Sims – Play With Life

A Critical Profile by Alex Godbout

 Four editions, countless extensions and over 200 million copies sold later, it still thrives in the world of video games, being one of the best-selling series worldwide. Designed by Will Wright, whose nickname is The God of God games, this game is based on reality and home life. To use the creator’s own words, “most books and movies tend to be about realistic situations […], why shouldn’t games be?” (Seabrook, 2006).  Wright made his name when his company, Maxis, launched Sim City in 1989, game that led to the creation of the Sims we know and love today. The video game designer was inspired to create the Sims when he lost everything in a devastating fire that even made a few casualties. The traumatizing event led the creator to reflect on the purpose of life: “When something like this happens, you get a big picture. Where do I want to live? What sort of things do I need to buy? You see your life almost as a project in process. When you’re embedded in your day-to-day life you don’t get that perspective.” (Taylor, 2011). He turned a scarring experience into one of the best selling P-C games of all times:in 2019, the Sims franchise had already gathered more that 5 billions in revenues, and the company is still growing, even 20 years later (Espiritu, 2019). The game’ slogan is “Playing with life”, which reflects well what the game is all about: “creating and designing a world in which anything can happen” and  “the freedom to play as you like with the capability to romance any Sim, pick any career path, or spend all of your time in Build/Buy mode” (EA Games, 2020). 

The game is quite simple, or complicated, as it reflects real life. It is the player’s choice to make it as easy or as hard as possible. First, the player has to build a community or a family of Sims, which they can customize to their own taste. Everything is possible: the Sims characters are 100% customizable, from the color of their hair to the shape of their face. Then, the game begins: the Sims created need to pick a place to live. The player can either build his own home or choose one and personalize it. Once the Sims are settled in, they can have jobs, families, relationships, just as in real life. They also have needs that the player has to take care of, just like in real life, once again. The Sims need to pee, to eat, and to sleep, otherwise, they might die. The player has to make sure his Sims stay alive and satisfied, so it is just like parenting, or as some would call it, “human pet nurturing” (Steen, et al, 2006, p.311). Some play the Sims for the liberty it allows, some play it to practice their architectural skills, and some play it so they can create their very own soap opera, the possibilities are endless. The Sims is a single-player game, even though there was a version of the Sims called “Sims Online”, a multiplayer online version of the popular computer game, which allowed players to play on the same server. This version launched in 2002 but was shut down in 2008, like all other multiplayer versions of the game. Even though expectations were sky-high for the online multiplayer game (Steen et al, 2006, p.307), it wasn’t meant to be: “the godlike power of the Sims could not be ported to TSO [The Sims Online] with its many interacting players” (Steen et al, 2006, p.321).  However, it still feels like a multiplayer game, because players can build relationships with Sims that aren’t theirs. They can become friends, coworkers and even lovers with computer generated Sims. They can communicate with them, express their love or even get in a fight with the computer itself, hidden behind the face of a Sim. 

The Sims and EA are creative in their business model. First, they do sell the game for around 50 CAD$, but most importantly, they also sell countless extensions packs. For the Sims 4 only, there are no less than 31 packs available. These include bundle packs, expansion packs, game packs and stuff packs, and players have the option to buy them in bundles for more affordable prices. Expansion packs are different realities for players: Island life of University life, for example. Game packs range from Vampires to Jungle Adventures, and stuff packs include fashion items or toddlers equipment (EA, 2020). Packs prices vary between 13 CAD$ and 55 CAD$, depending of the pack’s category. They use a premium variant to enhance the basic version, which is not uncommon (Dijck, J. van, Poell, T., & Waal, M. de, 2018, p.128). Also, it’s important to note that packs are a little cheaper if the user has EA access, which is an account players can have that, unsurprisingly, collects users data. Players can get the game for Xbox, Playstation, or for the PC or Macbook, via Origins and download, meaning that the Sims Game is linked to the Microsoft Platform, part of what is called “The Big Five”: Indeed, The Big Five [Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet-Google and Microsoft] operate infrastructural platforms at the center of the ecosystem. Hardware devices, operating systems, and built-in software have been increasingly outfitted for automated data collection” (Dijck, J. van, Poell, T., & Waal, M. de, 2018, p.100).In the terms and conditions of the game, we can read, in capital letters: “ SOFTWARE COLLECTS DATA FOR IN-GAME ADVERTISING”, meaning that they do capitalize on their users data. Moreover, the Sims have a freemium version, and we know that “the idea behind the freemium model is that heavy-use hobbyists and semi-professionals become paying subscribers, while money is made on free users by means of targeted contextual advertising and the sale of metadata on searches.” (Dijck, p. 105). The fact that there are so many in-game purchases also follows the idea that users will pay more once they begin playing, which proves that their business model relates to the freemium idea. 

