People now more interested in trapping their neighbors than writing books to meet them.

It's been known for a couple of days now, but CNN's Chris Morris has an uncommonly good Game Over column concerning the recent takedown.

Will Wright, the former God-games-man on the scene before Peter Molyneaux's rise to power beginning with Populous, developed all of the original Maxis titles as "toys for the mind", the Sims being the epitome of all he ever envisioned in the line of the titles. It's not the gameplay that's the main draw, however, according to Wright - It's the framework and the fan customization that really builds the experience.

"I feel like we built a good game and that brought it to the first million [sales]," Wright said. "But it's the fans that took it beyond that. ... We owe that level of achievement to the players."

The fact that makes this most interesting is the lead-time Myst has had on the Sims. Myst, originally released in '93, was pre-packaged with many multimedia PCs at the time, being one of the first MPC-2 compliant titles. OEMs bundled it to show off the newest in technology with the PCs they were selling. The Sims, on the other hand, has only been out for a few years, and it has earned its following almost purely on interest alone.

Fan sites abound containing new Sims models, skins, furniture, and items. The Sims has sold three expansion packs to date, Hot Date, Livin' Large, and Vacation, with a new online version of The Sims on the horizons. As an added bonus, it's playable on both the Windows and Linux platforms.