Full disclosure: I have been contracted to Electronic Arts for the past year, but not on anything related to The Sims.
Sometimes I have trouble visualizing my characters, which leaves them feeling rather vague and flat when writing them. I thought about buying some software for character, but the demos didn’t impress me. Sure, they told me a lot about how my characters think, but I still couldn’t “see” them.
Then, one day at work, I saw an ad for The Sims 4. It turns out there is a “Create a Sim” demo where you can create characters for free, so I downloaded it. Being able to build my characters visually has really helped me to visualize scenes. I also bought The Sims 3 so I could actually watch Sims based on my story characters interact, but when I think about my characters, my mind always goes back to the free demo versions.