Sims the New Dolls?

philgross writes "According to the New York Times, lots of girls and younger teens are abandoning their dolls for the Sims. Says one professor, "We leave most of the social work in our society to women and The Sims lets young girls, in particular, work out their desires and conflicts about those relationships." Says another, "Children generally want to create characters, but with girls we see them wanting to create a friend." Meanwhile, says Will Wright, boys will "do the same stupid thing over and over again and be happy," (and I wince looking at my vast collection of first-person shooters). The article does quote one 10-year-old boy who plays with Sims, and has learned valuable life lessons. "I learned don't leave your baby crying or people will come take your baby away."" And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

Comments

It's a little sad

[deanj]

It's a little sad that kids would have to learn something like that from a game, rather than having parents that think enough of their children to explain stuff like that to them. Better yet, they should lead by example.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, they should lead by example.

That's backwards. If they lead by example then they DON'T leave the baby crying and the child never finds out what would have happened. The Sims showed the kid what would have happened if the his parents' example wasn't followed.

Re:It's a little sad

[kermitthefrog917]

Wouldn't the habit of learning from games be a bit dangerous? I could see that "learn not to leave your baby alone" turn into "you can get your money back if you kill the hooker after you are done with her"... yes both are technically true, and are perhaps equally useful in life, but is it a good idea to have kids start a habit such as applying video game experiences in a real world setting?

Re:It's a little sad

[sugar and acid]

Actually children learn a lot of things through play. Dolls are a classic example, where the child will use various dolls (and stuffed toys etc.) and play act them interacting in a social manner. The parents can give good examples and explain important aspect of being a well adjusted social indivdual, but then these lessons are acted out during play and are thus reinforced (unfortunatly the same will be true of bad parenting to). The sims just happens to be a more interactive version of this type of play, where the social interaction is already built into the program.

Re:It's a little sad

[mangu]

parents that think enough of their children to explain stuff like that to them

Yeah, OK, people should never try to do anything that their parents haven't explained to them, right?

Personally, I'm a great fan of computer modelling. Too bad that current games are so unrealistic, I hope we will have more realistic games in the future. If the evolution of CPU power doesn't slow down too much, one can expect a lot, both from better physics and better AI in future games.

I think the trend for more and more graphics power seems to be peaking out, there just isn't enough to justify upgrading graphics cards right now, so I hope to see more emphasis on better modelling in the near future.

Re:It's a little sad

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

It's up to the person "learning" to tell the difference between "right" and "wrong"

If the parents did a good job, s/he would know that killing is "wrong" even if a video game says it's OK.

The parents should be and are a bigger influance on their children than video games. Although some parents wish that weren't true.

Re:It's a little sad

[malsdavis]

I think the opposite. To have something explained to a child is fine, but surely it is much better for the child's development if he/she can discover these things for himself/herself, using (and developing) his/her own intellect.

From what I've seen in life, kids who have over-protective pearents telling them exactly how they should live their life, grow up to be very dull people.

Re:It's a little sad

[kfg]

Children do not learn social skills from explanation. They learn from . . .games.

Witness kittens playing. Games are the imperical mode of trying out behaviors in a noncritical manner, like, with a real baby.

And where do they find behaviors to try out?

Better yet, they should lead by example.

Ok, ya got me there. Monkey see. Monkey do. Don't like it when your kids do things you'd rather they didn't do? Well, don't do it yourself for starters. Kids learn adult behavior by observing adult behavior and trying it out.

Kids are supposed to engage in adult behavior. They're designed for it. It's how they learn to do it. Most parents are dumbasses when it comes to this issue; and we've created a dumbass society with regards to the maturation process as a result.

Ever notice that when most parents say "Act your age" they really mean, at heart, stop acting more mature than I'm comfortable with, i.e. act younger than your age. (The dumbass parents, of course, think they're telling their kids to act older than their age. That's because most parents are dumbasses)

If you don't want your kids trying to sneak into the liquor cabinet, don't have one. They do it because they wish to grow up and see grown ups drinking liquor and defining it as grownup behavior.

If you don't want to get rid of the liquor cabinet, at least give the poor kids a game that allows them to drink, but also necessitates they are responsible for the consequences.

That way they'll learn.

It's all about games.

KFG

Re:It's a little sad

[Shazow]

Dolls are a classic example, where the child will use various dolls (and stuffed toys etc.) and play act them interacting in a social manner.

Perhaps it has something to do with visualization. I also recall when I was younger, I used to play out all sorts of social sequences and situations with action figures, lego characters, etc. Now that I'm older, I still play out similar situations but they all happen in my head.

Maybe it's just that when we're younger, we have more trouble visualizing things in our mind so we need the help of dolls (or Sims). Later on, when our brains are more developed (and we gathered more experience), we can handle running such simulations in our heads.

Too bad none of my psych classes covered this.

- shazow

Re:It's a little sad

[tryggvi]

IMHO I think games replacing dolls will take away creativity and imagination from the children. This is a step in making kids behave like robots and always do what major corporations want them to do.

Re:It's a little sad

[deesine]

"And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death."

That one made me laugh, and then wince a little. No parent really likes to see this. Well, unless you're someone like Ted Bundy that is. Then you might encourgage them too see how many dead Sims will fit in a closet.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Dolls and The Sims mean children are playing with games instead of real people. Which do you think is better to learn life leasons from?

Re:It's a little sad

[hjf]

You need the AGEIA PhysX then.

Re:It's a little sad

[cooley]

It's a little sad that kids would have to learn something like that from a game, rather than having parents that think enough of their children to explain stuff like that to them. Better yet, they should lead by example.

How many ten-year-old boys are sat down and taught how to take care of a baby? The implication that this kid's parents aren't present for his emotional upbringing because they haven't given him "Parenting 101" at ten years old is a little over the top. Perhaps he just doesn't have any younger siblings, for pete's sake. He's ten.

Re:It's a little sad

[jacksonj04]

I don't know. The Sims, especially Sims 2, can throw some pretty inventive situations at the child. They get taught about death and relationships in what is, for a game, a damn accurate representation of reality.

Sims 2 even includes things like buying groceries. If you don't go buy groceries, or order them online, you don't eat. There's a lot of depth in the complete social interaction model of The Sims you won't get with dolls, or playing Mummies and Daddies "Then you go to work, then you come home and kiss me, and then I give you your tea".

Re:It's a little sad

[ZiakII]

From what I've seen in life, kids who have over-protective pearents telling them exactly how they should live their life, grow up to be very dull people.

While this is true, they usually do live successful lives. Just because someone is dull is not such a bad thing. The only downside I have seen is if something bad happens in there life they don't know how to deal with it because everything should go as they planed.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. If the parents lead by example, the child learns that the baby must not be left crying. (This, of course, is assuming the child is old enough to observe such things.) The parents can also tell the child: "See, if your baby sister is left crying ", etc. Of course, the youngest child in the family won't learn any parenting tips this way, but he/she will probably learn by the time it is needed, from observing what older siblings do as parents.
Of course, in these modern times, where everyone lives apart, it won't work; but the good old joint family system had its advantages.

Re:It's a little sad

[crossmr]

This is a great game for them then. This will really equate the notion that Romance = whore.
I believe Will Wright may be getting a kick back from myspace. The girls pick up The Sims at 10, so by the time they're 14-15 they're reading to pose in their underwear on the site and drive up membership.

For those who don't know the "Romance" aspiration consists mainly of an adult who wants to "woohoo" as many people as they can get their hands on. As soon as they're done with one, they move on to the next.

Re:It's a little sad

[denoir]

The big question is if the simulation has a certain ethical framework that the player is rewarded for following, will it positively reinforce a child's social development? If it will, one might also ask what effects games that reward anti-social behaviour have on children.

Re:It's a little sad

[EvanED]

But it probably is backwards. I strongly suspect the emphasis should not be on the "don't leave your baby crying" part (because that's more or less common sense, even for a 10-year old -- you cry when something's bad) but the "or people will come take your baby away" part. And that you WOULDN'T learn through good example.

Re:It's a little sad

[orangesquid]

Maybe visualization only develops a posteriori---in other words, your brain simply learns to imitate its surroundings, internally.

I really really want to see Sims-like games for linux. It's one of the few reasons I keep windows around...

Re:It's a little sad

[swillden]

I strongly suspect the emphasis should not be on the "don't leave your baby crying" part (because that's more or less common sense, even for a 10-year old -- you cry when something's bad)

In reality, the issue is moot. Have you ever actually *tried* to ignore a crying baby? Our brains are hard-wired to respond to those particular patterns in those particular frequencies. In practice, bad parents abandon their babies or shake them hard enough to injure or kill them, rather than simply leave them crying.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

While this is true, they usually do live successful lives. Just because someone is dull is not such a bad thing. The only downside I have seen is if something bad happens in there life they don't know how to deal with it because everything should go as they planed.

It all comes down to perspective then, doesn't it?
For me, being dull would be ever so much more horrible than being unsuccessful..
I'd rather die having lived a crazy, full life, than knowing that I made lots of money and got married and had kids and lived in suburbia mowing my lawn. Woo!

Re:It's a little sad

[ultranova]

But it probably is backwards. I strongly suspect the emphasis should not be on the "don't leave your baby crying" part (because that's more or less common sense, even for a 10-year old -- you cry when something's bad) but the "or people will come take your baby away" part. And that you WOULDN'T learn through good example.

If you learn the "don't leave your baby crying" part, why would you need to learn the "or people will come take your baby away" part ? Especially when, by the time you are physically capable of having babies, you are likely able to deduce that part for yourself without anyone having to tell it to you.

Re:It's a little sad

[ultranova]

Maybe it's just that when we're younger, we have more trouble visualizing things in our mind so we need the help of dolls (or Sims). Later on, when our brains are more developed (and we gathered more experience), we can handle running such simulations in our heads.

Isn't the very popularity of Sims proof against this ?-)

Anyway, I (a 27-year old man) still play with dolls / action figures / whatever whenever no one else is around, so I think that it's more of a desire to appear grownup rather than any real difference in brains that stops adults from playing. Or maybe I'm just childish, after all, I still like those chocolate eastern eggs with toys inside :).

Re:It's a little sad

[ultranova]

This is a great game for them then. This will really equate the notion that Romance = whore.

Not a whore, a slut. A whore is someone who has sex with people for money; and someone who pays for these services is a whoremonger. Someone who sleeps around for the pleasure of it is a slut. Please get your deragatory terminology right.

For those who don't know the "Romance" aspiration consists mainly of an adult who wants to "woohoo" as many people as they can get their hands on. As soon as they're done with one, they move on to the next.

To be fair, isn't this the plot of many romance stories, classical and modern, from the Bold & Beautifull to Casanovas memoirs ?

Re:It's a little sad

[Jeremi]

IMHO I think games replacing dolls will take away creativity and imagination from the children. This is a step in making kids behave like robots and always do what major corporations want them to do

Here is an article containing lots of similar pessimistic quotations by various people, proclaiming that the downfall of youth had arrived in the form of (Novels/Movies/Telephones/Rock&Roll/Waltzing/Comic Books). I think children are a little more resilient and creative than people give them credit for.

Re:It's a little sad

[Jeremi]

Ever notice that when most parents say "Act your age" they really mean, at heart, stop acting more mature than I'm comfortable with, i.e. act younger than your age. (The dumbass parents, of course, think they're telling their kids to act older than their age. That's because most parents are dumbasses

While I agree with most of your post, I think you are wrong here: usually when parents say "act your age", they mean "grow up and take responsibility for your actions". They really are asking the child to behave more like an adult (e.g. do homework without being hounded about it, etc).

Re:It's a little sad

[Shazow]

Isn't the very popularity of Sims proof against this ?-)

You're right, clearly that isn't the _only_ reason someone would play with action figures or The Sims. Hell, it might not even be the main reason. But I think it's an interesting hypothesis to consider. On average, certainly the "desire" to simulate situations with action figures has dies down with age.

Anyway, I (a 27-year old man) still play with dolls / action figures / whatever whenever no one else is around, so I think that it's more of a desire to appear grownup rather than any real difference in brains that stops adults from playing.

Whenever I find myself pulling out my old action-figures from my childhood (every few years) it's more about experiencing the nostalgia than doing something semi "productive". I really have no "desire" to sit around and play with my barbie^Waction figure, except as an excuse to procrastinate doing work. ;-)

Perhaps another observation: as we age, we are more interested in seeing others play out scenarios, as a method of aggregating experiences to our repository of life lessons. This desire also seems to deteriorate as we reach an elderly age (about which I am not qualified to speak about as a personal experience).

- shazow

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe people should stop creating trends for others through personal ancedote. I don't play with dolls and have no particular inclination to do so. When I was a child I usually just disassembled my "action figures" and attempted to recombine their pieces into new "action figures" with varying degrees of success. That of course and act out violence between them, since most of them were junk inspired by various cartoons in which they fought with each other. That was never as much fun as digging large holes, putting them in tunnels branching from the holes, and then flooding the holes with the garden hose. Or finding ways to turn them into projectiles using various childrens' construction toys.

Does that make you childish or make mean that I am seeking to escape childhood? No. You liked dolls, and I liked breaking things. You still like dolls, but I suppose I've lost whatever motivation I had as a child to break things. I have no intellectual aversion to the idea of projecting dolls or building tunnels in the earth and flooding the dolls inside of them, but it just doesn't interest me anymore. The people that would call you childish are probably insecure about their masculinity or don't appreciate that everyone has different hobbies.

Re:It's a little sad

[crossmr]

That depends highly on your definition of Romance. I don't think you'd find very many women who would find it "romantic" for someone to be working their way through every man and woman in the town.

While Casanova might be classified "Romance" by some publisher, that doesn't make it romance. While he may have engaged in romance with each individual woman, his over-all behaviour was not romantic.

and if you're going to correct someone, check your source first:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=whore
  "A person considered sexually promiscuous." I'd certainly catagorize them as sexually promiscuous.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

or they go to college and have a hell of a time trying all the shit they were afraid to try when they were younger. I speak from experience.

Re:It's a little sad

[CHacker]

I take it you haven't meet any teenagers lately? Because they almost all seem to be incapable of figuring out that fire burns.

Re:It's a little sad

[null-sRc]

It's a little sad that kids would have to learn something like that from a game, rather than having parents that think enough of their children to explain stuff like that to them. Better yet, they should lead by example.

it's a little sad that young adults have to learn something from a university with expesive tuition, rather than having parents that think enough of their children...

it's all relative.

teaching tools are about efficiency and concentration tolerance...

Re:It's a little sad

[kfg]

I was waiting for you to show up. That was the weakest part of my post, written in a hurry while drinking my first cup of coffee of the day. What parents mean when they say "act your age" is actually very complex, but what it almost never means is "act your age." It would take at least a small monograph to explore it.

. . .mean "grow up and take responsibility for your actions".

This, however, is sort of what I said when I said that parents think they are telling their kids to act older than their age.

It isn't what the parents are actually saying though. What they are actually saying is "be a kid, i.e., shut up and do as I tell you."

Adult maturity can be defined as doing as you wish, but taking responsiblity for the consequences. This is how the kids are often actually behaving when told to "act their age" (at least with older kids, the sort that might be playing The Sims. A two year old having a hissy fit is acting his/her age. Two is the age to learn how to throw hissy fits. Throwing hissy fits and saying "No" is part of learning to make your own decisions and be responsible for the consequences. Some people just never manage to mature beyond this behavior perfectly appropriate for a two year old).

They really are asking the child to behave more like an adult (e.g. do homework without being hounded about it, etc).

Well, first off, you'll have to demonstrate to me that adults "do their homework" without being hounded about it. I've seen little concrete evidence of such behavior.

However, let's set that aside for the sake of argument and posit your example.

Mature adult behavior is not doing your homework. Mature adult behavior is making the decision on your own, for your own reasons, whether or not to do your homework, and taking responsbility for the consequences.

Hounding a kid to do their homework is exactly the sort of dumbass parental behavior I'm talking about when I say that "act your age" means "do as I tell you to," i.e., be a kid, when they think they are saying "act more mature," i.e., behave as you wish.

