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

Awesome!

[SuperMo0]

I could live out the life of a /. troller without all of the associated social stigmas!

Re:Awesome!

[shadowcabbit]

Real Lives 2004 Patch History

Version 1.1, May 16, 2004-- Major bugfix to grpahics display options. "/. Troll" command no longer shows sexually explicit ASCII 'art'.

1.15, May 18, 2004-- "/. Troll" command now filters obscenity.

1.2, May 19, 2004-- "/. Troll" command now includes disclaimer. Disclaimer reads as follows:
"WARNING: Do not try this at home. Trolling can be hazardous to your karma. --CmdrTaco, Slashdot.org (please visit my site though)"

1.3 May 23, 2004-- "/. Troll" command reduced in power; trolling now provides 3 Happiness instead of 30.

1.5 May 26, 2004-- Fixed bug in "/. Troll" command that didn't penalize trolling. Trolling now provides 3 Happiness and -10 Social.

1.7 May 29, 2004-- Reports of real-life suicides has prompted us to remove the "/. Troll" command from Real Lives 2004. This command will not be reinstated in any further patch.

Ahh the memories

[hookedup]

I remember playing something similar, although really archaic. It was a game in grade school in the late 80's on UNISYS machines called "A Day In The Life Of".

I cant really remember much about it other than going to the mall and hanging out, what a blast... Ahh i miss those days of the giant trackball..

My go

[beders]

I got to be Commander Tacho andpost duplicate stories!

Man that was awesome...

I think Michael Zorek said it best with...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wanted to meet stimulating and interesting people of an ancient culture, and kill them."

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.....

Re:Older 'life simulators'

[krazykong]

Actually, someone has actually recreated that game in a web based format. It can be played here..

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.

Form free link

[Fizzl]

Here

Mmmm.. Karma whoring.

Upload our lives.

[subzerorz]

Can you upload your own life and let it run a simulation to see how you will end up in life? This would be interesting to see when your 40, 60, or 80 years old.