As we get into the video gaming portion of the course, I decided to finally start playing the Sims 2 game for Playstation 2 that I bought a few months ago. It is one of those games that once you start you can’t really stop because it takes a lot of time and patience to create the perfect environment. It’s really unsatisfying to pause the game when your Sim has needs for: social, bladder, hygiene, hunger, fun, energy, comfort, and room. There is never a point where the Sim doesn’t need something. And there is always room for growth in the game, whether your Sim needs a new job, a romance, another house. It’s interesting how today’s culture is intrigued by simulation games and living through the lives of animated characters.

I’d be interested in hearing people’s experiences on Second Life and what that is like in comparison to the Sims…?

3 thoughts on “the sims

  1. I’ve never played Second Life, but I played the original Sims on PC when it first came out, and what struck me about the game even then was how much time I spent designing my house and buying appliances compared to the amount of time I spent actually having my Sim live in the game. I would even use a cheat code that would give my Sim unlimited money so that he wouldn’t really have to get a job and could just spend his days hanging out at his awesome crib, working out, eating, becoming “cultured” and learning how to cook. But I usually got bored with this aspect of the game pretty quickly and just started building a new house on another lot for another Sim. I’ve spoken to others who have played the game and many had similar experiences. Does that somehow speak to some kind of obsession with idealized consumption or a concept of the “perfect life” as one of wealth, luxury, and consumer products?

  2. ha, i used to do the same!: get a lot of money, make a beautiful house, make the sim walk around and use his stuff…then that’s it, i was bored. i guess i just liked trying different colors for the walls and furniture arrangement, but i didn’t really care about whether my Sim was successful, or had fallen in love, or was studying cook recipes. i think it is just different ways of playing the game, i wouldn’t think of it in terms of consumption..
    on the other hand: the fact that the Sim is never satisfied, he always need a new person, a new job, a new fridge, a new body, a bigger room…
    well, that is, indeed, consumption.

  3. I”ve never played the Sims or Second Life, but it sounds like it would make an awesome anthropological/psychological study. I mean, what does it say about American capitalist culture: that we are programmed to always want the bigger, best thing, and once we’ve accomplished that, we’re grow bored?

    Also, I always found it odd to have a computerized version of “real-life” as a form of escapism.

    Hmm… if only I were an anthropology major. I could spend my research period playing The Sims instead of reading Shakespeare.

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