The dumbass part of this is that the parent is focused on entirely the wrong thing, having the homework get done, when the correct thing to focus is the behavior of the kid. Hounding a kid to do their homework has only one possible affect on the kid's behavior, to create a greater resistence to doing homework, "requiring" more and more hounding as time goes by.

It's not uncommon for first graders to love going to school. By about third grade they hate it, because they have been taught to hate it by various people hounding them about schoolwork. Kids want to learn. In fact, they crave it with an often fatal passion. They will put their finger in the pretty flame. . .once.

Kids hating to go to school and/or do their homework isn't a problem with the kid. It's a problem with the teachers and parents. They're being dumbasses, adopting behaviors of their own that necessarily drive the kids away from the behaviors they wish the kids to adopt.

Because they do not want the kids to mature. They want them to shut up and do as they're told; and right now we have a society that tells them this is the way they should behave until their eighteenth birthday, when they are then supposed to automagically transform into responsible adults, without ever having taught, or evern offered the opportunity to learn on their own, just how to do that.

And, of course, as per above, too many adults define mature adult behavior as shutting up and doing what you are told, even for adults, i.e. "do your homework" just because we said so, and without resistence.

I'm afraid I'm in the corner with just about any "kid" who looks at their parents/teachers/bosses and says, "Fuck that shit."

If you want me to behave in a particular manner, make it

Re:It's a little sad

[idlake]

You are referring, of course, to the upstairs torture chamber, right?

Re:It's a little sad

[Kuxman]

karma[kfg]+=5;

Re:It's a little sad

[Elemenope]

I would have a hard time calling such a life 'successful'. Especially in these interesting times, where paradigm shifts come a dime a dozen; the ability to adapt to adversity brought about by unforseen changes is (as it always really has been) is a critical skill, and one of its general side-effects is that such a prepared person is not 'dull'.

Re:It's a little sad

[LiquidRaptor]

No, no, a slut is someone who sleeps with everyone, a whore is someone who sleeps with everyone but you.

Re:It's a little sad

[DigiShaman]

Anyway, I (a 27-year old man) still play with dolls...

Damn, your lucky. My girlfriend woul be pissed if she caught me playing with one of these.

Re:It's a little sad

[WilliamSChips]

Personally, I think the downfall of youth arrived in the form of preachers, as evidenced by the fact that the majority of those quotes are from such. Also note how many criminals blame their crimes on things like "GOD TOLD ME TO DO IT!". This makes me think that religion, and misguided religious devotion, is in fact the biggest problem with society.

Re:It's a little sad

[The-Bus]

If you don't want to get rid of the liquor cabinet, at least give the poor kids a game that allows them to drink, but also necessitates they are responsible for the consequences.

Parents! Heed this advice... Never leave the whiskey out by itself or within your teenager's reach. Always leave it out next to some playing cards and dice and let the game, er... social learning begin! I suggest we start with social learning studies that have long been followed at the hallowed halls of higher learning, such as Kings or Three-Man.

Re:It's a little sad

[kfg]

Don't be a dumbass parent. Your kids are supposed to learn to sneak their whiskey, otherwise they'll never be prepared to survive the workplace environment as adults.

He who has the red stapler wins.

KFG

Re:It's a little sad

[malsdavis]

Maybe, but "successful" is a very subjective word. If you're born into a community of Buddhist monks (unlikely I guess given their vows of celibacy) your definition of a "successful life" is going to be almost the opposite of a "successful life" in a materialistically driven society.

Neither can be truly deemed more successful than the other, it's just down to individual choice (although ironically in the vast majority of cases it is not the individual who actually makes that choice but rather their peers and role models).

Re:It's a little sad

[Lershac]

There are times to leave the baby crying and times not to. Kids need to learn to comfort themselves as well as recieve comfort and love from their parents. So too some kids need to make horrible mistakes and endure the consequences to learn the lessons of life. Kids who are picked up every time they cry or are bailed out of every spot of trouble they get in, are referred to as "spoiled".

Re:It's a little sad

[1stpreacher]

This is very interesting to me, because when I was growing up - all my 'nerd' friends (myself included) DREAMED of having a dull life ... Not being picked on, not having to play sports to be "cool" and accepted... Having the white house with the white fence with 2.5 kids was the dream... Seem that things have changed I guess...?

Re:It's a little sad

[MourningBlade]

Sigh...I might as well finally admit it: MourningBlade <3 KFG. KFG <3 Mourningblade?
|__| Yes |__| No

Re:It's a little sad

[aamcf]

I take it you haven't meet any teenagers lately? Because they almost all seem to be incapable of figuring out that fire burns.

I had lunch with a couple of teenage boys on Friday. At one point one did try to set the other one on fire using a cigarette lighter. Amazingly they are friends.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah that must be why most of my friends think the Sims is incredibly boring and a big scam.

Re:It's a little sad

[MourningBlade]

(begin serious reply)

While thinking about this idea once, I decided that the closest description of a "proper" parenting style would be "no unnatural way."

For instance, want to teach your kid that a pan on the stove is hot? Heat one up (not as hot as it would be if you were cooking, but hot enough) while he's in the room. As usual, he'll trundle over and try to "help" with what you're doing. Advise him that that's not a good idea, but don't stop him - when he grabs it be ready with the ointment.

It's not cruel - he simultaneously learns that "no" isn't an arbitrary imposition of your will, but "doing this will hurt you" and he learns that pans on the stove are very hot.

As humans, we recognize arbitrary rules quite well. One of the reasons why very intelligent children are difficult to raise is that they will reason for themselves as to why you've said "no."

We say "no" for two reasons: harm and "doing something we don't want you to."

The problem with the former is that often times the harm is random. Sometimes the pan is hot, sometimes it is not. 99% of the time running across the street without looking will not be a problem.

You have to teach the child that the reason you say "no" is that there is harm there, and expect him to check for himself every so often.

As for disobedience (the "doing something we don't want you to") - first examine why you don't want them to. Is it because you like to maintain a nice, ordered house where all is in its place? Well, why did you have a kid, then?

If it's something like tossing all the pots out of the cabinet and onto the floor...yeah, probably best to put a stop to that. Tell them why you don't want to do that - in terms their development age can understand. Outside of fits of beastly pique, most kids want to please you. They want to make you happy.

I get a little upset when people attempt to subvert that into turning their kids into little automatons.

Re:It's a little sad

[kfg]

Sigh...I might as well finally admit it: MourningBlade

How can one not love?. . .

If we fall, it will be either because we have created a dictatorship or a democracy at the national level.

. . But KFG's If it's something like tossing all the pots out of the cabinet and onto the floor...yeah, probably best to put a stop to that.

A clean and tidy kitchen is a useless kitchen.

KFG

Re:It's a little sad

[kfg]

Jeeeeeeeesus Christ! The editor I hired after I sacked the last one I hired after the one before that was sacked has been beheaded.

KFG

Re:It's a little sad

[glitch23]

My psych classes (developmental) did in fact cover this concept and it does stem from the lack of a child's brain to think abstractly. Children 7-11 begin to solve problems using concrete ideas but abstract thoughts don't occur until 11-15 years of age.

Re:It's a little sad

[dnoyeb]

If he learns a valuable life lesson from the Sims, then is he to trust that lessons learned form the Sims are valuable?

Because the Sims actually could care less about raising your children.

Re:It's a little sad

[Eskarel]

The problem with your theory is that it's part of the job of parents to both teach knowledge and prevent at least some basic mistakes. True you have to let your kids learn some things the hard way(particularly as they get older and for some reason particularly with interpersonal relationships), but it's also your job as a parent to prevent them from doing things like sticking their finger in the pretty flame or in the power socket or drinking the bottle of bleech.

The reason why human children are cared for by their parents for so much longer than other animals isn't because we have some sort of wierd ideas about what parents should do, it's because we're capable of having those ideas. Human brains are very complicated, moreso than at least most of the animal kingdom, they take a long time to properly develop. I can't remember the exact age, but it takes several years for children to even become aware of the feelings of others(theory of mind), let alone things like abstract thought.

Maybe when parents tell their children to "act their age" they're asking them to "shut up and do what I tell you" and sometimes that's just for their own convenience(too much noise), but for the most part the reason good parents want their children to listen to them and accept what they have to say is to spare them pain. Part of growing up is making your own mistakes, but you can't blame parents for wanting to spare their kids as much pain as possible.

I also disagree with your hounding assessment, a 6 year old isn't capable of making the decision not to do their homework. They don't know what the long term consequences are, and aren't capable of understanding them. No, on average, missing one assignment isn't going to seriously affect your life, but what about 5, what about a big test? I know that even when I was in high school I didn't really understand how what I was doing would really affect my life, you can't know that sort of thing without experience, and so people with experience try to help those without it to make the right decisions. and for the most part I think that kids hating school is more to do with the school system than with parents.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be sure that the "downfall of youth" has not arrived.
Things from that article that have happened:

"Does [it] break up home life and the old practice of visiting friends?"

Don't try telling me that people still visit friends as often as they used to before.

"The effect [..] is to [..] stimulate self-expression through sex, [..] and destroy the sanctity of marriage.

Don't tell me this hasn't happened either.

The fact is that morals are themselves changing; and someone from that time would very well consider today's youth (and society in general) to be morally corrupt. This is one of the main reasons for the so-called "clash of civilisations" in the world today; most Islamic countries think the US is corrupting their youths' morals, etc...
Of course, you and I may not agree, but that's because we have our own sense of morals that's different from theirs.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I should be suprememly prepared if I ever nead to jump and crash cars or command legions of dinosaurs, army men and random action figures in all out war. Here's hoping for a sort of Mad Max distopian future.

Re:It's a little sad

[MourningBlade]

Have to keep editors inline. Otherwise they find their inner frustrated writer and play collage with your writing.

Re:It's a little sad

[Kadin2048]

those chocolate eastern eggs with toys inside

Sadly, my favorite variety of those has been banned in the U.S. for quite some time.

Some of our young geniuses couldn't figure out which part was for eating and which part was for playing. (Or more likely, parents were giving them to kids who were too young to not put every loose item they find in their mouths.)

Re:It's a little sad

[kfg]

There are no bad dogs.

KFG

Re:It's a little sad

[Kadin2048]

I know the author was just being funny, but I really have to wonder if killing a simulated person in a video game, over and over, isn't sort of a warning sign, in the same way that a kid that tortures animals is a warning sign.

I understand that there's an orders-of-magnitude difference between putting your Sim in a pool without a ladder (or any of the other ways you can kill them) and beating a leashed dog to death with a baseball bat, but on some level, if I saw some kid sitting in front of a computer killing Sims in various gruesome ways for hours on end and reveling in it, I probably would take them off my dog-sitting list. It's just one of those things that sets of warning bells, somewhere in the depths of my mind. If killing a dog is a giant air-raid klaxon horn, then this is a small microwave-alarm buzzer going off somewhere in comparison. Small, but still there.

Let me be clear: I'm not saying that everyone who's ever tried to kill a Sim (or see how many people on their wagon in Oregon Trail they could get to die of Typhoid or drown while fording the Really Big River) is going to be making lampshades out of their neighbors later in life, or anything close to it.

But, if someone is given responsibility for something else -- be it a Sim person, or a geranium, or an ant farm, or an actual mouse/rat/kitten/puppy -- and decides that destroying or torturing it is more interesting or fun than helping it grow, I'd start to wonder if there wasn't something wrong going on in their head. Experience so far in my life has taught me that there are generally two kinds of people in the world: people who enjoy building things, and people who enjoy breaking things. There is a place in the world for both, but for the latter only when tempered with a lot of self-control ... and the desire to light something on fire just to watch it burn doesn't always come with the self-control necessary not to light the match.

Just something to think about, I guess.

Re:It's a little sad

[FLEB]

If you learn the "don't leave your baby crying" part, why would you need to learn the "or people will come take your baby away" part ?

That question is irrelevant. The story says that the kid learned that "people will take your baby away if you leave it crying". I'd say that there is a good case that a young child might never come upon this specific lesson in the course of everyday life. It's like a child finding out that, say, synthetic clothing will melt to your skin if you catch on fire. A kid probably knows "Fire can burn you", but the specifics might actually be new and novel information.

Re:It's a little sad

[Gryle]

Dull is not neccesarily the outcome. Sometimes you get outright crazy. Consider my friend for instance who grew up in a very strict Fundy-Christian home. Upon leaving home he started up on drugs and booze, and flunked most of his classes. He had relied on his parents to discipline him and give him any kind of focus whatsoever. They had so forcefully attempted instilling discipline, that he had never gained any discipline for himself, simply relying on the guidance around him.

Re:It's a little sad

[__aabwba5127]

As a grade school teacher I must disagree with what you're saying. You're citing two extremes (discover these things for himself/herself, using (and developing) his/her own intellect & kids who have over-protective pearents) either laissez-faire or being overprotective and bossy. Life isn't that well delineated into black and white areas, the most well adjusted kids are usually the ones who's parents are somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, it's always harder to stay clear of extremes and try to be well adjusted.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Canines are merciless hierarchal shitheads in the wild, that repeatedly teach each other and their offspring how to "act their age."

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Throw in moat monsters, battlements, gargoyles, murder holes, cannons, and a secret cave full of toys and candy, and your dream house sounds exactly like my own!

Whose greatest aspiration is to acheive mediocrity?

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the Sims actually could care less about raising your children.

ObGrammar: They *could* care less? I guess that means they must care a sufficient amount if it's possible that they could, if they tried, care less than they already do.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who grew up in hell wouldn't see mediocrity as being such. They would see it as heaven.

Re:It's a little sad

[gethane]

You obviously don't do much reading on parenting techniques.

Letting a baby cry it out is so... 1980's American.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/04.09/Chi ldrenNeedTou.html

and its biologically incorrect. A mother's milk lets down when her baby cries because evolution has designed the human parenting system to work that way. Baby cries, mother feeds and comforts.

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/5/T051200.asp#T0512 04

However, it is often convenient to the parent to let a baby cry. I'm sure we all know how much Americans dislike being interrupted from their pursuit of the American Dream (and watching American Idol, of course!)

But, what the hell would I know. I'm only the mother of 5 kids, 4 months to 15 years.

Re:It's a little sad

[fufubag]

Congratu-fucking-lations! The Parent Czar has spoken, we can now end this thread.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Dark Helmet: [In Dark Helmet voice] And now Princess Vespa, I have you in my clutches, to have my wicked way with you, the way I want to.
[In Vespa voice]
Dark Helmet: No, no, go away, I hate you! And yet... I find you strangely attractive.
[In D.H. voice]
Dark Helmet: Of course you do! Druish princesses are often attracted to money and power, and I have both, and you *know* it!
[In V. voice]
Dark Helmet: No, no, leave me alone!
[In D.H. voice]
Dark Helmet: No, kiss me!
[V]
Dark Helmet: No! Stop!
[D.H]
Dark Helmet: Yes, yes!
[V]
Dark Helmet: Oh, oh, oh! Ohhhh, your helmet is so big!

Re:It's a little sad

[shaitand]

Not to mention how many 'crimes' are really just things that those preachers have labeled 'immoral'.

Re:It's a little sad

[mysticwhiskey]

Congratu-fucking-lations! The "Parent-Czar" Czar has spoken, we can now definitely end this thread.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

so I am bad for setting up the house, pausing and removing all doors and then havethem cook on a grill inside next to lots of flammible things?

I giggle for hours watching them run around and die in the fire.

Oh! also a moat around the house with a diving board for getting in fro mthe street makes a great tombstone collector as they drown trying to leave.

I love sims!

Re:It's a little sad

[Vintermann]

You know, I've seen sites of people torturing their sims, and although I laugh a bit at it, I won't do something like that myself. I'd feel guilty. Of course, I know they are not real people, but they really cry... they are constructed to attract my empathy, and since they do succeed to some degree (at least the one time I played the sims) it would be wrong of me to be nasty to them. It's not right to mess with your own instincts for care and sympathy, even when they are a little misplaced.

