The Sims 2: Open for Business, or OFB is the third expansion pack for The Sims 2, released on March 2, 2006 for US and March 3 for EU, which allows Sims to run a home or community lot based business. A Mac version was released on September 4, 06.
Open for Business gives you the ability to run a business, either on your own lot or on another separate lot. You can run a business through Workbenches (such as the Robot Crafting Station), the Perk system, the talent badges system, and the Customer Loyalty System. Open for Business also unlocks a new sub-neighborhood called the Shopping District, and the neighborhood Bluewater Village comes with the game.
With this game, playable Sims can own community lots. When you send the owner or a member of the owner's household to an owned community lot, you can save and access Buy Mode and Build Mode. You also need to watch their needs, as they can die on that lot. The game also introduced elevators, some new interactions, and music. Players can also lock the doors now.
Running a business is the main theme of this EP. You will need to hire employees, adjust their position and wages, assign them jobs, and even fire them. Players must gain customer loyalty to have their business in a higher rank. You can choose your own mascot, customize your menu, sales, handle reviewers and sell almost anything you want as long as it is available in game.
The life status introduced in Open for Business is the Servo. Sims can build robots (Servos) on the robot creation bench and the Servo becomes a member of the Sim's family. You can only create one if the Sim have a gold robotics talent badge and can only be activated it if you have less then eight household members in your residence.