Are there such things as alternatives to The Sims games?

Seems like EA has a monopoly over this game genre.

I have never heard of any but then again, I haven't looked for any.

I'm really surprised that there aren't any indie developers that made Sims-esque games.

There was one several years ago called "The Movies" or something. I never played it but it wasn't so much a life simulator as a movie maker. That's the closest, to my knowledge, anyone has attempted to copy "The Sims."

I don't think The Movies fits the genre well. The Singles is always that example it seems.
I kind of want to see an Indie Sims game that looks like this.

It would be really interesting to find a Sims alternative. But if I was a game company, i'd see making that to be a loss of money, EA kinda dominates the genre XD

Not on the same platform, but I wanna say there has been a few copies on the iOS App store, if you know what I mean.

Years ago (TS2 era) I read about some Sims-like games that focused heavily on the -- shall we say -- woohoo part of the game. I remember reading reviews of them in PCGamer.

The Singles?

Oh I've heard of that aswell. But was that or was that not the basis of Second Life?

That is not the basis of Second Life. Second Life is a life simulator like the Sims and some people just choose to use it that way.

I played that once (it's not what you think!!! ). It was actually really similar to the Sims, perhaps even more detailed in some respects. For example, you could tidy your home with a vaccum cleaner, and I think you actually saw your character walking to work. The graphics were pretty good too, for their time.

There's nothing that stands out in my mind, which is a shame....if they had a serious competitor they wouldn't be able to get away with as much. Having the monopoly on something is never a good thing.

I'm in the position where I'm fed up with Sims 3, but I have nowhere else to go. Believe me if there was a serious, equally (or more) complex alternative to the Sims I would already be there.

(when I say serious I mean not just focusing on one part of the game, like hooking up but everything. Family, work, everyday living)

I played Second Life before. It's probably the closest your going to get for now. I was in a PG world so all that we did was party and chat. Sometimes, though, I would teleport to another world to get free clothes or go somewhere different and I would see many things I did not want to see.