I care for my son, but it would be awfully hard to be 100% conscious about it, all the time. It's much easier to be a good father, not get mad or grumpy & so on, when your caretaker instincts are actually there and working as they should.

Re:It's a little sad

[Vintermann]

"If you don't want your kids trying to sneak into the liquor cabinet, don't have one. They do it because they wish to grow up and see grown ups drinking liquor and defining it as grownup behavior."

Very good point, but it doesn't just apply to parent-child relationships. The more the people around you drink, the less resistance your social instincts give you when you're considering getting drunk yourself. The best way to protect the people closest to you from the damaging effects of high and moderate alcohol consumption, is to not drink yourself. It probably even makes a difference in society at large.

Re:It's a little sad

[ockegheim]

If he learns a valuable life lesson from the Sims, then is he to trust that lessons learned form the Sims are valuable?

Because the Sims actually could care less about raising your children.

And doll manufacturers do care? It's what the child does with the doll/game that's significant.

Re:It's a little sad

[ockegheim]

Three cheers for KFG, MorningBlade, and their confused-to-be kids!

Re:It's a little sad

[Gunfighter]

As a parent, I'm pretty strict. I was a Sgt. in the Marine Corps, and my wife and I run a pretty tight ship. Discipline is strictly enforced. We punish severely for infractions as simple as "not listening to mommy and daddy." My daughter is pretty smart for her age (likes to read the encyclopedia and she just turned four), so she is capable of understanding what is right and what is wrong. Immediate and unquestioning response to orders... I learned it, so are my children. That being said...

99% of the time running across the street without looking will not be a problem.

The one time she goes to run across the street and stops dead in her tracks when I yell "FREEZE!" just before that truck rolls through at twice the speed limit, it's worth it.

In most cases, people should act their age by shutting up and doing as they're told without the "Fuck that". If you want to question something, question it after you (hopefully) avoid whatever mistake it was someone was trying to help you avoid. As the old proverb goes, "The fool speaks while the wise man listens." If someone is dishing out orders or advice, think twice before you decide not to keep your mouth shut and show a little respect and/or obedience.

In many cases, it's a simple case of "work smarter not harder". Learn to learn from others' mistakes without having to make your own. Why lose a [limb/life/loved one/opportunity of a lifetime/etc.] because you chose to not heed the advice or instruction of someone who had already been there, done that?

Re:It's a little sad

[gelos]

You are correct about not letting a baby cry. You really can't 'spoil' a newborn. Babies, especially less than 6 months act purely on instinct so the normal learning and conditioning don't apply. This gets less true after 6 months or so. After that point, they can get spoiled an d you should start letting them cry more.

Re:It's a little sad

[mrball_cb]

Kids hating to go to school and/or do their homework isn't a problem with the kid. It's a problem with the teachers and parents. They're being dumbasses, adopting behaviors of their own that necessarily drive the kids away from the behaviors they wish the kids to adopt.

Because they do not want the kids to mature. They want them to shut up and do as they're told; and right now we have a society that tells them this is the way they should behave until their eighteenth birthday, when they are then supposed to automagically transform into responsible adults, without ever having taught, or evern offered the opportunity to learn on their own, just how to do that.

In the book The Long Emergency http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871138883/ref=pd _lpo_k2a_2_txt/103-3650235-3452607?_encoding=UTF8, the author makes this same point. The idea of schooling has conditioned our kids to accept a few things as normal:

1. 
      
2. go to one place all day long (and don't do anything productive, as in do something for the good of your family)
3. 
      
4. infantilizes them ("shut up and do as you're told")

For the most part I agree. Education has already been crushed into the instutionalization approach. Much of the problems stem from the want/need of parents to also shrug the maturation of their children onto the instition's shoulders as well. That can't work. Parents need to be more active in their kids lives. And that's hard to do when both parents need to work to make the inflated mortgage (or rent) payments.

Re:It's a little sad

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between you and the parent poster sounds like the difference between introversion and extroversion. Some people find new experiences/places thrilling. To a lot of introverted people, like myself, thrilling experiences are far more taxing than they are fun. I'm a much happier person with a stable routine than when things get shaken up. I don't deal well with abrupt changes.

For awhile, I experimented with a more extroverted life. Going out, partying and such. I kept getting the message from a number of sources (friends, family and popular media) that you're not 'living' if you're not out there trying thrilling new things all the time, so I felt obliged to try those new and exciting things out. The problem was I constantly had to push myself to go to the parties, or new places. And I never seemed to have fun. The result was that I became depressed. Why didn't I like going out and partying like 'everyone' else? Because that's not what's make me happy. If owning a quiet home with the 2.5 kids or staying in and reading a book is what makes you happy, stick with that. The extroverted type will find you dull and boring, but that's ok, introverts and extroverts aren't really wired to hang out with each other.

To me, success is synonymous with happiness.

Re:It's a little sad

[kfg]

In the book The Long Emergency . . .

I'm personally acquainted with Mr. Kunstler. I'm an "Honorary" Saratogian myself, even having been declared a "Saratoga Treasure," even though I'm from a neighboring city. If you ever get a chance to see him speak live, grab it. The way I typically describe him is as "The Harlan Ellison of the New Urbanist Movement."

You may not want him as a houseguest, but you sure as shit want to hang out with him a bit for the entertainment value.

I've never told him that. I wonder if he reads Slashdot?

Education has already been crushed into the instutionalization approach.

Standardized tests for standardized people. That's why I tutor privately, using a very Socratic approach. I do not "teach," I "facilitate learning." This does not always make my life easy, if only because I have developed a bit of a reputation as a "teacher of last resort." I tend to be brought the kids that everyone else has already failed with, not so much the "discipline problem" kids (thugs), but the "learning disabled" and "autistic spectrum" kids.

The kids who actually cannot do their homework, and so for whom "discpline" is mere punishment.

Parents need to be more active in their kids lives.

In the Suzuki Method of teaching music the parents are not only required to attend the lessons, but to take music lessons themselves and to practice with the kid.

And that's hard to do when both parents need to work to make the inflated mortgage (or rent) payments.

The surest sign of a society sick at its core is parents who are not "allowed" to be parents. For the working poor this is understandable and there is little to nothing they can do about it. For the "upwardly mobile" and "success driven" couple who work to maintain a "lifestyle" they can't actually afford, well, they are the problem, unskilled as parents; and unaware of it.

That's another reason my tutoring doesn't always make my life easy. The parents above cope by taking out another home equity loan (in execess of their actual equity) and sending the poor kid off to a military academy or something. I get the charity cases.

I take them.

KFG

Re:It's a little sad

[Gilmoure]

Heh, after living hell of public school system, my dream was to live far away from most people. Almost there. Just need another $20k in the bank and the land will be mine!

Re:It's a little sad

[MourningBlade]

The one time she goes to run across the street and stops dead in her tracks when I yell "FREEZE!" just before that truck rolls through at twice the speed limit, it's worth it.

This is, indeed, a good thing. The question is: why will she obey?

Inculcating unthinking obedience is not a virtue. I'm not suggesting always reasoning with a child - anyone who's ever tried to reason with a child who wants something understands that they are not really capable of rational judgement.

There are two major problems with "obedience culture." One large, one small. The small one is that obedience is its own system. Unrealistic demands create "disobedience" when the commanded is incapable of obeying. Failure is punished as willfulness. This goes nowhere good, and I've seen it over and over again.

Secondly, it instills compliance with authority as a virtue. I believe that this can apply later with government. I know many people who think that something is wrong because it is illegal, considering the law a moral code. Unquestioning obedience to government is folly.

If we always set up lines to color within, are we surprised when they only become good at coloring within lines?

I'm not suggesting that obedience is a bad thing. Below a certain age there really can't be any such thing as considered obedience. We need to keep in mind why we are obedient.

You are right about (below a certain age) the best time for considering the rationale behind a yell in an emergency is after complying. A friend of mine in high school got me into some real scrapes a few times by asking "why?" and when I needed him to do something quickly. In case you couldn't tell, his mother was a bit of a psycho and he was raised with constant irrational orders. As a result, any request had to be justified to his standards. I almost knocked his lights out a few times when it became ridiculous.

Lastly, my cousin was in the Marine Corps, and I know how hard they work you guys. Sergeants aren't bred quickly there. Thanks for your service. "First to go, last to know."

Re:It's a little sad

[Valleye]

Damn Troll where are my mod points when I actually want to use one.

Yes, Sims may be replacing dolls right now

[Anonymous Coward]

but we all know what the best toy for XMAS 2006 will be.

OMG!!! RMS PONIES!!!

Re:Yes, Sims may be replacing dolls right now

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week called.
It said it would mod you ontopic and relevant.

This is this week however...

I think I helped start this

[Anonymous Coward]

Right before the first Christmas after the Sims came out, I was having my haircut and discussing the holiday. My hairstylist said she still need another gift for her pre-teen daughter, and I suggested The Sims. Well, she loved it, and apparently she loved it too much, as the next time I visited for a haircut, I learned grounding now involved loss of The Sims.

Natural Selection

[Donniedarkness]

The article does quote one 10-year-old boy who plays with Sims, and has learned valuable life lessons. "I learned don't leave your baby crying or people will come take your baby away."

So what you're trying to say, young man, is that The Sims helped your family line from becoming a victim of natural selection?

Re:Natural Selection

[Anonymous Coward]

And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

So, what does this tell us about CmdrTaco?

Re:Natural Selection

[cooley]

So what you're trying to say, young man, is that The Sims helped your family line from becoming a victim of natural selection?

How many ten year olds do you know capable of caring for a family? When I was ten, I could barely take care of my Transformers.

Re:Natural Selection

[pyrrhonist]

When I was ten, I could barely take care of my Transformers.

Well, they are more than meets the eye.

Re:Natural Selection

[Anonymous Coward]

Using that logic, any time you apply anything that you didn't discover by yourself, you're thwarting natural selection!

Re:Natural Selection

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you don't understand natural selection. The fact that he was able to learn means that he has a trait that was selected for.

Re:Natural Selection

[umbrellasd]

So what you're trying to say, young man, is that The Sims helped your family line from becoming a victim of natural selection?

No, no. Exposure to The Sims caused an adaptive mutation which was then selected.

Re:Natural Selection

[m50d]

WTF is this modded up for? It's learning the same as anything else.

Re:Natural Selection

[WilliamSChips]

My guess is that someone meant to say "Funny" and accidentally chose "Insightful" instead.

Re:Natural Selection

[marcsherman]

Don't tell anyone, but I've heard that they're actually robots, in disguise.

Re:Natural Selection

[m50d]

That'd be fair enough if the comment were actually funny

Re:Natural Selection

[Xeth]

You can't be "saved" from Natural Selection. If you die, then you've been naturally selected against. If you breed, you've been selected for.

Anything else degenerates into disqualifying intellect as a trait to help survival.

Re:Natural Selection

[pavon]

Thank you. I'd also like to add that this wouldn't even be a case of natural selection, as his genes have already been passed on baby. In addition, even though the baby would be less likely to be successful growing up in that environment, it wouldn't be less likely to pass on it's genes when it gets older - in fact in our society it would be more likely to do so.

This post should be moderated down, or Funny, bit it isn't the least bit insightful.

Re:Natural Selection

[WilliamSChips]

You must be new here...

The Sims taught me...

[John Courtland]

that taking a piss takes about an hour. Seriously, the timescale on that action is ridiculous.

Re:The Sims taught me...

[slashflood]

Maybe prostatitis or kidney stones?

Re:The Sims taught me...

[Bacon Bits]

They normalized the timescale between both sexes.

Re:The Sims taught me...

[Greyfox]

Aah just wait 'til you hit 40. Then it won't seem so ridiculous anymore. That's another life lesson you can learn from the sims.

It's not that the sims aren't realistic, it's just that they're all really really old.

Re:The Sims taught me...

[jthill]

Timescale? This is like RRT: multiple timescales all mashed up, a game day and a game year run concurrently. Plus it's a game: do you really want to have to also brush your teeth and trim your nails and blowdry your hair and whatever else? It's a stand-in.

The year 2000 called...

[happycat64]

The year 2000 called - it said your study is 6 years late, prof.

Virtual Torture

[the_mushroom_king]

The Sims "aka Virtual Torture Set" teach kids about social issues? WTF, are we short on Abugarade sytle interragators or what?

Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work at Maxis back when SimCity 2000 was first released and I remember seeing this new game they were working on called "Doll House" and it was aimed at girls. Over the years it slowly morphed into The Sims.

It's a little sad-Daddie's little dungeon.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's a little sad that kids would have to learn something like that from a game, rather than having parents that think enough of their children to explain stuff like that to them."

Medievel dad: Son. Whipping your pheasents occasionally is OK. It builds character. Throw a few into the dungeon to teach the occasional lesson. Now go and make me proud.

They're not dolls!

[the_humeister]

They're action figures!!!

Where are the parents?

[Philomathie]

Since when have we needed a game to teach our kids that locking someone in a room with no windows or doors, and leaving them to die is a BAD thing! There is something seriously wrong with society if this is the case...

Re:Where are the parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a joke added by the submitter. Although I can hardly see what anyone can learn from the sim beside cheating because its so damn boring ans slow paced.

Duh

[mqduck]

Sims are the new dolls? As soon as I read that, I said "well, duh" and started to tag it as such, when I suddenly realized "oh, wait... I hadn't actually thought of that before." It's just so obvious I naturally assumed I had.

This is an outrage

[defile]

The article does quote one 10-year-old boy who plays with Sims, and has learned valuable life lessons. "I learned don't leave your baby crying or people will come take your baby away."

Subjecting one's offspring to unspeakable torture is every American's GOD GIVEN RIGHT.

Re:This is an outrage

[mblase]

Subjecting one's offspring to unspeakable torture is every American's GOD GIVEN RIGHT.

For those of us who know offspring who have been subjected to same, this isn't very funny. Shame on you.

Re:This is an outrage

[tsa]

A friend of mine came up with this 'wonderful' (NOT!!) experiment you can do if you suddenly have twins. One of them you pamper and give it everything it wants, and the other one you neglect, shout at, well, basically, you treat him/her like Harry Potter was treated by his aunt and uncle. It would be interesting to see the results.

KIDS (AND PARENTS), DO NOT try this at home! Not with real kids, anyway! I will not take any responsibility for the results!

Re:This is an outrage

[bmo]

You're not Republican, are you?

--
BMO

Yes, I know, it's a troll. But my karma is bigger than yours. Nyeah.

Re:This is an outrage

[MooUK]

"Prince and the Pauper" might interest you, then. An oldish film, also a book if I remember right.

Re:This is an outrage

[Anonymous Coward]

Twain. KEEEEELL. Twain. KEEEEEEL. *twitch*

Re:This is an outrage

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Subjecting one's offspring to unspeakable torture is every American's GOD GIVEN RIGHT.

>For those of us who know offspring who have been subjected to same, this isn't very funny. Shame on you.

No, it isn't very funny. Except when a clown does it.

Sims NOTHING like playing with dolls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Playing with dolls is fun.

A better quote from the article:

[mblase]

Among psychologists and education experts, it is widely accepted that playing with dolls is a safe and perhaps even essential part of self-discovery and growing up for many children, especially girls. Now, some of those experts are catching on to how quickly video games are moving into the territory formerly dominated by a slim blonde named Barbie.

Anyone who has preschool-age children and a few baby dolls in the house will notice that, eventually, the kids (both boys and girls) will pick up the dolls and start role-playing out the very same relationship they perceive between their parent(s) and themselves. If you rock them and tell them stories, they'll rock their dolls and tell them stories. If you yell at them and put them in time out, their dolls will experience similar punishments. And psychologists have long used doll play to determine whether small children have been sexually molested by family members by watching to see if they do the same thing, without any encouragement, to the dolls.

As kids get older, though, their doll play moves on from simply reenacting life and becomes more imaginative. The dolls will begin to live out the kind of fantasy life the child thinks s/he will have as an adult, or wishes s/he will have. They'll give the dolls the kind of lives they learned about in books or tv shows or movies.

