When it comes to life simulation games, there's no doubt in anyone's minds that The Sims is pretty much the king of this genre in video gaming. There's no other game that even comes close to the experience that these games boast when it comes to providing gamers with the best life simulation gameplay that can be offered. Ever since the first entry of the series was released back in 2000, The Sims has constantly been on the rise, both in terms of its quality of gameplay and the popularity of the series. It's not exactly a surprise why the franchise has the distinguished honor of being one of the most played PC gaming series of all time.

However, for a franchise focused on life simulation, there are a number of things present in the series that make absolutely no sense at all. After all, at the end of the day, The Sims is still a game at heart. There are bound to be a ton of unrealistic elements that we'll ignore since they provide the series with a unique charm of its own, that has undoubtedly contributed to the immense popularity of the series to begin. But even then, there are a large number of nonsensical gameplay elements present in the series that simply boggle the mind once the player examines these particular instances closely. Here are 20 things in The Sims that make absolutely no sense at all.

20 From Meeting Someone To Marrying Them — All In The Span Of A Freaking Week

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Marriage in The Sims is perhaps one of the most overhyped elements of the game, featuring little to no depth — especially when one pays attention to just how intricate the concept of marriage actually is in real life. While it's certainly an event in the game that involves a lot of the usual pomp and splendor seen in most marriages, the fact of the matter is that it simply does not have the depth or weight behind it to be considered truly monumental.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this fallacy is by blatantly stating the fact that your Sim can meet another person, become friends, best friends, romantic partners, and then tie the knot — all of which occurs in less than 7 days. Emulating such behavior in real life is strongly not recommended for obvious reasons.

19 Sims Will Simply Drown Instead Of Climbing Out Of A Pool Without A Ladder

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Drowning Sims in the pool is one of the most favorite pastimes of any psychotic gamer, and something that pretty much everyone has done at some point or the other while playing The Sims. This manner of death is one of the most iconic ways to kill a Sim in the series — so much so that when Sims 4 was released with a distinct lack of pools, the hardcore Sims fanbase exhibited a massive backlash that compelled EA and Maxis decided to add pools in the game... as additional DLC.

However, the whole fun of drowning your Sims becomes awfully moot when one considers a single logical fallacy that can break this entire sequence — why can't Sims simply climb out of the pool like normal people if there's no ladder? It's a legitimate question that needs a valid answer for players to accept this manner of death.

18 Teenagers Can't Get "Stuck With The Lifelong Consequence"

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Before you start calling us creepy, just hear us out. Yeah sure, it's pretty unethical for any game to enable players to enact something like teenage pregnancy... but is that really a valid excuse? The Sims is meant to be a mostly-accurate depiction of life, and not including something so widespread like teen pregnancy might not be the best move on Maxis' part.

One might argue that including this in a game that's mainly marketed towards teens might be a bad move, but the fact of the matter is that not including something so prevalent is not exactly wise, especially in a game that focuses on providing the most accurate simulation of life in a virtual environment. In fact, maybe EA and Maxis can actually use this opportunity to educate impressionable teens about the dangers of teenage pregnancy.

17 Identify A Burglar Who's Robbing Your House

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Burglary is a pretty heinous crime that's committed by shady people who prefer to stay anonymous (for obvious reasons). Since — in the end — The Sims is a life simulation game, the concept of burglary is also depicted somewhat accurately in the series... aside from the third iteration of The Sims series.

For some reason, in Sims 3 one can actually find out the name of the person who's burgling your house by placing your mouse on them. This a rather odd design choice to make, and you can actually craft a pretty sinister plot to entrap this particular individual if that happens to be your thing.

16 Having A Great House Party Is Stupidly Easy

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House parties can be a huge dud if not done correctly, and the help of amateur event planners will certainly go a long way in providing people with a great party that they'll certainly remember for a long time. This task is quite hard to accomplish in real life... which is not something one can say about The Sims.

If you wish to satisfy all your guests when you throw a house party in The Sims, all you need to do is socialize a bit, order some pizza, and play some tunes on a stereo. Simply accomplishing these three simple tasks will pretty much ensure that your house party will be a hit — even though you didn't really put in a lot of effort.

15 Have Babies With Mythological Beings

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Well, this had to deserve a mention. After all, there's no way one can talk about stupid occurrences in The Sims and not mention the fact that these people can actually consummate and raise the baby of a ghost, alien... or even the freaking Grim Reaper.

