with the core game. These worlds are now seamless, allowing all Sims to move around freely without any loading screen in between lots, as happened in the previous games.

The neighborhood includes community lots which can be leisure lots (parks, markets, gyms, and movie theaters) and job lots (town hall, hospital, and businesses). Since the neighborhood is open, the game includes the "Story Progression" mechanic, which allows all Sims in the neighborhood to autonomously continue their lives without the player ever controlling them. This helps to advance the story of the whole neighborhood instead of only the active playing units. Sims live for a set duration of time that is adjustable by the player and advance through several life stages (baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, adult, and elder). Sims can die of old age or from causes such as fire, starvation, drowning, and electrocution.

Electronic Arts announced The Sims 3 on March 19, 2008. On January 15, 2009, Maxis invited "some of the best" custom content creators to their campus at Redwood Shores where they were hosting a Creator's Camp. Creators have been invited to spend the week exploring and creating content like Sims, houses, and customized content. The creators' work was used to pre-populate The Sims 3 Exchange.

On May 8, 2009, Maxis announced that The Sims 3 had gone gold, meaning that the game had finished beta testing stage and was off for manufacturing ahead of its June 2009 release. On May 15, 2009, Maxis released several online interactive teaser experiences on The Sims 3 website, including SimFriend, which allows users to choose a virtual Sim Friend who would email them throughout the day; SimSocial, which allows users to create their own Sim online, and have an adventure with them; and SimSidekick, which allows users to surf the web with a sim. Two weeks before the game was scheduled to be released, an unauthorized copy of the digital distribution version of the game leaked onto the Internet. Maxis later commented that the leak was a "buggy, pre-final" version susceptible to crashes, and that more than half of the game was missing.

Response from critics and gamers alike were generally favorable, with Metacritic calculating a score of 86/100 based on 75 reviews. PC Gamer awarded The Sims 3 a 92% and an Editor's Choice badge, calling it "The best Sims game yet". 9/10, stating: "This is simply a better playing Sims experience, and once you experience the freedom to hit the town without hitting a load screen you'll be hard-pressed to go back to any of the earlier games. Blowing up the size of the game was certainly a risk, but it was a sensible and overdue one, and kudos to EA for recognizing that the decade-old formula needed some growth.

And while there's still plenty of room for more innovation, we'll settle for The Sims 3 for now. It delivers a solid foundation for what should be many more years of Sims sales dominance."