You have to be a bit older still to realize that dolls and/or Sims can be treated in ways you'd never treat real people, but it's still reenactment, even if you're just reenacting "Silence of the Lambs" torture cells or action movies where the villain catches on fire and falls off the roof. Anyone who reaches that point has generally concluded that Barbie is just plastic, Sims are just software code, and there's nothing anthropomorphic about them in his/her mind anymore.

Sims are noteworthy, though, because they react in ways Barbie won't and will actually teach some social behaviors, like babies who aren't cared for will be taken away from you. In the past, this sort of educational value was limited to "If I torture my Barbies, my friends won't play with me anymore" or "If I rip Barbie's arm off, it doesn't go back on." Not that those aren't valuable lessons, mind you, they're just much more limited.

Sims should never be used as a replacement for real socialization, of course, and if a child is losing friends in favor of Sims that's videogame addiction and a problem to be a addressed. (If the child never had friends to begin with, I reserve judgment.) But as "the new Barbie", I don't think there's any problems to be found.

Re:A better quote from the article:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is definately one of the most interesting things I've ever read on Slashdot. Thanks :)

Ignorant question -off-line SIMS to play with wife

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi!

Excuse ignorance - I just do not play many games.

Is there any SIMS version that can be played without Internet connection
(local LAN OK) with my wife ?

She knows next to nothing about computer games and I am looking for a game
she could enjoy so she would be more understanding about my
occasional games .. :)

An Important Lesson

[Crash Culligan]

And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

Memo to Myself: If I ever need a babysitter, do not call CmdrTaco.

Re:An Important Lesson

[Carthag]

I had enormous fun building a 7-bed one room house inhabited by 8 men & a huge bigscreen TV. It's amazing & hilarious how often they get in fights when their lives are so completely horrible.

Re:An Important Lesson

[Jeremi]

I had enormous fun building a 7-bed one room house inhabited by 8 men & a huge bigscreen TV. It's amazing & hilarious how often they get in fights when their lives are so completely horrible.

Too bad you didn't have a copy of the Sims handy at the time... you could have found out the same things without going to all that expense!

Re:An Important Lesson

[Shano]

You know, with a couple of modifications, that's virtually the whole premise of Big Brother.

Re:An Important Lesson

[stvartak]

It sounds more like off-campus student housing to me.

Re:An Important Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

"I had enormous fun building a 7-bed one room house inhabited by 8 men & a huge bigscreen TV."

What was that game called... "Illegal Immigrant Sims"? (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

The extent of my Sims playing...

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

I tried this game. Once upon a time.

It took so long to get ready in the morning (shower, piss, etc) that I'd routinely miss my ride to work and then lose my job. And then, when I wanted my character to learn, I'd have him read. And I'd sit there... watching him... reading. Then I stepped out of the matrix and said, why am I watching an avatar read when I could read actual stuff myself?? And so I did...

Re:The extent of my Sims playing...

[Jasper__unique_dammi]

...don't wait... use the speed-up button. There are three speeds you know, when i played, i was usually in 2 or 3.

Re:The extent of my Sims playing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, alarm clocks are essential and should be the very first thing you buy.
Still though, it isn't much fun to play and I've never understood why it's been so ridiculously successful.

Re:The extent of my Sims playing...

[austad]

This game is still obviously addicting. One night my girlfriend went to bed a 9pm because she was tired. I had the sims running on my machine in my room. I came in there about midnight, 3 hours later, and she's laying awake in bed watching them. I'm like "what are you doing?" She says "I can't stop watching them, they just do things randomly, turn it off!"

Re:The extent of my Sims playing...

[archen]

As would any guy. But then look at the girls. I know a lot of females who play the sims and love it. Many of them have played no other mainstream game (aside from perhaps solitare). The Sims is popular because it captured a segment of the population that normally doesn't even play games. I'm thinking this hasn't been lost on Nintendo when you look at their upcomming console.

Re:The extent of my Sims playing...

[Anonymous Coward]

addictive!!!

Re:The extent of my Sims playing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you noticed that this small The Sims experience taught you something. That you could be like the guy in the game and take full control of your life? You want to learn? read a book. You want to be fit? Exercise. A lot of people tend to complain about their situation instead of looking for solutions. Good games are all about that.

Kids these days...

[Farmer Tim]

...are just too used to spammers. Sometimes leaving people to die in a sealed room doesn't go far enough.

Re:Kids these days...

[mianne]

That would never work. It would only result in that person surreptitiously ordering the Sims Ci@1i$ expansion pack for you.

Re:Kids these days...

[Anonymous Coward]

...don't realize that the condoning of torturing someone because they caused you inconvenience may not be appropriate behavior.

Re:Kids these days...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you speaking of Bush or The Sims?

Simply, No

[quantax]

I think the major difference between a doll and any video game where its primarily a character simulation is that the doll is an object through which the child has nearly unlimited freedom of expression where as the video game is an exploration of a character that reacts a set way in a virtual environment. I consider this to be more of a virtual pet rather than a doll. This will show them interactions & their effects, but they do not explore the interactions on their own, they happen regardless since thats how the system works.

Action figures or dolls, I know I put mine in all sorts of roles, ranging from simply good-guy vs bad guy to space exploration, you name it. With friends, you'd extend to roles further to each other, involve more characters, and so on. My roommate was even more into it than I ever was and he'd have his entire toy collection, involved in vast, decently complex plots for a child. The fun was in the fact that you could do anything with the objects at hand and project roles upon them regardless of their origin (Cobra Commander could just be Cobra Commander or he could also be the member of the crowd that gets saved by Voltron, who is actually a robot-alien from a distant planet sent to stop Strawberry-Shortcake from... its limited by your imagination).

Dolls are about role exploration and archetype analysis by children. We read them stories (or they watch TV) which sets up these various character archetypes in their consciousness, which they use the dolls to act out. It is both a learning experience but also a reaffirmation of their character beliefs. The Sims cannot provide this, imo, simply since it is about a very static (compared to what you can do with your dolls) character that has set reactions to all stimuli in the game. Its not like your sim is going to take some new initiative, or as if you can really act out a complex story idea, since the game is too sandboxish & opened-ended for that to happen. One does not so much control as heavily influence their sim. On the other hand, if the child is fascinated by things like antfarms and such, perhaps they may enjoy it. But regardless, I do not see simulations replacing dolls; no, I see emergent game systems with easily creatable content as a place where dolls may get replaced. A game where you can define the world and the objects in it (think Spore meets Gmod meets the user definable gameplay-engine-system we've never seen). The closest we've seen to this is Spore, but while its amazing, its pretty obvious that this is not something that would even meet 1% of those requirements for a child.

Re:Simply, No

[Kadin2048]

I think I agree with you, with certain reservations.

In another comment I likened the Sims to 'virtual pets,' or ant farms. This is a different type of play than usually happens with dolls (action figures, if you prefer), because with a pet, real or virtual, it's less open-ended. There's more feedback: if you pull the kitty's tail, eventually the kitty will scratch you and avoid you in the future. Although the ant farm doesn't seem to give much feedback, in actuality it does: if you don't feed them, they will die; if you fill it full of water, the ants will drown. (I assume they do, I never tried this, but it's my understanding they don't swim.)

Dolls are free-response objects. They're the physical equivalent of handing a child a blank piece of paper and a box of crayons and letting them do whatever they want, without toomuch suggestion. The form of the doll does give some suggestions (i.e., is it an infant/child/man/woman/soldier, etc.) to the interaction, but not much.

Virtual pets are what I would call "responsibility objects." They are things that a child knows--or ought to know--that they are supposed to care for. They come with certain sets of rules, and provide feedback (in various ways) based on whether these rules are followed or not. Thus the interaction with them always falls into a set structure, based on actions and reactions.

Learn By Doing

[martyb]

It's the scientific method applied to life - in a game environment so it encourages exploration while having fun. It encourages trial and error. I often learn best from what goes wrong - not just from what succeeds. This reminds me of a couple quotations which have helped me greatly through the years:

Life is a harsh teacher - it gives the test first and the lesson later.

and:

Tell me and I'll forget;
Show me and I may remember;
Involve me and I will understand.

(I wish I had attribution for these... does anyone know who wrote them?)

The other thing I see is that the game is safe. The player can try things *objectively* without the risk of an *emotional* reaction that a parent might produce. "What the *&#@(% were you THINKING?" I am NOT suggesting parents abdicate their responsibilities to a game! For example: hitting my little brother got a swift reaction from my parents. I learned that I didn't want to get punished, so I stopped doing it. Playing it out in a game, I would get to see the emotional, long-term damage that it would cause -- I would better understand why it was a bad idea.

Re:Learn By Doing

[Zaphod2016]

For example: hitting my little brother got a swift reaction from my parents. I learned that I didn't want to get punished, so I stopped doing it. Playing it out in a game, I would get to see the emotional, long-term damage that it would cause -- I would better understand why it was a bad idea.

This certainly got me thinking- and I have come to agree with you. As a kid, I had a terrible habit of getting in trouble, simply to see what would happen (the classic "trouble child" syndrome). Perhaps if I had the Sims to torture, instead of real people, I might not have been punched in the mouth so often- and yet- might have still learned why its better to not be a total jerk.

Re:Learn By Doing

[Anonymous Coward]

Second quote is usually attributed to Confuscious.

Re:Learn By Doing

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me and I'll forget;
        Show me and I may remember;
        Involve me and I will understand.

(I wish I had attribution for these... does anyone know who wrote them?)

- Confucius?

Re:Learn By Doing

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

A quote similar to your second quote is printed in the Integrated Teaching Laboratory (ITL) at the University of Colordo's Engineering Center:

"I hear, I forget
I see, I remember
I do, I understand"

(The ITL is a "hands-on" lab environment where students work on projects in small groups. There is a manufacturing center with CNC lathes and mill machines, a laser engraver/cutter, plastic manufacturing machine, and other tools. There is also an electronics center and a bunch of lab workstations with data acquisition equipment and other fun stuff.

Re:Learn By Doing

[MourningBlade]

The other thing I see is that the game is safe. The player can try things *objectively* without the risk of an *emotional* reaction that a parent might produce. "What the *&#@(% were you THINKING?"

When I was young I screwed up quite a bit. As a result, I got yelled at and given the "I'm very disappointed" speech quite often. I'm 25 now, and to this day if anything rough is going on in my life I will not tell my mother. Even if it's the only real news about what's going on - just thinking about telling her makes me hear the sighs and reprimands.

As parents/minders/authority there is a certain satisfaction in lecturing your charges. The relief in discharge of duty, but also the "I told you so" feeling. I see a lot of people doing it. It also (somewhat) relieves the stress of the situation - the "oh my god how did this ever happen?"

We build the life we later have with our children. As parents and future parents, we need to keep in mind that yelling at our children has an effect. We need to find ways to have them learn from the world and not from "WHAT THE F&*$ DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?"

PS ask yourself if this sounds familiar: you're about 16, you get into a jam so you ask your (mom|dad) for advice. Said parent yells at you for 5 minutes with "how could this happen?" Then talks about how they feel about the situation ("I'm extremely disappointed"), then moves on to what they're going to do solve the situation ("I'm going to call his parents right now and sort this out."). What have you learned?

Re:Learn By Doing

[__aabwba5127]

I dunno I just really object to the fact of a child learning not by the values and standards I will have as a parent but by the ones "metered out" and put forth in variables by the makers of the Sims. I don't want my kids learning to react the same way as some emotionally challenged code monkey ;-)

Forget dolls, what about ponies?

[Benzido]

So if Sims are the new dolls, what are the new ponies?

Barbie Horse Adventures, it should be pointed out, doesn't have any ponies.

Re:Forget dolls, what about ponies?

[Benzido]

Barbie Horse Adventures, it should be pointed out, doesn't have any ponies.

Dammit, just now I got to the end and discovered that there is an UNLOCKABLE pony!

Re:Forget dolls, what about ponies?

[ByteGuerrilla]

'Take your pony to the next watering station.' ...
'Brush her hair' ..... okayyy...
'Your pony died because it wasn't pretty enough' ..... *screams with distress*

Re:Forget dolls, what about ponies?

[Gryle]

[text color="pink"]OMG!!! PONIES!!!!![/text]

Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

I worked on the original team that developed The Sims, and yes it was called "Dollhouse", but no it wasn't "aimed at girls". The name "Dollhouse" wasn't used because that turned off boys, but it wasn't designed to appeal to one sex or the other. The point was that it did not have any particular gender "color" or "aim". Of course there were some great women working on the design and implementation, and that came through, but not in a way that you could describe as "aiming at girls". The secret is not to aim at girls, but not to unconsciously aim only at boys, the way most other video games do.

The Sims is a gender neutral game. It only seems like a girl game to some naive observers who haven't actually played it themselves, because of the contrast with all the other games which are extremely gender specific, aimed at boys, designed by boys, and written by boys. That's one of the biggest problems with the game industry: they are so insulated from reality that they can't see the obvious problem of how fucking dominated the industry is by clueless straight white boys who think everybody else is just like them.

Thanks a lot to the all-hat, no-cattle assholes from Texas who think "John Romero is About to Make You His Bitch" is a brilliant marketing slogan, but never get around to designing any good game play, because they're too busy talking about what great designers they are who understand their audience, and have the audacity to hire their trophy girl-friends to work as booth bunnies.

Before going to Maxis to work on The Sims, I worked at Interval Research, where Brenda Laurel was developing her "Games for Girls" project, which spun off into Purple Moon. I didn't subscribe to her theory of making games "aimed at girls" that were "pink" and "girlish" so boys don't like them and girls do. It seemed like a cop-out that pandered to the built in prejudices and problems of society, instead of trying to transcend them. I don't think there's anything fundamental about the color pink that's genetically hard-wired into girl's brains, and I don't think it's respectful to girls or boys to treat them or colorize them differently than each other. Should "Photoshop for Girls" only allow you to select bright shades of pink, but not blue? Seriously, pink is just a metaphore, and it goes a lot deeper than the color, but I don't think it's a such good idea to artificially limit the appeal of a game to one sex or another.

That's just my opinion -- but it's best to let the market decide. Purple Moon got steamrolled over and bought out by Barbie, who owns the color pink and has an enormous marketing machine behind her (behind every successful doll is a giant corporation run by clueless straight white males). The other problem they had was that they were trying to do a CDROM game in the age of the internet. So it's hard to draw any definite conclusions about the effect of the color pink from Purple Moon's experience. But the market decided to make The Sims the most successful game of all time, and it definitely wasn't "aimed at girls" the way Purple Moon's products were, or "aimed at boys" the way all the other games are.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Anonymous Coward]

and yes it was called "Dollhouse", but no it wasn't "aimed at girls".

No one in their right mind would ever consider naming a supposedly gender-neutral video game "Dollhouse." I think that they ever considered the name demonstrates what they at least originally thought their target audience might be.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

You're entitled to your own opinion about Will Wright's sanity, but I was there at the time and participated in the endless discussions about what to name the game, over three years. At first, it was called "Project X", because it was started before "Project Y" (which was SimCopter), but everybody has a "Project X" and we weren't going for an adult rating, so that name had to go. "Dollhouse" was the most obvious working title, but we knew it wasn't going to ship with that name. It was also called "Tactical Domestic Simulator (TDS)", but of course you could never ship a product with that title either. But that didn't mean it was originally designed to be a game about about nuclear warfare. For a while it was called "Jefferson" for "the persuit of happyness", but everybody thought that it was based on "The Jefferson's" sitcom instead of the president who was into freedom. Along the same theme, I suggested "We the People" (an omage to little computer people), but that was a dumb name. Will proposed some weird Japanese inspired name, something like "Happy Fun House", but that didn't stick.

As obvious as "The Sims" sounds for the title of a Maxis game, that name didn't come around until the last minute. And then there was the other name that Will Wright and Jim Mackraz came up with early on which was totally perfect and extremely hillarious, but thanks to whatever they were smoking, they completely forgot what it was and can't remember the lost name to this day. Since nobody could remember the lost name, we went with The Sims. I always liked the German translation of that name: "Die Sims".

