Real Lives 2004 - Living Other People's Normal Lives?

Thanks to USA Today for its article discussing an educational videogame which allows players to live the life of another person. The piece explains: "Real Lives 2004 starts by automatically generating a life based on current population and birth rate statistics", before explaining possible outcomes: "Our teen-testers were able to experience many different lives in just a few hours. One was a boy born into a poor family in Zhangzhou, China, who did not attend college or vocational school. As a mail clerk, our teen-tester faced decisions about gambling, alcohol and drinking... He found romance but had no children and he died at age 84 from cancer."

Comments

Older 'life simulators'

[MacBrave]

I used to have a game for my C-64 called 'Alter Ego' that allowed you to live out the life of another person. Different events would occur based on the choices you made. A pretty neat game for the time.....

Real life? WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, real life is boring for a lot of people. That's the whole reason they turn to games in the first place.

So how long until they get bought?

[kabocox]

What until Maxis buys these folks. We'll have even more releastic sims!