Sims University Ships in March

Gamespot is reporting that EA has pinned the launch date for the first Sims 2 expansion at March 1st, with the game being in stores on the 3rd. Gamespot also has an interview with the producer discussing new gameplay options, and the first official trailer. From the interview: "We expect the college experience for a single sim to last about double the length of the teen life span. But a single sim won't necessarily be able to experience all that college has to offer, so we anticipate that players will bring multiple sims to college and play them in very different ways."

Comments

University of Phoenix Online.

[AtariAmarok]

Joe: "Dude, whassup?"

Jimmie: "Like, I thought I was playing Sims University all those months, It, like, turned out I was accidentally connected to the University of Phoenix Online. Had no idea until this diploma came in the mail yesterday, dude!"

On games like these...

[Laxitive]

When I read this post, I started thinking.

I just got out of college a few months back. And it made me chuckle.. "heh, now I can go back and play a virtual version of what I suffered through for five years".

The more I thought, the more this whole idea seems vaguely.. disturbing. You have this game (which is a very nice game, I admit), which is being constantly tweaked to become a closer and closer approximation to actual IRL social life.

What's the point of playing a game, whose whole point is to simulate real life to better and better degree?

I'll take a stab at it: The Sims provides an arena where you can simulate social interactions which are not possible, or are hard in the real world. You can create a character and make him be a doctor.. and it might take two weeks of play in the game.. but it would take 5 years, lots of money, and hundreds of sleepless nights in real life.

But the thing I've noticed with these games is.. to get anywhere significant, you need to invest valuable time. So you're taking time away from your real world interactions, to put into virtual interactions. But these aren't just any virtual interactions.. they're virtual interactions whose main appeal is that they model, in a close a way as is currently feasible, real social interactions.

This loop-de-loop, the whole snake-eating-it-own-tail imagery that it evokes, somehow just doesn't sit right with me.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong about this observation. Maybe the REAL appeal is the ability to play god. Maybe it's actually more like interactive storytelling (To me, storytelling is essentially a way of playing god - you script a literary universe, and its laws, each time you create a story).

You create your own story, and that story's characters, those characters' interactions, all with a little bit of graphical help. That interpretation of the Sims' attraction seems a lot less sinister than my first interpretation.

I still havn't decided. But I think it's very interesting to think about how these games relate to society, social interactions, as well as what kind of effect they will have on the real-life interactions between people.

Anyway, I don't have an argument to make.. but I'd like to invite people to post their thoughts about this.

Thanks.
-Laxitive

meta-procrastination

[evilmousse]

sweeeet. can i play as a sim that's too busy playing sims to study? (..who's playing a sim too busy playing sims to study... ad infinitum)

I wonder if it'll be like my college experience...

[thdexter]

I don't think it would be very fun to watch your Sim be promising throughout grade school, then sit around in his tiny dorm room, occasionally going to classes, constantly on his computer or masturbating or watching cartoons, until he flunks out the second semester. Man, what a depressing game The Sims is. Also, life.