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Khaed]

So, to sum up for the AC:

"Dollhouse" is to "The Sims" as "Dolphin" is to "Gamecube."

Thank God they didn't go with "Tactical Domestic Simulator." No one would have played it.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[heresyoftruth]

As a woman who games, I have to agree with your assessment. I am completely insulted by games that are genderized to any extreme. Whether it be towards males or females. Anything that obviously is reaching for a gender stereotype ends up being less than satisfactory in my experience. Nowadays I play the oddball games that don't fit the formulas out there. Katamari Damaci, Pikman, The Sims, Insaniquarium, etc. The game I am really really waiting for with anticipation this year is Spore.

Why don't I play the more violent FPS? You could say it's because I am female, or you could listen to me say I have done that, and it all seems a rehash of the same freaking game with different skins, and slight variations. I am a female minority in my circle of friends, but I am not the only one that feels this way about games. I actually got interested in The Sims because of my male friends spending so much time on it.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Saint Stephen]

The only thing I ever did with either the Sims or The Sims 2 is have two chicks living in the house flirting as heavily as they could with each other until they finally did it. Then, no more interest. Took about 8-10 hours each time.

With Sims 2 I tried to get 3 girls to all simultaneously be in love with each other, but it was too tricky.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sims is gender neutral in the sense that males typically find it boring. SimCity and SimTower are gender-neutral in the sense that females typically find them boring. The financial success of The Sims certainly suggests that catering to female interests is more profitable, and especially in terms of the Online variety, that males will be drawn by the collection of females it acrues.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[The New Stan Price]

First you say things like "clueless straight white boys" and "all hat Texans," then you go on to say things like "pandered to the built in prejudices and problems of society". RUDE AWAKENING: YOU ARE THE PREJUDICE OF SOCIETY! ANOTHER RUDE AWAKENING: THE ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS IS ABOUT NOTHING BUT STEREOTYPES. Actors don't play people, they play stereotypes.

Companies go after the easy money. They sell to a ready-made market. It has to do with risk. Until you can convince the companies that there are other markets that can make them money easily, they will continue to go after the same market. "Passion of the Christ" is a prime example. Nobody in Hollywood would dare make a movie like this until they found out how much money it made. Now they are all scrambling to make movies that target the religious crowd.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Reality Master 101]

It seemed like a cop-out that pandered to the built in prejudices and problems of society, instead of trying to transcend them.

I was with you until this point. What's wrong with games that are specifically target toward girls who like very frilly (i.e., pink) things? Just as there's nothing wrong with making shooters that appeal primarily to certain boy segments, there's nothing wrong with creating games that appeal primarily to certain girl segments.

Speaking as a father of a four-year-old girl who loves pink, I submit that trying to say that girls have to "transcend" liking frilly pink, princesses, etc is just as prejudiced and wrong. Every game doesn't have to be reduced to the lowest common denominator so as to appeal to every child. If you try and please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Queer Boy]

That's one of the biggest problems with the game industry: they are so insulated from reality that they can't see the obvious problem of how fucking dominated the industry is by clueless straight white boys who think everybody else is just like them.

You forgot to add "in America". You should really check out the Asian video games selection to get a better idea of how varied games can be. There's a lot more to video games than killing and blowing things up.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't think there's anything fundamental about the color pink that's genetically hard-wired into girl's brains

Red was historically "manly" color, made pink as muted gentle color for a child. Blue was associated with purity, the sort of thing you'd want to ascribe to girls.

Somewhere way back, they got switched. The less saturated pastel tones are even more recent as traditions go.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[michaelconnor]

That's one of the biggest problems with the game industry: they are so insulated from reality that they can't see the obvious problem of how fucking dominated the industry is by clueless straight white boys who think everybody else is just like them.

How very odd; I had always thought that was the biggest problems with /.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Oniko]

It's when it's assumed that pink appeals to all females, or that no females play anything that isn't pink and frilly and OMG ponies, that it gets annoying. Things like Girls Night Out Solitaire are just really fucking stupid.
Yes, many females like pink and princess and what-all. But many don't, and actually are repulsed by them, and are genuinely insulted by the assumption that they would like it. I fully agree with the grandparent poster.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Anonymous Coward]

behind every successful doll is a giant corporation run by clueless straight white males

Can they really be that clueless and still be successful? It seems you would need to understand at least something about your market in order to have success.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Oniko]

You have a point in that Sims does appeal to females, that this was a sound financial move by EA, and that males partially are drawn by the presence of females in Sims Online. So, I agree with the last sentence.
But I think I'm gonna call you out on the first two. I know a ton of males that looooove the Sims, and I personally logged waaaaaaaaay too many hours on SimCity, SimTower, SimAnt, SimFarm, SimIsland, SimLife, etc. (although the last two were a little too complicated for a 10-year-old to figure out... hell, I can't figure out SimLife's interface now....). SimCity and SimTower aren't 'boring' to females; the lack of females that played these games is probably more due to the lack of females playing video games at all when they came out. Luckily I was a geekette early on, and my folks bought me a lot of 'edutainment' games, which fortunately included all of the above. ^_^

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Reality Master 101]

Yes, many females like pink and princess and what-all. But many don't, and actually are repulsed by them, and are genuinely insulted by the assumption that they would like it.

Exactly who assumes that all females are exactly the same? No one, that's who. This is what bugs me -- that somehow it's wrong for some girls to like pink, and that there are idiots out there who are "insulted" that someone might make something that appeals to a "girly" girl. These women need to get over it. If they don't like it, that's fine -- it's not intended for them. To get insulted about it is just stupid and arrogant.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the basic division in gender with respect to pure engineering and pure socialization. We can pretend that it doesn't exist, or say that it's due to the male patriarchy, or whatever but it's there and it's reflected in the forms of entertain that males and females typically choose. That doesn't mean that males and females exclusively choose those stereotypical roles, with the roles each person choosing seeming to relate hormonal influences on the development of preferences for regions of the brain that starts in the womb. Much as sexual oriented also stems from similar hormonal influences in the brain while within the womb. There are males that enjoy The Sims, but the typical male doesn't. The typical male doesn't create a Match.com or HotOrNot profile because he just wants to be friends, or would like a pen-pal either, or even with any aspirations of being "the one" or meeting a "soul mate." He's motivated by the desire to find someone with which he can engage in coitus. On the other hand there are guys that aren't like this. There are females that like SimTower more than The Sims, word games, or shopping for a new pair of pumps too. But I think everyone knows that Spore probably won't make Maxis as much money as The Sims, because it's shaping up to be more like a Sim game than a personal social group within a game. You'll probably like it, though. Maybe even all of your friends will like it. I know all of my friends like Futurama, but its overall ratings were poor. In fact most of the things I like having comparatively poor ratings, despite that I seem to associate people that like them too. It's just selection bias.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one of the biggest problems with the game industry: they are so insulated from reality that they can't see the obvious problem of how fucking dominated the industry is by clueless straight white boys who think everybody else is just like them.

Word. (I'd appeal for you to be modded up, but you're already at +5!) I would add "twentysomething" to your list, since many games seem to be designed to only deliver their full value after the investment of Copious Amounts of Free Time, y'know, the kind that only those either in college or relatively recently graduated have.

An example would be the choice of the Halo 2 dev team to have superjumps in their level designs (if superjumps were just accidental glitches the devs didn't like, they would have been patched out by now). Superjumps are nothing more than sanctioned mods intended to reward those who have endless hours to research which random pixel they should squat in front of and then practice like cocaine-addicted rats.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[up with pod people]

I'm a female gamer as well, and I agree that FPS is boring because it's the same old same old, not because it's "for boys." The only time I ever enjoy FPS is when I'm in a room of computers and I can bicker with and hassle the people I'm picking off. I never got into the Sims, possibly because I know I'd never get out.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a normal part of pre-puberty. You'll get over it when you grow up :)

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

How do you know that your little girl hadn't simply been brainwashed to like pink because of the society she lives in, instead of being genetically pre-disposed to a particular color? If you could raise another little girl as a control subject in complete isolation from society, and found that she also likes pink as much as your normal little girl, then you might be able to make the statement that girls are genetically predisposed to liking pink more than boys. That certainly wouldn't be an ethical experiment, but I highly doubt such an experiment would be able to prove that girls naturally like pink more than boys.

On the subject of princesses: Now that's definitely brainwashing, and you are asking for trouble by exposing your kids to that garbage! Disney has a whole line of "little princess" crap, and they put millions of dollars into pushing that crap onto kids. Why not raise your little girl to be a scientist or a prime minister, instead of a princess? Maybe it's because Disney doesn't have a line of Marie Curie and Margarete Thatcher dolls?

I've met an interacted in person with somebody who claims to be a real princess, the granddaughter of HIH Princess Shams of the Pahlavi Dynasty, although technically she's only really a dutchess: Princess Ann Claire. She has a reality TV show on E! network called "Love is in the Heir". She is one of the most horrible fucked-up wretched pathetic people I've ever met, and watching her reality show is like seeing a slow motion video of a plane crashing into the world trade center. If you really want to raise your daughter to be like her, then go right ahead, but you'll regret it. But I simply can't agree that girls are genetically pre-disposed to like pink or act like princesses.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

If I had a four-year-old daughter, I wouldn't want her playing with your daughter -- not because of the pink stuff, but because of the princess stuff. Let me tell you this: it all comes around. Some day you are going to SO regret that you raised your little girl up to be princess.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

What do you mean by "the typical male doesn't enjoy The Sims"? It's true that more than half of the players of The Sims are female, but if you cut the number of sales (about 60 million last I heard) in half, it's still the best selling game of all time by a long shot.

My point is that The Sims gender neutral, not sexist towards either males or females. And that makes it appealing to more males, as well as more females. By making a game appeal to only straight males, you're cutting out all the bi and gay males. By making a game appeal to only straight females, you're cutting out all the bi and lesbian females. But by making a game sexist, you're annoying and driving away many more potential customers than you may realize.

If a game only appeals to one sex, then girls won't recommend it to their boyfriends, and boys won't recommend it to their girlfriends, and you have severly limited the contagious grassroots viral potential. At first, The Sims started selling well to males, who are the traditional ones who go out and buy new games. But then as the months went on, the sales to females skyrocketed, because those males were showing it to their girlfriends, who went out and bought it, and told all their friends about it, both male and female. Mono-sexualized games can't cross the boyfriend/girlfriend gap to spread by word of mouth like The Sims did.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Reality Master 101]

How do you know that your little girl hadn't simply been brainwashed to like pink because of the society she lives in, instead of being genetically pre-disposed to a particular color?

Who cares? How do you know you haven't been "brainwashed" into liking video games? How, exactly, is it harming her by liking pink and frilly things? Not everything in the world has to be gray and utilitarian.

On the subject of princesses: Now that's definitely brainwashing, and you are asking for trouble by exposing your kids to that garbage!

Man, I'd hate to be your kid. The horror of imagination! The horror of fantasy! How terrible to allow one's child to imagine fairy godmothers! I suppose you're one of those people who think allowing a child to imagine Santa Clause is some sort of grand lying conspiracy.

Why not raise your little girl to be a scientist or a prime minister, instead of a princess?

Maybe because I'd rather not destroy my child's childhood and rush them into adulthood? One of the greatest evils of modern times is this notion that we have to program them from day one to live in reality, and crush whatever imaginative spirit they might have.

Sure, when she gets older, we'll talk about careers and what she wants to do with her life. But guess what? If her goal is to be the best mother she can be to her children, I would support her 100%. But I suppose you would consider your daughter a failure if she isn't Margaret Thatcher or Marie Curie.

If you really want to raise your daughter to be like her, then go right ahead, but you'll regret it. But I simply can't agree that girls are genetically pre-disposed to like pink or act like princesses.

Jesus, listen to yourself! No one is talking about growing up to be a literal princess. It's fantasy, man! I wanted to be Superman when I was a boy, but that doesn't mean I got all screwed up when I realized I was never going to fly like him.

As for your princess friend, who cares? Again, who is talking about raising their daughter to be a LITERAL princess?? I know a lot of ngineers who are screwed up socially; does that mean I should steer my children away from any engineering field?

I think you have some definite issues with fantasy, which is utterly bizarre coming from someone who makes video games.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

My comment about clueless straight white boys and all-hat no-cattle texans was specifically referring to John Romero and his ilk. Of course they're stereotypes, but they fit perfectly.

Your remarks on The Passion of the Christ illustrate the fact that Organized Religion is really just another arm of the Entertainment Industry, that tells people fictional stories to amuse them and make them feel better, and takes their money in exchange. But the non-religious parts of the entertainment industry doesn't have such a horrible track record of molesting children, starting crucades, inquisitions and wars, burning witches, etc.

Brokeback Mountain has also made a lot of money, and has been much more critically acclaimed than The Passion of the Christ, and it's not anti-semetic. The problem with the Christian Entertainment Industry, Fox News and the Republican Party is that they have to resort to their old dirty tricks like bashing jews, gays and women, to movitave their flocks to give them money.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

I think you're wrong to characterize The Sims as reducing game design to the lowest common denominator. If you think that trying to please everyone results in pleasing no one, then why is the the most popular game of all times, with 60 million units sold? The approach The Sims took was to purposefully avoid insulting the intelligece of its audience, instead complementing and leveraging their intelligence and artistic skills.

I think you're insulting your own daughter's intelligence by pandering to her pink princess addiction that she picked up from society. Will you also start buying her cocaine and coke spoons and scales for her birthday, if she picks up a taste for cocaine from the society she lives in? It's the real thing, and it adds life, you know from watching TV. What if she begs and pleads with you for cocaine, as much as she begs for pink princess stuff? Will you give in? What if she decides to be a hooker instead of a princess? Is it supressing her free will, to say no? Will you get her that revealing Disney Dominatrix halloween costume she's begging you for? Please: society DOES NOT need you to raise another princess. The world would be much better off with fewer princesses and more prostitutes.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

Of course you can be clueless and successful at the same time, as long as you have POWER. Case in point: George W Bush.

Those cluless straight white males who are running the giant corporations pumping out aisles of pink barbie dolls are EFFECTING the desires of the kids that are addicted to their bullshit. Some of them may not be straight, white or male, but they're ALL clueless. And they have an enormous advertising budget and can push through anything they want, directly into the hearts and minds of your kids.

To illustrate what I mean about the cluelessness of the people running the Barbie franchise: A few years ago, they decided that they wanted to update Ken so he was more hip, so they sent out a research team to find out what kids were into these days. Their corporate research team came back with the fact that lots of hip cool guys are wearing these little metal rings around their neck on a string, so they gave Ken one of those to make him more hip. Well guess what: it was a COCK RING!

"We're not in the business of putting cock rings into the hands of little girls." - Lisa McKendall, Manager of Marketing and Communications, Mattel Toys.

Mattel's new Ken doll is on the market. New Ken is getting almost as much press as New Coke did. Since his introduction at a toy convention in New York City in February, Ken's been everywhere, including the front page of the New York Times Arts and Leisure section. Why the hoopla? Ken's first piercing (his left ear) and his two-tone "greased lightning" hair-do. But an important part of Earring Magic Ken's new wardrobe has been overlooked by the straight media - Ken's cock ring. Hanging around Ken's neck, on a metallic silver thread, is what ten out of ten fags at a glance will tell you is a cock ring.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

The same way your daughter has been brainwashed into preferring pink, you've been brainwashed into thinking it's a natural genetic predisposition, instead of a marketing gimick implanted in her mind by Corporate America. Being a princess is simply a metaphore for doing anything you damn well please, demanding other people provide you with whatever you want right this very minute, pouting and carrying on like a little brat, and treating other people as inferior to yourself. It's not like being a scientist or a prime minister or a mother or a cowboy, because it's not about responsibility -- just the opposite. It's a pre-packaged way for her to learn to manipulate other people into doing what she wants, like making her parents buy her pink stuff. From Matel. Follow the money. Who's profiting from it? Matel. Who's paying the price in the long term? Your daughter.

