The Sims™ 3 on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information

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The Sims 3: Create the perfect world with full customization at your fingertips. Refine personalities and help fulfill destinies.

The Sims™ 3 is a life sim, simulation and character customization game developed by The Sims Studio and Maxis and published by Electronic Arts.
Released on January 27th 2011 is available only on Windows in 17 languages: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese - Portugal, Russian, Spanish - Spain, Swedish and Traditional Chinese.

It has received 32,910 reviews of which 28,544 were positive and 4,366 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.5 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 19.99€ on Steam.


The Steam community has classified The Sims™ 3 into these genres:

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at The Sims™ 3 through various videos and screenshots.

System requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows
  • OS *: Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
  • Processor: (XP) 2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent; (Vista) 2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
  • Memory: (XP) 1 GB; (Vista) 1.5 GB
  • Graphics: 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
  • DirectX®:
  • Hard Drive: At least 6.5 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content
  • Sound:
  • Built-in Graphics:
    • Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA X3000 or above.
    • 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
    • 0.5 GB additional RAM
  • Supported Video Cards:Nvidia GeForce series: FX5900 or greater, G100, GT 120, GT 130, GTS 150, GTS 250, GTX 260, GTX 275, GTX 280, GTX 285, GTX 295; ATI Radeon™ series: ATI Radeon 9500 series of greater, X300, X600, X700, X800, X850, X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950, 2400, 2600, 2900, 3450, 3650, 3850, 3870, 4850, 4870 series or greater; Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA): GMA 3-Series, GMA 4-Series
  • *Please note that the GeForce 6100 and 7100 cards are not supported

User reviews & Ratings

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

May 2025
Great game to disassociate to and think about how you are doing nothing meaningful with your life, meanwhile investing all your time, energy and focus onto making your Sims lives picturesque. Perfect family, perfect jobs, happy lives and maxed out skills; watching as they prance through life with fulfilment and purpose as you blankly stare at the screen wishing it was you. You realize that all the time you have poured into this game, you could have been focusing your attention on increasing your own skills, fulfilling your own wishes and completing your own skillbooks and opportunities. The Sims 3 gives you a chance to give some virtual people a life you aspire to have. If I had to guess, since the age of 6 I have probably accumulated over thousands of hours of playtime. I will never get bored of this game. They could never make me hate the Sims 3. 10/10 will continue playing.
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Dec. 2024
I tried sims 4 and didn't like how much was lost compared to the sims 3. I still go back to the sims 3 pretty regularly. The game is relaxing, packed with content, and has infinite potential. Live a couple of sim lives to help you decompress from how much real life sucks these days. At least you can afford a place to live with your low paying office job there.... Its not like that anymore out here in the real world. Reminds me of better times, when there was a middle class.
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Dec. 2024
good(?) how i've been able to run the game; 1. open Sims 3 launcher 2. open task manager 3. in task manager, locate 'Sims3LauncherW' 4. open details 5. right click 'Sims3LauncherW' -> set affinity 6. deselect all CPU cores. select CPU 1 only 7. press play 8. in task manager Details, 'TS3W.exe' should now appear 9. right click 'TS3W.exe' -> set affinity 10. select all cores game will now run. you have to do this each time, though it goes pretty fast once you get the hang of it. hope this helps.
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Nov. 2024
Grew up playing all the older sims releases and this is honestly my all-time fav. Sims 4 wishes it could have the same charm as this game, but it never will. I miss when they actually cared abt their players rather than just their money. FUCK ea games.
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Oct. 2024
Probably the best Sims experience currently available. There is so much content and freedom in this game that it's actually insane. Sure, there are many bugs and performance issues, but that can mostly be solved by installing a few essential mods and clearing your cache/save file from time to time. The open world in this game is exactly why it feels so amazing and alive. It's so nice being able to spend time outside your home and seamlessly go to the gym, go out for a coffee, go to the movie theater, go horse riding, grocery shopping, take part in eating contests, local festivals, etc... The Sims 4 has some of that but it's plagued with a tedious loading system and lacks the aforementioned open world system. This system is the reason why it's so easy to juggle a large family in The Sims 3. There is also simply more content in this game and there are more things to do gameplay-wise. The Sims 3 is a great life simulator, whereas the Sims 4 just has a great character creator and is a great house building sim. Sadly as we already know, there won't be a new Sims game any time soon, so for the time being, I recommend you skip The Sims 4, and just play this old but amazing masterpiece.
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Frequently Asked Questions

The Sims™ 3 is currently priced at 19.99€ on Steam.

The Sims™ 3 is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 19.99€ on Steam.

The Sims™ 3 received 28,544 positive votes out of a total of 32,910 achieving a rating of 8.51.
😎

The Sims™ 3 was developed by The Sims Studio and Maxis and published by Electronic Arts.

The Sims™ 3 is playable and fully supported on Windows.

The Sims™ 3 is not playable on MacOS.

The Sims™ 3 is not playable on Linux.

The Sims™ 3 is a single-player game.

There are 19 DLCs available for The Sims™ 3. Explore additional content available for The Sims™ 3 on Steam.

The Sims™ 3 does not support mods via Steam Workshop.

The Sims™ 3 does not support Steam Remote Play.

The Sims™ 3 is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.

You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for The Sims™ 3.

Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates
Steam data 10 June 2025 07:32
SteamSpy data 11 June 2025 05:09
Steam price 15 June 2025 04:44
Steam reviews 13 June 2025 07:53

If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about The Sims™ 3, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.

  • SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about The Sims™ 3
  • SteamCharts - Analysis of The Sims™ 3 concurrent players on Steam
  • ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Sims™ 3 compatibility
The Sims™ 3 PEGI 12
8.5
28,544
4,366
Game modes
Features
Online players
1,324
Developer
The Sims Studio, Maxis
Publisher
Electronic Arts
Release 27 Jan 2011
Platforms