The Sims is a social simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts in 2000. It is a simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual people, called "Sims", in a suburban household near a fictional city. Players control customizable Sims as they pursue career and relationship goals. Players can also use their Sims' income to renovate their living space, and purchase home furnishings, or clothing for their household. Players can also choose to pursue a social and successful life. The game's development was led by Will Wright and the game was a follow-up to Wright's earlier SimCity series; Wright was inspired to create the game by Christopher Alexander's 1977 book A Pattern Language, and Scott McCloud's 1993 book Understanding Comics later played a role in the game's design. Seven expansion packs were released from 2000 to 2003, each of which added new items, characters, skins, and features. Upon release, The Sims garnered widespread critical acclaim and was described by Wright as being successful in attracting casual and female gamers. It also won several awards and placed 31st on Time's The 50 Best Video Games of All Time list. The game has also been commercially successful, being one of the best-selling PC games of all time with 11.5 million copies sold. Several sequels were released—The Sims 2 in 2004, The Sims 3 in 2009, and The Sims 4 in 2014. Gameplay The structure of the game is an agent-based artificial life program. The presentation of the game's artificial intelligence is advanced, and the Sims will respond to outside conditions independently, though often the player's intervention is necessary to keep the Sims on the right track. The Sims technically has unlimited replay value, in that there is no way to truly win the game, and the player can play indefinitely. It has been described as more like a toy than a game. Sims is influenced by the player to interact with objects or other Sims. Sims may receive guests at their home lot, invited or not, from other playable lots or from unhoused non-player character (NPC) Sims. If enabled in the game's options, Sims have a certain amount of free will, allowing them to autonomously interact with their world. However, the player can override most of these autonomous actions by canceling them in the action queue at the top of the screen. Unlike the simulated environments