There are many ways that you can live your life as a metaphorical superman or wonder woman, which will improve the world. But the world DOES NOT NEED any more metaphorical princesses, thank you very much. By pandering to your daughter's imperialistic fantasies, you're setting herself and yourself up for a lot of trouble and disappointment. Would you be just as happy for her to fantasize about being a coke whore, and buy her hooker costumes and dolls and playsets and candy coke and spoons, without worrying about how it effected her personality, as long as she didn't actually grow up to be one? So why do you do that with all the princess crap?

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Reality Master 101]

I think you're wrong to characterize The Sims as reducing game design to the lowest common denominator.

I wasn't specifically characterizing The Sims that way; I'm just saying that not every game has to appeal to the widest possible variety of people. There is room in the world for games that appeal only to a narrow segment of people. To make a silly comparison, plain missionary-style porn probably appeals to the widest variety of people, but that doesn't mean you can't have specialty porn that appeals to a smaller range.

I think you're insulting your own daughter's intelligence by pandering to her pink princess addiction that she picked up from society.

And what if someone said that exact same thing to you, except they said "pandering to a video game addiction"? I could see your logic if you were, I dunno, arguing that she should be practicing her piano lessons more rather than playing with princess dolls, but don't you think you're being unbelievably hypocritical speaking of this as a VIDEO GAME DESIGNER? One of the biggest wasters of time there is? And I like video games! But it's hilarious that you don't see the irony of this militant stand against childhood fantasy when you design something so mentally fluffy yourself.

Will you also start buying her cocaine and coke spoons and scales for her birthday, if she picks up a taste for cocaine from the society she lives in? It's the real thing, and it adds life, you know from watching TV. What if she begs and pleads with you for cocaine, as much as she begs for pink princess stuff?

Look, I don't know why you're so threatened by the color pink or with princesses, but to compare them to drug addiction is just... bizarre.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Reality Master 101]

Being a princess is simply a metaphore for doing anything you damn well please, demanding other people provide you with whatever you want right this very minute, pouting and carrying on like a little brat, and treating other people as inferior to yourself.

That might be how YOU would "play princess", but I assure you that that's not the fantasy my child plays. I submit that this tells us more about your personality than anything else.

To my girl, princesses represents beauty (beautiful castles, beautiful clothes, and yes, beautiful princesses), freedom, magic, adventure, etc. It's not about being a "slave owner", as you seem to (bizarrely) think.

I suppose next you'll tell me that it's unhealthy for her to fantasize about beautiful things. Well, that's crap, says I. Sure, if I was a bad parent and spoiled her, then it might be a problem. But when a boy imagines himself to be Superman, he imagines himself to be hugely strong and powerful -- the male equivalent of beauty. Is that just as unhealthy for them? Will they grow up thinking that they'll control everyone around them through their brute strength? Of course, many boys have those sort of fantasies -- but they grow out of them, assuming they're healthy, just as most girls grow up of their fantasies.

You have a completely unrealistic view of children.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[The New Stan Price]

But the non-religious parts of the entertainment industry doesn't have such a horrible track record of molesting children, starting crucades, inquisitions and wars, burning witches, etc.

Apparently you've never heard of Stalin, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, the pre-Christian Roman Empire, or the Aztecs (who liked to pull the hearts out of their living victims). There is no such thing as the 'non-religious' part of the entertainment industry. Everyone has a religion, whether it be God, money, the state, humanism, or whatever. You accuse others of being anti-semetic, but you yourself seem anti-Christian. Since it is in vogue to be anti-Christian right now, I suppose that makes it okay. It was in vogue to be anti-semetic back in the 30s too.

The problem with the Christian Entertainment Industry, Fox News and the Republican Party is that they have to resort to their old dirty tricks like bashing jews, gays and women, to movitave their flocks to give them money.

Bashing Jews? Most conservative Christians in America are fairly Zionist. Would they prefer that the Jews accepted Christ? Sure, but they definitely don't wish ill will upon God's chosen people. Most of the Christians that I know do not bash gays, and they hold women to the highest esteem. The left in America feel that if you are not open to every alternative lifestyle, drug, or whatever, then somehow you are closed minded, intolerant, and not enlightened. They have learned this via our leftist educational system, which teaches that white people, particularly Christians and especially Americans, are the cause of most of the evil in the world. After all, we held slaves, mistreated the native Americans, hanged witches, did not allow women to vote, etc., right? All of the other cultures were just perfect, tolerant, non-slave owning democracies, right?

If anything, the non-religious left has caused more death and havoc during the 20th century than any one group. Fascism and Communism are left wing ideologies as far as American politics go. Hitler was a national socialist. He commissioned the "people's wagon" (you know, the car that most leftists love to drive). He was not a Ronald Reagan, free market, Christian Republican. Although he used and perverted Christianity to get what he wanted, he was not a religious person. He believed, like most leftists, that religion was the opiate of the masses.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

Why does your daughter have to imagine that she's a princess, to think she's beautiful? Why can't ordinary girls, scientists, toll collectors, prime ministers, prostitutes and programmers be beautiful too?

Where did your daughter get the idea that the color pink and the profession princess represent beauty? Are you claiming that it's genetically pre-determined, or will you admit that she's the fashion victim of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign?

My impression of what a princess is comes from meeting one and experiencing her pathetic personality first-hand. She was having a break-down because her parents weren't going to give her any more money unless she married a rich guy who could support her, that they approved of. See the summary of the "Love is in the Heir" reality TV program -- that's the plot. Thankfully it's not on the air any more because it was such a trainwreck, so you probably won't see it broadcast on E! network again. I met her before the program was taped, and she is as pathetic in real life as she is on the show. (Even worse: she had major personal problems that didn't make it onto the air, but I won't go into the details here.) Her family tortured and killed many people in Iran, and looted billions of dollars from the country before they were kicked out by the revolution. Every cent of her fortune is blood money, which she spends on make-up and boob jobs to make her seem beautiful. Read the history books. I'm not making this up. A princess is just a parasite. The world doesn't need you to raise any more of them.

What about boys who fantasize about being a Pimp because they're handsome, powerful, popular, well dressed, have big luxury cars, wads of cash, huge gold rings, dandy hats, fancy furs, exciting adventures, and harams of hot chicks hanging around to bitch slap and screw whenever they feel like it? Would you argue that your boy actually fantasizes about being a "Good Pimp" who doesn't abuse women, and is all about good things like grooming, handsomness, popularity, self-sufficiency and entrepreneurialism?

It sounds like you, like many parents, have a strong case of "my shit doesn't stink" and "my kid is the best in the world". I'm just warning you that you're going to regret the "my little princess" thing in the long run! You're letting Corporate America train your daughter to be a good consumer and a little brat.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

You're metaphore between "pandering to your daughter's pink princess obsession", and "pandering to a video game addiction" is totally off the wall. I never suggested that video game addiction was a substitute for pink princess crap. I'm certainly not against fantasy, as you should have no doubt of because I'm a game designer. What I'm against is Corporate America's brainwashing kids with propoganda like Disney's line of Princess Products and Matel's line of Barbie Products. And parents who are too lazy and uncaring to monitor what their kids are seeing, and keep their kids away from crap like that, and who buy them anything the commercials tell them to demand.

I suggest that your daughter would be better off if she spent her pink-princess time playing creative games, video or not, that stimulate her mind and inspire her to learn useful skills. Like legos, for example. They have a whole medieval fantasy line that she might enjoy, and later on she might even get into the lego robotics stuff. You should choose games that YOU can play with her, instead of parking her in front of the TV tuned to the Disney Channel, as a baby sitter.

The Sims has inspired a lot of kids to learn Photoshop, web design, and even programming. Those are useful skills that will help them in later life. Being a princess and dressing exclusively in pink isn't.

If you're shocked and surprised about my metaphore between pink princess crap, and drugs and prostitutes, then it had its intended effect, and you should think about it some more until you understand the implications. A less extreme metaphore might involve candy cigarettes. Do you buy candy cigarettes for your daughter, and tell her "you've come a long way, baby"?

What do you think of Jon Bonet Ramsey's short career as a beautiful glamourous fashion model? Her parents certainly raised her to be the little pink princess of your daughter's dreams, and I'm sure she imagined that she was quite beautiful, before she was murdered. Why is it so hard for you to see how fucking creepy that is?

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

Your reply is ridiculous and totally off-base. But it's no surprise, looking at the scores of your previous slashdot postings: mostly score: 0 and several score: -1 (flamebait) ratings. Your recent slashdot comments have NONE rated greater than 0, and a bunch are rated -1.

There's a reason George W Bush's 31% approval ratings are almost as low as your slashdot reputation. I suspect you're part of that 31%, and nothing he does nor anybody anyone says will convince you to stop supporting him and his horrible policies that are ruining this great nation and pointlessly sending kids to their death. So I'm not even going to bother addressing the points you attempted to make.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

You also have a very unrealistic view of children, but what's far worse is that you actually have children.

Disney's advertisements aren't only aimed at the kids, but also at the parents: YOU! It sounds like you've fallen for them hook, line and sinker, when you repeat Disney's talking points like Mary Matilin on Fox News explaining why it was OK for Dick Cheney to shoot an old man in the face with a shotgun.

Here is a press release that should explain why you're such a sucker to buy into that corporate princess crap:

NEWS: The Disney Princess Brand Continues to Reign Supreme With Girls

The Disney Princess Brand Continues to Reign Supreme With Girls Disney's Beloved Heroines on Track to Achieve $2b in Retail Sales in 2004

In 2000, Disney Consumer Products brought all of Disney's beloved heroines -- Ariel, Belle, Cinderella, Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White -- together in a comprehensive collection of fantasy-based girls' entertainment and products called the Disney Princess brand.

"In just three years, the Disney Princess brand has gone from $300 million in global retail sales to $1.3 billion in 2003, making it Disney Consumer Products' fastest growing brand from a revenue perspective," said Andy Mooney, chairman of Disney Consumer Products. "With the support of The Walt Disney Company, the Disney Princess brand will continue to cast its spell on consumers, and we expect it will reach an estimated $2 billion in retail sales in 2004."

Disney's research shows that girls don't want to be just any Princess, they want to be a Disney Princess. A Princess whose personality, dreams, favorites and friends she knows from the stories she loves. And moms embrace the brand because in a time when little girls are maturing at a much faster pace, Disney Princess merchandise lets little girls be little girls longer. The stories behind the Disney Princesses empower girls with virtues of integrity, honor, discovery, friendship and love.

"Starting with Snow White in 1937, the rich storytelling of each of Disney's fairytales has captured the hearts and minds of young girls," said Mooney. "The Disney Princess brand is a natural extension of these timeless stories and characters and enables a girl to become a part of the world of her favorite princess."

Created for girls ages 2 to 8 years of age, Disney will wave its own magic wand over the brand releasing new Disney Princess personal care products, Disney Princess Electronics, theatrical releases, home videos, apparel programs, theme park entertainment, toys, games and a variety of other great products that inspire the imagination.

Following is company-wide information showing the success and the new initiatives behind Disney Princess: [...]

January 2004
Disney Princess pink -- "The fairest of them all" -- remains the No. 1 juvenile paint color in the "Disney Color by Behr" paint program at The Home Depot (has been No. 1 for past 10 months) [...]

April 2004
Disney Princess sportswear, sleepwear and underwear, social stationery & accessories debuts at Federated Department stores. First time Disney Princesses will appear on tween apparel line. [...]

September 2004
Buena Vista Home Entertainment launches the Disney Princess Collection on DVD/Video featuring: Disney Princess Sing Along Songs: Once Upon A Dream, Disney Princess Stories and Disney's Princess Party. More titles to come during three releases in 2005.

Ongoing Support
The Disney Princess brand features 25,000 merchandise skus and 300 licensees globally
"Princess Palace" on http://www.disney.com/ $2.6 billion in worldwide box office revenue for Disney Princess animate

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Reality Master 101]

Why is it so hard for you to see how fucking creepy that is?

And why do you jump from a girl liking pink and princesses to assuming that it's some sort of unhealthy obsession? Does the word "moderation" mean anything to you? Is it so foreign to your philosophy that a girl might have a healthy interest in fantasy as simply a part of your life?

A less extreme metaphore might involve candy cigarettes. Do you buy candy cigarettes for your daughter, and tell her "you've come a long way, baby"?

This is a good example of why you're so wrong. I don't buy her candy cigarettes because there's nothing healthy about smoking. I encourage her imagination, because there's NOTHING unhealthy about fantasy and imagination. That you think the whole idea of princesses is harmful is something wrong with you, not with her. Got news for you -- fantasy of the type is hundreds, if not thousands of years old. Do you think Disney invented the idea of fantasy adventure? Give me a break.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Reality Master 101]

Why does your daughter have to imagine that she's a princess, to think she's beautiful? Why can't ordinary girls, scientists, toll collectors, prime ministers, prostitutes and programmers be beautiful too?

Who said that? That's coming completely out of YOU.

Where did your daughter get the idea that the color pink and the profession princess represent beauty?

SHE LIKES THE FREAKING COLOR. It's a nice, gentle, pretty color. Am I supposed to tell her, "no, you're not allowed to like that color. It's an EVIL COLOR being pushed on you by the EVIL CORPORATE AMERICA." Dude, it's just a color. What is it about you and pink? Did your mom dress you in pink because she wanted a girl? I had no idea that some electromagnetic frequences were evil and some aren't.

My impression of what a princess is comes from meeting one and experiencing her pathetic personality first-hand.

God, who CARES what some real princess is like?? What part of "fantasy" don't you understand? And even if it did matter what real princesses are like, are we supposed to conclude from one sample that all princesses are screwed up? Believe it or not, they're people too, with different personalities.

It sounds like you, like many parents, have a strong case of "my shit doesn't stink" and "my kid is the best in the world".

No, I have strong case of common sense.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Reality Master 101]

Here is a press release that should explain why you're such a sucker to buy into that corporate princess crap:

So I suppose your point is that anything that's popular must automatically be bad? "I'm sorry, sweetie, but I've checked the sales figures. Too many other people like that toy, so I'm afraid we have to conclude that it's bad for you." Do you realize how stupid this is?

Of course, by your logic, we can only assume that The Sims is monstrously bad, since it's one of the best selling games of all time. And, irony of ironies, you criticize Disney, yet we're also talking about EA, not exactly the most controversy-free company in the world. And, of course, The Sims doesn't milk their brand for all its worth. -rolls eyes-

The hypocrisy around here is stunning.

Let's see. Should my girl play with princess dolls and use her imagination, or should she stare blankly at a screen trying to make The Sims do something interesting that was programmed by others? I think most reasonable people would conclude that imaginative play with dolls is a little bit better for her mental development.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

You're continuing to miss the point, and substituting then extrapolating your own ridiculous straw man points instead.

You and your daughter are subjected to a multi million dollar advertising campaign by Disney and Matel. Disney and Barbie are bad not because of their sales figures, but because of their content.

You seem to think that girls are genetically pre-disposed to like pink. I'm saying it's purely advertising and conditioning, and has nothing to do with genetics. Your daughter has been conditioned to associate a certain color with a certain set of concepts, and conditioned to demand like a little princess that you spend your money on Disney sanctioned colors. Making kids act like little demanding self-centered brats is the perfect marketing scheme, and that's why Disney is making so much money off of you.

The pink part of the electromagnetic spectrum that your daughter is obsessed with is OWNED and LICENSED OUT to paint companies by Disney: Disney Princess pink -- "The fairest of them all" -- remains the No. 1 juvenile paint color in the "Disney Color by Behr" paint program at The Home Depot (has been No. 1 for past 10 months)

When you buy "Disney Color by Behr", you're paying extra money for Behr to license that particular shade of pink from Disney. How much effort did it take for them to come up with that shade, and how much money do they make off that license? How much happier is your daughter because you bought her Disney Pink instead of some generic shade? They say that's been the number 1 paint for the last 10 months, so SOMEBODY's buying it.

Your daughter is happy, not because of the particular shade her toys are painted, but because she knows she can control you by demanding you spend money on garbage advertised in the Disney channel, and she gets what she wants when she demands it like a little princess. That's why conditioning children to act like princesses (aka spoiled brats) is such a great advertising scheme, and making Disney so much money. But it doesn't make the world a better place.