Sure, one might argue that some games require console commands in order to enable this particular event, but the fact of the matter is that most of the games in the series have the option to willingly have babies with most of these mythological entities. This simply boggles the mind, especially when one looks at these events in more detail. Just how is it even remotely possible to have a baby with a ghost?

14 Why Does The Female Always Take The Male's Surname After Marriage?

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This is perhaps a bit of a nitpick, but it's certainly a question that begs for a proper answer — why is it necessary that the female takes the name of the male after marriage? It might be a small thing, but it's also completely unnecessary as well.

After all, we do live in a progressive society where people can choose whatever name they want after marriage, and as a simulation of modern life The Sims should also have a small alteration in the future editions of the game where the player can choose what kind of surname is taken by the partners after marriage. That is, if it even needs to be changed in the first place.

13 Become A Criminal By Looking At A Job Posting Online Or In A Newspaper

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Being a criminal is not something to be taken lightly — it's a career choice that most people take either out of desperation, or because they are forced into it. Of course, there are also some people who consciously choose to be a criminal... but we're pretty sure that they don't apply to become one by looking through the newspaper or on the internet job boards.

However, when it comes to The Sims, this is exactly how one enters the criminal line, which is equal parts confusing and hilarious. To think that a father of two works as a criminal by entering a carpool of all things just adds to the charm of The Sims series... but is admittedly quite a stupid scenario as well.

12 Random Characters That Appear Out Of Nowhere

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Fulfilling the needs of your Sims is not exactly a major challenge, but you still need to keep an eye on those pesky meters, otherwise, you'll need to do some quick damage control in order to remove the shades of red on the needs bar that are collectively causing problems for your Sims. However, if you're too lazy to do even that, then be prepared for an unforeseen visit.

You see, if the Fun and/or the Social meters of your Sims happen to take a severe hit, then the Social Bunny and Sunny the Tragic Clown will visit your Sim in order to cheer them up. While the former certainly succeeds in that regard, Sunny can be a huge pain since he fails at everything and ends up lowering the mood of your Sim even further.

11 Ghosts Haunt Everyone — Even The Sims They Were Close To

"Get me a drink, I'm on Reddit duty again." [Via simsvip.com]

The ghosts of Sims that have passed away serve as an important element of the game, providing rather unexpected and entertaining encounters (which can also be somewhat creepy as well, although that depends on your scare threshold). These ghosts end up haunting the houses where their urn is stored, which is certainly what one might expect from a restless spirit... but the problem arises when one looks at exactly who these people are haunting to begin with.

Sometimes, for no rhyme or reason, these ghosts will also scare the Sims with whom they were close with before their passing, which is just plain stupid. Making the lives of their loved ones a misery is certainly not something that a ghost would wish to do.

10 Sims Will Die Without Your Help... Until You Decide To Take Care Of Another Household

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Let's face it — Sims are extremely dumb creatures with absolutely no sense of self-preservation. Without your constant micromanagement when it comes to every single task they perform, it's pretty much a given that your Sim will perish in a matter of mere days.

However, when you happen to switch over to another household, your previous Sims will suddenly remember how to get through daily life without your interruptions, which is pretty stupid.

Of course, once you take control of these Sims again, this useful trait will be nonexistent and you will again have to make sure that your Sim isn't "accidentally" starving themselves to death (among various other death-defying actions as well).

9 Wash Dishes In The Bathroom And Clean Hands In The Kitchen Sink

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There are moments in The Sims where logic is thrown out of the window for no discernible reason, and this is certainly one of those moments. However, unlike these other occurrences which are stupid for the sole purpose of the giving the game a charm of its own, this particular instance is purely due to the game's poor tracking and AI.

If you have a kitchen sink and a bathroom in close vicinity, then —more often than not— your Sims will have the bright idea of washing your plates in the bathroom, while choosing to wash their hands in the kitchen sink as well.

Suffice to say, The Sims is not a game from which you can take hygiene tips.

8 Closets Literally Serve No Purpose

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One of the main draws of The Sims is the build mode — a rather entertaining gameplay mode where you become your own version of an architect and try to make the most aesthetically pleasing house ever designed (of course, you can also choose to design a crappy one as well if you wish). One of the many things you can buy for your home is a closet... but it doesn't really serve that much of a purpose to be painfully honest.