Finally, I personally played the Sims in my youth, and I loved it. There are many different schools of thoughts regarding the purpose of the game. Indeed, it is agreed that “The Sims is a landmark in videogame history because it has opened a Pandora’s box by replacing the usual troll and sci-fi monster with plain humans » (Frasca, 2001), but for some, « The Sims is not as much about human relationships as it is about life administration. While the game deals with pleasing your friends or cheating on your partner with your neighbour, the main activities remain managing money, unclogging toilets and doing a lot of cleaning.” (Frasca, 2001). Personally, I did not see it like this. For me, the fun part was building houses and creating fashion outfits for every one of my characters. I loved the creation process. With the use of cheat codes, very popular on the Sims, I could have as much money as needed to build the most intricate palaces. The fact that the official purpose of the Sims game is so blurry and broad is what makes it so great in my opinion. The Sims are the epitome of liberty, and this is why I agree with Sherry Turkle when she writes that MUDs and these types of games are way for gamers to create alternate lives for themselves, and “a place in which to address issues of identity and intimacy” (Turkle, 1994, p.5). She also explains that “virtual worlds provide environments for experiences that may be hard to come by in the real” (p.5), just like building a multi-million dollar home for yourself of becoming a neuro-surgeon, all of which are possible in the Sims. Gamers also use games like the Sims to “[work] through issues of personal identity” (p.6), and I see how the Sims can allow that. You can become, in the game, whoever you want to be. You can identify with your Sims or not, and you can play the game any way you desire. This liberty allowed by the game can most likely, in my opinion, leads to more good than bad in regards to the Sims. 

I could write a whole lot more about the Sims, and relate it to theories of gender, or even explore the very specific Simlish, the Sims language. Not only did I learn a lot writing this text, but now, I really feel like playing the Sims!

References

Electronic Arts. (2020). Party on! The Sims turn 20. Retrieved from https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/news/the-sims-20th-birthday?setLocale=en-us

Espiritu, A. (2019). The Sims Franchise Has Made Over $5 Billion In Revenue (And Counting). Retrieved from https://www.thegamer.com/the-sims-franchise-revenue-over-5-billion/

Frasca, G. (2001). The Sims: Grandmothers are cooler than trolls. Game Studies, 1(1).

Seabrook, J. (2006). Game Master. Retreived from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/11/06/game-master 

Steen, F. F., Greenfield, P. M., Davies, M. S., Tynes, B., Vorderer, P. E., & Bryant, J. E. (2006). What went wrong with The Sims Online: Cultural learning and barriers to identification in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Playing video games: Motives, responses, and consequences, 307-324.

Taylor, T. (2020). Will Wright: Inspired to make The Sims after losing a home. Retrieved from https://www.berkeleyside.com/2011/10/17/will-wright-inspired-to-make-the-sims-after-iosing-a-home

Toujée, D. (2016). Real Life Is Not Enough: On Choosing Virtual Reality over the Physical World. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mgmmdv/real-life-is-not-enough-on-choosing-virtual-reality-over-the-physical-world

Turkle, S. (1994). Constructions and reconstructions of self in virtual reality: Playing in the MUDs. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 1(3), 158-167.

Van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & De Waal, M. (2018). The platform society: Public values in a connective world. Oxford University Press.

Van Dijck, J. (2013). Disassembling Platforms, Reassembling Sociality. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media, 24-43.