If you really think the color of the crap you're buying your daughter is what's really making her happy, you're not a very insightful parent.

Do you really believe the Disney corporate line: "In conclusion, it's easy to see how the Disney Princess brand touches every aspect of girls' lives and inspires them to dream." Was your daughter really completely incapable of dreaming before you bought her all that pink princess crap? Is there something "magical" about that particular shade of pink that "inspired dreams"? Why can't YOU inspire her to dream, instead of depending on Disney's pre-packaged pap? You're another typical American consumer looking to buy a ready-made "magical" product that will "inspire you to dream", instead of figuring out how to dream for yourself.

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[The New Stan Price]

My original reply was very on topic. Your reply to that reply went off topic. You stated something about how Christians have a bad track record. I replied with examples of how you are wrong.

If you read my -1 (flamebait) comment, you will see that it was not any more flamebait than the message I replied to. It didn't get a flamebait score, mine did. This is because the left-leaning modders on slashdot are really about censorship of opposing viewpoint.

The rest of my zero scores must have been somewhat interesting, otherwise they would not have gotten replies. But again, the slashdot modders are really about censorship of opposing viewpoint.

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[SimHacker]

So are you part of the 31% of the American people who still support George W Bush? Please tell us why! Maybe you can convince the rest of the country to change our minds, and he'll have a 100% approval rating!

-Don

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[The New Stan Price]

I am a Ronald Reagan Conservative. G.W. is not. However, my guess is that his approval ratings are low because of the high gas prices. I am glad that we got rid of Saddam. I would rather spend time convincing people to be for less government and for free market competition.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post, I really agree with your point of view on gender neutrality, and when pandering to stereotypes it is just perpetuating society's problems. Very well said! Thanks for the great post.

See Alice announcement

[jbgreer]

EA recently agreed to fund the development of the next major version of Alice, a programming environment produced by a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

http://www.alice.org/simsAnnouncement.html

Included in this agreement is the use of Sims characters within Alice. Developers create worlds and place objects and characters within these settings; the actions and reactions of the characters and objects are based on methods. This new funding will allow users to choose Sims characters and use Sims animations.

Alice has been shown to be effective in allowing students to tell stories. AIR, some recent doctoral work in this area indicates that while game playing appeals primarily to male students, storytelling appeals to both female and male students and increases student retention (one of the goals of the study).

jbgreer

Re:Ignorant question -off-line SIMS to play with w

[Anonymous Coward]

The only online version of The Sims is The Sims Online. The rest are completely offline, aside from The Sims 2 which allows you to download content from within the game and from on it's website(among plenty of others. If the wife gets really addicted to it, you'll probably see money wasted at The Sims Resource.)

The elephant in the room

[Infonaut]

... boys will "do the same stupid thing over and over again and be happy," (and I wince looking at my vast collection of first-person shooters).

Everyone seems to be leaving that comment alone. Personally I've never really understood the appeal of first-person shooters, because they all do seem to be the same thing. You run around killing things with different forms of projectile weapons. However, I know I'm definitely in the minority on this one, at least in Slashdot.

If you enjoy first-person shooters, do you think of the games as actually very different from each other, or is there something enjoyable about the repetition of them? Or is it something completely different that makes them so appealing?

File this one under: "Clueless person looking for insight," rather than "FPS hater baits Slashdotters."

Re:The elephant in the room

[Chmcginn]

When I first saw your comment title, I strangely thought of that exact quote- not because of the FPS shooter, but because of how amazingly sexist it is. You don't have to scroll up very far to see posts about how games that are '"aimed at girls" that were "pink" and "girlish" ' are inherently sexist. Yet nobody's commented on this statement.

The thing that bothers me is that both of these ideas are true, if you prefaced it with "a large percentage", or possibly even "a majority". But rarely does anyone bother...

Re:The elephant in the room

[philgross]

I'm the submitter. I actually have a vast collection of all different kinds of games, and recently had about a week of my life sucked away by Oblivion, which is an interesting hybrid of Sims-like life-simulation in a fully realized world, and standard FPS-like dungeon-crawler, and before that my biggest time suckers were the 4X games Civ4 and GalCiv2.

But, to address your question, I do have an awful lot of FPSs also. I would say that as with most genres, as you get deeper into them and play more of them, the differences and subtleties become obvious, and they (at least the good ones) don't feel that similar. Playing Unreal Tournament with friends on a LAN is totally different than playing DOOM III alone in a dark room which is totally different from the adventure story that is Half-Life 2. No One Lives Forever 2 feels utterly different from F.E.A.R., despite being from the same studio; the former is bright and hilarious, the other is a visceral and scary combination of a John Woo movie and The Ring.

I had a roommate who mostly played console fighting games. He had played them all, and could play them for hours on end. Each was completely different to him, some great, some lame, while to me they all looked like a pair of cartoon characters endlessly punching and kicking each other.

I guess when you play a particular genre a lot, your brain just factors out the common stuff (shooting the groups of enemies/punching your opponent) and focuses on the distinguishing characteristics.

At the social level, though, all the FPSs are either interactive movies (first person mode) or collections of short team or individual games with good replay value (multiplayer mode). Even the 4X games like Civ4 or GalCiv2 have actors that represent entire nations/planets. I never really had an urge to play a world sim where the actors represented individual people, but maybe that's because I never tried one, or maybe just because I'm a guy.

Re:The elephant in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

If you objectively look at fist person shooters, they look dull and boring. For me the fun is in the storyline I make up myself for let's say 75%. It's all about imagination.

Re:The elephant in the room

[heresyoftruth]

If you are an elephant in the room, then that makes two of us. I played FPS games a while back, but each new incarnation just seemed like a rehash of the same thing with slight variations. It got old for me.

In my case just hunting your opponant, like in CS, is interesting on occasion to hear your husband yell, "Would you stop killing me!!!!" I, however, find much more amusing ways to get that kind of reaction.

(Honey, when you read this, I promise I love you!)

Re:The elephant in the room

[Anonymous Coward]

There are differences in various major FPS titles. I don't know about the minor FPS licenses, because I've never had enough interest to play those. If you look at anything with sufficient abstraction, it's repetitive and boring. We eat food every day, that largely consists of the same molecules arranged in different ways. We wash ourselves every day in the same sort of liquid. We go to work every day and do superficially the same things. Most movies, books, or television shows have the same formulaic structure. Real novelty is the exception, rather than the norm, but the endless differences in the ways that these repetitions are recombined creates a sufficiently unique experience that we're captivated until we're addicted. Playing some rounds of CounterStrike is different than a few rounds of True Combat, a few rounds of Enemy Territory, a few rounds of Battlefield 2, a few rounds of Instagib, a few rounds of Assault in UT2k4, etc. For the most part you're shooting things and navigating a map, but the experiences themselves are different because of the unique factors that exist in each game.

Re:The elephant in the room

[gronofer]

Doing the same stupid thing over and over again applies equally to MMORPGs, and presumably to The Sims (of which I happen to know nothing.)

For that matter, social interaction typically seems to involve doing the same stupid thing over and over again.

I don't think there's any gender difference in tolerance for stupid things.

Re:The elephant in the room

[NuclearDog]

If you enjoy first-person shooters, do you think of the games as actually very different from each other

I think if you ask any person who plays FPSs they will find the differences quite obvious, eg:

FEAR: Provides the 'slow-mo' thing. More futuristic weapons. Rewards a bit of stealth and strategy by becoming a lot easier. Not the greatest storyline ever but good for a bit of a scare ;)

Splinter Cell: Heavy emphasis on stealth and finding alternate solutions rather than killing people. Small selection of weapons, none of them very powerful.

HL/HL2: Great story, lots of puzzles.

SWAT 4: Completely different rules of engagement than the other FPSs. Provides a wide selection of weapons with emphasis on realism. Requires lots of quick thinking (should I shoot? am I authorized to shoot here?) and strategy (if you try and go rambo you _will_ either die or lose by some other means).

or is there something enjoyable about the repetition of them?

Idunno, personally I don't really play any FPS that are like the others. This probably makes me a pretty terrible person to be answering this question, but maybe your assumption that all people who play FPSs play a bunch of redundant ones is wrong?

ND

Re:The elephant in the room

[Infonaut]

Idunno, personally I don't really play any FPS that are like the others. This probably makes me a pretty terrible person to be answering this question, but maybe your assumption that all people who play FPSs play a bunch of redundant ones is wrong?

Actually, you did explain it quite well. I think it's one of those cases for me of not really enjoying FPSes, and therefore being unable to grok the nuances. It's like talking to someone who doesn't like science fiction. You explain to them that Battlefield Earth is total crap, but Battlestar Galactica fuggin' rocks, and all they hear is, "Blah, blah, blah, Battle... blah blah blah, Battle."

I think part of the reason there aren't more games that appeal to primarily female audiences (as opposed to crossover games like WoW or EverQuest) is that there simply aren't many female programmers. It's like asking me to work on a FPS title. Even if I had the skills necessary to work on the game, I'd suck, because I wouldn't be passionate about it.

If I were running a big computer gaming company, I would be putting maximum effort into attracting as many skilled female developers as possible, so my company could tap into the other 50% of the potential audience, which is in many ways being underserved. Yes, I know there are a helluva lot of female gamers now, particularly compared to a decade ago. Still, as The Sims has shown, there's vast untapped potential for games that appeal directly to girls and women.

Re:The elephant in the room

[TheLink]

Because there is some truth in it.

Except that most guys want to do the "same stupid thing" BETTER each time and not worse or just the same as before.

And maybe that's partly why there are more guys at the top of most fields than girls.

F1 racing, tennis, golf, dictatorships, brokers, lawyers etc.

I suppose the more "female" behaviour of wanting more friends is probably saner/less foolish. I mean so what if you can drive 70 times round a track faster than anyone else in the world.

BUT somehow this sort of stuff does seem to get them girls... so I dunno...

BTW: the diff between guys and girls: if a guy ever had the compulsion to wash his hands 100 times a day he'd probably go figure out what's he thinks is the best soap to use, the best method for full coverage in the shortest time, and maybe even form a group for likeminded guys to compare notes, have lengthy debates and flamewars etc. Whereas a girl who did that would probably either try to hide it from everyone else, or seek treatment. ;)

Re:The elephant in the room

[NuclearDog]

I think the reason there aren't more games for females is because they're probably harder to make.

Most males will be happy with anything with some rigid rules and defined goals, like D&D-based games, FPSs, etc. A lot of them will also like more 'manly' things like fighting and racing.

Most females want somewhere they can go outside the bounds and express their creativity, etc.

(For example, I know of at least a couple females who can entertain themselves for hours with MS Paint, but can't stay interested in some sort of RPG long enough to even figure out what's going on. I imagine they like The Sims because it's very open-ended allowing them to experiment and create scenerios, etc.)

Or at least this is how I see it. I think it just boils down to males being more left-brained where-as females are more right-brained. Making a game like The Sims or something is going to be a lot more work than mashing out another FPS or RPG.

ND, etc.

You can practically hear them.

[foQ]

And the stampede begins as pedophiles leave myspace.com for The Sims.

Re:You can practically hear them.

[ichigo 2.0]

Wouldn't that be a good thing? (Going from a social website to a single-player game.)

Vast Collection of First-Person Shooters

[blair1q]

Lolzers, Taco.

Vast Collection?

I got to Medal of Honor, discovered online play, and haven't bought a FPS since.

See you in Brest, meat.

Re:Vast Collection of First-Person Shooters

[Anonymous Coward]

See you in Brest, meat.

Mmmmm.... breast meat.... <drool>

Neopets is better

[mark99]

My kids play a lot of Sims, but they play even more Neopets. It has a more complex economy, I think it is better on the whole.

The girls play dolls too, but not as much as Neopets/Sims.

I am sure it is good for them. Most everybody I know who has a good job spends a large portion of it wrestling with uncooperative software suites. Sims and Neopets do a good job of preparing you for that. And dealing with money (somewhat). And unstructured problem solving. And much more.

Just my 0.02 Euros.

Re:Neopets is better

[Durumbrain]

My kids play a lot of Sims, but they play even more Neopets. It has a more complex economy, I think it is better on the whole.

Not that I find The Sims any good, but how can knowledge about economy be more important than relationships, emotions and other social phenomena?

Torturing Sims....and Little Computer People

[abbamouse]

Hmmmm.... I learned some of those lessons from Little Computer People on my Commodore 64. If you don't feed the LCP he gets sad and turns green. If you leave the machine on overnight to watch him starve, your mother will decide that you probably shouldn't have a pet just yet, even though it turns out that you can't kill an LCP. Seriously, my mother was so moved by the suffering of my LCP that she made me give him food and water while she watched :)

They're hollow!!!

[SimHacker]

And another little known and totally supressed fact: Sims are hollow!!! That saves a lot of chocolate, which makes the product much cheaper to produce, and downloading Sims from the internet is much faster because you don't have to wait for all the guts and fillings.

But hollow Sims are not as evil as Chocolate Easter Bunnies and Chocolate Santa Clauses, which are really just a big Christian conspiracy to trick and mislead kids, and crush their hopes and dreams, by leading them on to think they're getting solid chocolate, but then disappointing them by giving them a thin waxy shell full of empty nothingness, instead of the promised chocolate core. That's actually a great lesson about the harsh cruelty of life, which teaches kids to expect more lies and disappointments later in life, but to associate broken promises and hollow chocolate and obviously fictitious fairy tales with Jesus's birth and crucifiction just strikes me as sick and demented. Why are Christians so surprized when their children lose their faith, after parents lie to kids about important things like chocolate?

-Don

Re:They're hollow!!!

[alphamugwump]

What... Are... You... Smoking...?

If this was intended to be a joke, it fell sort of flat.

Re:They're hollow!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

by leading them on to think they're getting solid chocolate

Dude, no kid believes that they are full. They would be hard to eat if they were full anyways.

Re:They're hollow!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Speak for yourself, I though it was hilarious!

Re:They're hollow!!!

[SimHacker]

I'm on vacation in Amsterdam, so you can probably guess what I'm smoking! And all the chocolate I've encountered here is solid and filled with all kinds of good stuff -- I've not been disappointed.

-Don

What I learned from The Sims

[jdbartlett]

I learned that if I type "ctrl+shift+c" and "motherlode", I get loads of money for free. Only it didn't seem to work when I tried it at First National Bank.

Also, pizza costs $40

Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Anonymous Coward]

"Thank God they didn't go with "Tactical Domestic Simulator." No one would have played it."

Calling it marriage wouldn't have worked either.

You are one of few.

[fireboy1919]

There are many, many parents with many, many children who have almost no imagination. This lets those crippled minds have their play, even if it limits those whose imagination is a vast expanse. You can have a highly successful, happy, functional life entirely without the aid of an imagination. I think it might actually be beneficial; I think a lot of people that I know think I'm wierd because I bring up strange ideas "out of nowhere." If I didn't think quite so creatively, I'd probably fit in better.

The same comments can be applied to video games versus pen-and-paper RPGs, or even for books versus radio shows, or radio shows versus TV.

Which do you think people want more? Are there more dreamers looking for an outlet, or more who hunger for the dreams of others?

Actually, Yes

[SimHacker]

It sounds like you haven't actually played The Sims, looked at any of the web sites of stories written by Sims players about their characters, or downloaded any user created characters or objects. It was designed from the start to enable you to model your house, family and environment, and use it tell stories about anything you want. You should check out online community of people who make original content for The Sims. Fans have made several orders of magnitide more content than Maxis originally produced.

The Sims Exchange: hundreds of thousands of stories created with The Sims, downloadable houses, families, etc.

SimFreaks: one of the premier sites for high quality player created content.

-Don

Re:Actually, Yes

[quantax]

I've played the sims (both the first and second) and understand the game. I have never looked at any of the fan stuff, however after going to both your links, I think my point still stands since the ages of the people contributing to those sites, they're all teens or older. If you can find me examples of young kids making contributions to those sites, whether stories or whatever have you, then yes, I will agree with you. Otherwise, I do not really see any evidence that The Sims can or does replace dolls with young kids (the discussion at hand).