The fact of the matter is that your Sims can simply change their clothes whenever they (you) want, wherever they (you) want without any problem whatsoever. This makes the whole existence of closets rather moot.

7 People Visit Your House Randomly Just To Watch TV

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Uninvited guests are always a pain no matter what, and this is pretty much the case in The Sims as well. These Sims will come up at your doorstep without any notice, and — more often than not — you'll obviously decide to invite these people in, at the risk of seeming rather anti-social in a game which is mostly about being social.

However, your reward for being hospitable is that the Sim you've welcomed in your home will get "really" comfortable. And by that, we mean that they'll sit on your couch and start watching your TV without even trying to socialize with the person who invited them into their home in the first place.

6 Just Why Can't You Re-Order Your Sims' Queue?

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This is one of the biggest annoyances that has plagued all of the games in The Sims. For a game that relies on extensive micromanagement of each and every one of the lives you control in order to ensure their well-being, it's somewhat perplexing why you don't have the ability to re-order your action queue.

Trying to pick out the best courses of action to take can get pretty annoying if you have to repeat the same pattern over and over again, and it's in everyone's best interests to make this process easier by letting the player change the order of their queue if they happen to commit a simple mistake. This can help when it comes to improving the overall user experience, which is pretty important in a game like The Sims.

5 The Free Will System Of Sims Is Plain Stupid

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Remember how we mentioned how the Sims are pretty much lost without the guidance of the player who controls them? Well, a large contributor to this nuisance is the fact that the free will present in The Sims is pretty poorly programmed, and serves no real benefit at all when it comes to ensuring the survival of your Sims.

Perhaps the worst part about this mechanic is that Sims in the game will end up doing absolutely inane and stupid tasks with no logic or reasoning behind them at all. These tasks serve no real purpose when it comes to fulfilling the needs of your Sims — in fact, sometimes it might impede the fulfilment of these needs as well.

Speaking of which...

4 Playing Musical Chairs At Meals Is Annoying

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Food is a pretty precious and important commodity in everyone's lives, and the act of eating food (especially at the dinner table) should be treated with some respect. Playing stupid games only serves to lengthen the time taken to complete this action, and time is always of the essence — especially in a game like The Sims.

So (obviously), it can get pretty irritating if you end up having to wait as your family decides that lunch is the perfect time to have a session of musical chairs. Even cancelling this actions takes a while, which makes it all the more annoying when it pops up out of nowhere and you're forced to sit through an excruciatingly long animation.

3 Aliens Abduct People... But Only Impregnate Men

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The Sims is full of very weird occurrences that can spice up your playthrough in small yet noticeable ways. This includes the random alien abductions that can occur out of nowhere while your Sim is stargazing. This event can certainly be memorable for a number of reasons... especially if the Sim who's been abducted is a male.

You see, for some reason while these aliens perform a number of shady experiments off-screen on your Sim, it's only the male gender that ends up getting impregnated with an alien child, due to reasons that you're better off not knowing about. Watching your male Sim go through the stages of childbirth and giving birth is truly something that you need to experience in the game — if you haven't already, that is.

2 Divorces Are Not Very Destructive

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Going through a divorce is one of the most stressful and tumultuous times in an individual's life. The amount of time, effort, and money that's invested into this action is nothing to scoff about, which is perhaps why divorces in The Sims need some serious work in order to be even remotely accurate.

Instead of the huge degree of legal intervention that is normally featured across most divorces, The Sims only features a massive argument, following which one of the family members will leave the house without any argument at all. This is totally not how it goes in real life, and Maxis needs to revamp divorces to make them at least somewhat accurate.

1 Removing The Great Open World Concept That Was In Sims 3

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The Sims 3 is probably the greatest game in The Sims series for a whole host of reasons that we're not going to delve into right now. Still, one of the elements that warrant a ton of praise is the open-world system of The Sims 3 that was truly revolutionary, and provided the game with a sense of freedom that was noticeably missing from The Sims 4.

Perhaps the biggest reasons why The Sims 4 ended up being such a massive disappointment for a majority of The Sims fanbase is because it felt like the series was regressing instead of progressing, and the removal of the open-world present in its predecessor is perhaps the biggest indicator of this.