I recently picked up the new expansion pack for Maxis’ people simulator, The Sims. The Livin’ Large expansion adds all kinds of new objects, careers and characters to the game, and it got me back into it in a big way. I had uninstalled The Sims months ago to make room for other, newer games, and I discovered that all of my previous Sims families were gone as well (apparently The Sims doesn’t have one of those features to retain saved games after removal of the program). So, I re-installed the game, installed the expansion and started a new character, based on myself.

After designing a house with a layout and design that closely approximated my real-life abode, I set about attempting to out my Sim counterpart on the Journalism career track, a new addition to the Livin’ Large expansion which features a game reviewer position. Unfortunately you’re only able to find a single job type per day, so I accepted a position in the business market and checked the newspaper each day until a position for Typesetter, the entry-level spot in the Journalism track, became available. It was a grueling job, with odd hours of 3:00am to 12:00pm that really messed up SimPat’s sleep/social schedule. It also took a long time to get promoted to game reviewer, the next step on the ladder. At least it had more normal hours, 11:00am to 6:00pm… kind of similar to my real job.

In the meantime, I decided to experiment with some of the new items that came with the expansion pack. I bought a woodworking table, which allowed SimPat to create garden gnomes and sell them, while also improving his mechanical wherewithal. At first, the amateurish gnomes SimPat was sculpting netted him a paltry $6 apiece… hardly worth selling when I was bringing home $200 a day as a game reviewer. But I noticed that as SimPat’s mechanical ability increased, so did the amount of cash his creations would bring. By the time SimPat’s mechanical ability was about 6, his garden gnomes were fetching about $60 a pop, and he’d churn out about 4 of them in a couple of Sim hours.

It was about this time that I noticed that SimPat could earn $240 for 2 hours of work… the same amount of money he was earning for 7 hours of work as a journalist! I decided to improve SimPat’s mechanical prowess to level 10, the highest rating available. When I reached this goal, the gnomes were selling for $100 each and master craftsman SimPat could produce a dozen of them in roughly four Sim hours. $1200 for 4 hours of work… $250 in SimPat’s current position as a tabloid writer for a full day of work…

I let SimPat miss two days of work in a row and got him fired. He hasn’t had a "real" job since, and he is the wealthiest Sim in the neighborhood, bringing in $1200 on a standard day and even more if his stats are all looking good and I decide to have him crank out garden gnomes all day long instead of mixing in the usual eating/watching TV/socializing with the girlfriend nonsense.

So, SimPat is happy, he can afford all of the better things in Sim life, and he makes loads of moolah with minimal work. He has one very good friend to keep his social rating high, and he calls her over every other day or two for a little bit of the old "talk/joke/flirt/tickle/hug/dance/ask to leave" action that he needs to stay happy. He has tons of spare time because of his easy 4 hour workday, and spends it boning up on his cooking and creative abilities.

I don’t know if Maxis planned for this little "easter egg" in the game, but it seems that a Sim with maxxed out mechanical skills can earn more money selling off garden gnomes than by holding down a 9-5 day job. He gets to make his own hours and stay at home all the time. Yep, SimPat definitely has the good life.