I was 10 years old in 1997 and had very little knowledge of what subsims were! However, I did know about a certain SimCity that got me into general computer gaming. My favorite bit was summoning a monster or tornado and letting it wreak havoc on my city - a very 10 year old thing to do.
1997 also gave me my first male teacher in school. He was an extra brought in for a year because we had such a large class. I remember we built model rockets (B cell rockets? I cannot recall), which now that I think about it, probably initially turned me onto scale modelling.
Overall, 1997 was a huge year in turning me into a gamer. It was the year that seeded my initial time sink into so many subsims over the years!