Earlier quoted context omitted.
If all your Sims die, is that not a failure? Harvest Moon has Steam achievements. (And a ‘best ending’ category on speedrun.com.) You could go on, but if those are the best you could think of, I don’t think it would be very productive.
Achievements are baubles and trinkets. They are neither necessary nor sufficient for something to be a game. And I don’t know if you’re aware, but a vast amount of Sims players use the game to build and decorate houses and then play out stories in them. The Sims dying is not. A lose condition, but the final page of their story.
Just because many people choose not to engage with the mechanics doesn’t mean they don’t exist.