I agree the sims is a great platform for what you said but I am not seeing anything that makes it leap to being a suitable replacement for dolls. Young kids may play it, but not as a stand-in for their GI Joes, Barbie or whatever have you. You can't bring your sim outside and play with it in the dirt or put it in a lego contraption you built.

I can tell from your nick that you obviously enjoy the Sims, do not take my comments to be a criticism of the sims, but simply that the sims (and no game, period) is going to replace dolls anytime soon; the video game reality is simply too static. But, when they do, the games we'll have as a result will be things we could only imagine right now.

Re:Actually, Yes

[SimHacker]

To address your question about examples of younger kids making Sims objects:

I wrote a tool called The Sims Transmogrifier, that enables players to create their own Sims objects. It required the use of a program like Photoshop, and while that's too hard for younger kids to master, it's given older kids the incentive to learn Photoshop and other image editing tools, which is a good thing to know.

To open up Sims object creation to a wider audience, I made another simple tool called "RugOMatic", which provides an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface tfor creating rugs with descriptive text. The text, which you can read in the game, makes them more like picture postcards, suitable for storytelling and describing the pictures. Many of the RugOMatic users are kids, and more than half of them are female!

For Halloween a while ago, I made another online tool that was even easier to use and more accessible to kids: "Halloween Tombstones for The Sims". You can simply upload an optional picture, and type in the name of the deceased and their eulogy, and it instantly makes you a personalized Sims Tombstone that you can download and play with in the game. Lots of people have made their own tombstones: currently there are more than 2200 public tombstones in the cemetary, some by kids, some serious, some funny, some disturbing, some about pets, some about family members, some about celebrities, some about fictional characters, some about politicians (Bush tops the list!), some mean, some heartwarming, and most of them emotionally compelling.

I used the idea of tombstones precisely because they had a lot of emotional baggage, and people can take it in any direction they want.

-Don

Physical limits hinder creativity -

[Ruff_ilb]

On the contrary, I believe that the digitial medium of video games allows for MORE creativity. I don't know a single child who plays the sims/TS2 by the rules - they're always building creative mansions with indoor graveyards or giant party rooms, and giving their sims crazy tasks to do or missions to complete.

These realizations of creativity and imagination are simply impossible in real life. You might be able to build a house out of legos or blocks, but can you paint it? Wallpaper it? Chose Carpet/tile designs or build pools? Not at all. Similarly, dolls can't be programed or ordered to complete tasks like sims can.

Simply put, the limits placed upon the gamer by the game are much less restrictive than the inherent limits of reality.

Re:Physical limits hinder creativity -

[colmore]

Yes, but can you then take your sims mansion out to your sandbox and build sandcstles around it? Can you pull in characters from your older brother's Ninja Turtles game into the Sims? Physical toys exist in the real world and can interact with any physical object. A child's imagination is going to be able to provide more variable parameters for interaction than even Will Wrights'.

EA finally...

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Sims 2 even includes things like buying groceries. If you don't go buy groceries you don't eat.

So more than a decade after buying/destroying Origin they've recreated characters buying food and getting hungry.

Moderated: Troll

Re:EA finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Avatar! My stomach doth gnaw at my backbone, can we stop for food soon?

Iolo, if you dont stop whining I swear by the Eight Virtues that I will gut you and feed your still-living innards to giant rats.


The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Uh, sure.

[bansai665]

Interesting perspective considering that the game has more romantic interactions than anything else. It has very little educational value, if any.

Hypothetical "What I learned from the sims" (from a child's perspective):

* Garden gnomes will always be stolen.
* Chinese food takes hours to eat.
* If I go across the street or next door, I need to take a car.
* All female Housemaids wear sexy clothing.
* I can dedicate my life to having as many lovers as possible.
* Mom and Dad do woohoo.
* Nannies are unreliable and rarely show up on time.
* I don't have to wash my hands after I use the bathroom.

(and the list goes on)

Seriously, the game plays by Sim rules not "real life" rules. What is there to actually learn?

Re:Uh, sure.

[scaryjohn]

Okay... I give up. Which one of those isn't true?

Re:Uh, sure.

[jthill]

• Complaining is a criminal waste of time
• Sex is fun
• Pay attention to what everybody wants
• Why play mindless games like the Sims when you could be improving yourself and having fun at the same time?
• Arranging walls and furniture isn't as easy as it might look
• Construction work is dirt cheap
• Why annoy people?
• Don't make life hard on Mom, she's busy.

It's a little sad-Parents.

[Anonymous Coward]

"From what I've seen in life, kids who have over-protective pearents telling them exactly how they should live their life, grow up to be very dull people."

But we still love you son, no matter what.

It's a good way for adults to learn too

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife loves the Sims. I can get sucked into it in about half an hour (I never save the game, which keeps me from developing a long-term addiction to it). One night I was controlling a household with a husband and wife. The husband had just gotten home from work and was very tired, but not at the point where he was in danger of falling asleep where he was standing. The wife had had a reasonably hard day and a very low social meter (or whatever the social-interactions measurement is), so I told the husband to go give her a kiss and a compliment and then go to bed. The husband threw a little tantrum because he wanted to go to bed now. I remember staring at him and thinking, "Just give her the kiss and compliment--you will get to bed only a few seconds later, your wife will be immensely happier, and you will probably be at least slightly happier too!" And then I mentally stepped back from the game and had one of those "woah" moments... it was very surreal.

As a side note, the article says, "When adults or older adolescents play The Sims, it is often with the slightly perverse goal of seeing just how dysfunctional or outlandish a household they can create." I think this is still very similar to what kids are doing. Kids create realistic situations because they want to explore what happens in those situations. Adults already know what happens in realistic situations, but they want to know what happens in situations that they can't try in the real world. For example, my wife is maintaining a household that has a pair of lesbians with a child, and the adults don't have Sim jobs. They have a large garden in the backyard, and they sell the produce (along with some paintings and other crafts) to pay the bills. She has another household (in the Sims 2) that has a boyfriend and a girlfriend, but she is actively trying to get the guy to get as much action as possible without losing his steady girlfriend.

Note: Before anyone goes for the obvious jokes, my wife has no interest in leaving me for a lesbian (there are certain things that only a man can provide, and she enjoys those things very much), and I have never cheated on her.

Re:It's a good way for adults to learn too

[jthill]

Yup. That just-shut-up-and-get-on-with-it response is a beautiful bit of work. There's enough evidence of intelligent design in that game I believe they intended to provoke it. The time pressures on the Broke household, the obvious (to grownups) solution to the Lilith problem... plus it's amazing how many wry jokes they manage to tuck into that sim. They had a LOT of fun making that game, and it shows.

But the toasting kit is just plain malicious.

Re:It's a good way for adults to learn too

[Anonymous Coward]

there are certain things that only a man can provide

Like what?

Re:It's a good way for adults to learn too

[geminidomino]

1. Spider killing
2. Pickle-jar opening
3. Kitchen painting
4. Outdoor grilling
5. Preliminary plumbing/automotive repair (preliminary because the pro usually comes in anyway)

That about sums it up for my girlfriend, anyway.

cmdrtaco = sick fuck

[larry bagina]

And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

s/Sims/pre pubescent boys/
s/upstairs torture chamber/geek compound basement/

If only...

[nick_davison]

And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

Ah, if only most employers would play the Sims before designing cube farms and bull-pens.

wincing mode: on

[critical_v]

I wince when I read anyone (especially a professor, researcher, or "expert") saying "girls do this" or "boys do that," not because what they're saying isn't correct, but because the question is never asked "Why is this?" It is just assumed that this is part of their "essence" or "nature" and that's really all they think need to be said about it.

is that available

[bobamu]

as a mod?

valuable life lessons

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's some I learned while playing the Sims.

• If you place furniture too close to your child's bed, they'll be trapped and they will end up wetting the bed.
• If you love your housemates enough, your household will become more efficient, as more people can use the bathroom at once.

What?

[Poromenos1]

What are you talking about, it's just code? I was playing Fable and I couldn't burp in front of people because I was too embarrassed, I had to walk around with a halo from all the goodness. I can never become evil in any game that gives me the choice, even when I try I pity the person/thing/whatever I just wronged and reload the game :(

boys will do...

[Landshark17]

boys will "do the same stupid thing over and over again and be happy,"

It's true. The first thing any new Sim does under my control is get a girlfriend, and I never tire of it.

Really... You know the REAL lesson she learnt...

[gd23ka]

don't let your parents know what you love because that's what they'll take away from you.

Sims = dollhouse

[mh101]

I remember one time years ago when I was playing The Sims and my mom walked in. She watched for a while, and commented that it looked like a computerized dollhouse game.

But despite that I'm still hooked all these many years later. :)

Imitation is the sincerest form of what, again?

[Anonymous Coward]

David Spade called... he'd like his tag line back in the same condition it was in before you borrowed it.

I've been wondering about that too

[Moraelin]

Sometimes I wonder how much of human behaviour isn't as much "growing up" as groupthink. Trying to act as they think the group expects a grown up to act. My guess is that most of it is just that: groupthink.

And dolls are just a particular case of it all. Other examples include:

- girls moving from childhood dreams of becoming a scientist or a teacher to... pretending to be a completely retarded airhead, because that's what's popular in nowadays' broken culture. (Showing any interest for science would make one, like, a nerd. And that's sooo unfashionable.)

And here's what makes me wonder about that: in the Soviet block, for whatever other faults they had, they promoted a culture where being smart and educated, being a part of the "inteligentsia", was _good_. And what do you know? Girls could show interest in maths, physics, chemistry, etc, too, and that system produced almost equal quantities of male and female scientists or programmers. Some pretty damn good ones too. (Again, I'm not saying it was a good system or necessarily a good culture. Just that it was proof that, when trying to fit in a different kind of group, girls _can_ use a computer or do maths.)

- guys learning that they have to act all macho and aggressive and be obsessive about Real Man stuff, like football or cars.

And here's the thing that makes me think it's not as much "testosterone" as learning to behave like what the group expects a testosterone-soaked macho man to behave: the bushmen. Funny little culture, that, in that they don't seem to have discovered fighting each other, dominating each other and generally being more macho than thou. Or maybe it's just that life in that area is hard enough even without that kind of thing. At any rate, their culture is about _cooperating_ with the Joneses, rather than trying to humble them. So all their conflicts are sold peacefully, or if two just can't stand each other, one will move to another tribe.

Or here's another funny example: there was a documentary at some point (take it with a grain of salt, as with any media documentary, but still...) featuring a town in Italy where the culture was such, that a macho and potent man was pretty much expected to have a mistress. So they interviewed among others one guy who was obviously smart enough to realize it, and admitted that he's happily married and loves his wife, but... he just had to get a mistress or the other men would think he's impotent or something.

- for that matter, guys learning that they must be obsessive about thin women with huge breasts. (A biological improbability. Within the normal parameter of a human, someone with extremely few body fat will also have less fat in that area, i.e., small breasts.)

It may seem like there must be some biological reason, since it's _the_ norm in our culture. But the funny thing is that other cultures had _massively_ different ideals of beauty. E.g., the Greeks and Romans liked _small_ breasts. Look at the greek statues, they're A cup or so. The Romans went one step further. They are sometimes credited with inventing the bra, but what they really invented was a strip of cloth tied over the breasts to _hide_ them. They really liked their women as flat as an ironing board.

Other cultures, in fact _most_ cultures, liked their women fat. In some parts of the world the introduction of the western thin woman ideal is actually very recent, as in, the last decades of the 20'th century. There have been articles about women and young girls in those parts ending up with severe nutrition problems as they attempted to switch from one image to another fast.

Etc, etc, etc.

Basically that's that funny thing: pretty much any behaviour you take for granted looking around in your culture -- and even has its apologists proclaiming it biological or god-given -- other cultures can have something else, or the exact opposite. "Growing up" to do them is just enculturation (learning to act and think as your culture expects you to), rather than anything having to do with brain or body evolutiont.

Re:I've been wondering about that too

[shaitand]

A few notes about your post. You sound as if you are likely female. Personally I fail to see what difference it makes if there are equal numbers of males and females in any given field. Males and females are different creatures with different inclinations, different hormones, and different subcultures. It hardly matters if there are millions of female programmers or 5 and the same is true of gamers or any other hobby/career.

"guys learning that they have to act all macho and aggressive and be obsessive about Real Man stuff, like football or cars."

It isn't a good idea to mix those things. Football and cars are entirely about culture. Aggressive behavior is hormone and instinct at work. The interaction between males to establish dominance is part of our instinct. Humans are animals after all, and all the rationalization we cloak our actions in does not change that the real motives are just as base as those of any other animal. That includes chasing skirts and polygomy so if you find a male who is PC and dedicated he either has a hormone imbalance or has you fooled. ;)

"So they interviewed among others one guy who was obviously smart enough to realize it, and admitted that he's happily married and loves his wife, but... he just had to get a mistress or the other men would think he's impotent or something."

What does loving your wife have to do with having a mistress? That almost implies some sort of relationship between love and sex. I love my wife with all my heart. The reason I don't sleep around isn't because I love my wife and wouldn't want to, I would love to have lots of anonymous sex. The reason I don't sleep around is because it would hurt my wife if she found out.

"- for that matter, guys learning that they must be obsessive about thin women with huge breasts. (A biological improbability. Within the normal parameter of a human, someone with extremely few body fat will also have less fat in that area, i.e., small breasts.)"

This is a myth. WOMEN idolize stick figure girls with little boy figures and breast implants. That is why you find those figures modeling clothes in WOMENS magazines. If you look at a mens magazine you will see women who are fit with curves and yes large breasts too. Unfortunately when you show a woman this distinction all they see are women with large breasts and they ignore the other aspects that make those females attractive. No, overweight is not attractive. That has nothing to do with culture, it has to do with instinct as well. Women who are neither overweight nor underweight and have large mammories are the best selection for child bearing. Please don't point out olden times in Europe where men chased after large women, the society that did so also chased after little boys.

"E.g., the Greeks and Romans liked _small_ breasts. Look at the greek statues, they're A cup or so. The Romans went one step further. They are sometimes credited with inventing the bra, but what they really invented was a strip of cloth tied over the breasts to _hide_ them. They really liked their women as flat as an ironing board."

Again, those are both cultures in which rampant homosexuality and child molestation were practiced. This means they were cultures where hormone imbalance was the norm and spread and can't be compared with healthy behavior in balanced hetrosexual males. I'm not homophobic by any means and would leave each man to his own, but most homosexuals have a hormone imbalance that is the root of the behavior. The same is true of some lesbians.

If you look at images of ideal beauty throughout history they haven't changed a great deal. If you bring a group of men from various cultures and show them the same group of women most of the men will pick the same females as choice. The choice will be healthy females with curvey but firm bodies.

Most of the other arguments are those played again and again to make girls feel okay about the fact that they all can't be the ideal of beauty. Being overweight is not okay for either male or female and has killed more people than starvation. There is nothing wrong with being a less than perfect example of physical beauty and there is no reason to try to change the definition.

Re:I've been wondering about that too

[Moraelin]

"A few notes about your post. You sound as if you are likely female."

I am, in fact, male. I do however try to compare various human cultures, instead of rationalizing "why my culture is right (biologically predetermined, god-given, bla, bla, bla), and yours is wrong". It's just anthropology, one of the social sciences, and the purpose is to find out what humans do, not to make little girls feel better.

And if you look at what hundreds of cultures do, world-wide, instead of idealizing your own, you start to find pretty much no common denominator. The ways humans behave, organize themselves, what they idealize, what they pose as, etc, vary _massively_ across time and space, and in some cases you can find complete opposites taken for granted by different people at different times.

The problem with most such rationalizing one's own culture is that they're a bit of a tunnel view. Everyone looks just at people from the same country, maybe even just the same town, and sees them all doing the same thing. And draws the false conclusion that that's what _all_ humans do, and obviously that's the biological/god-given/whatever way.

It's like a Japanese guy looking around him and deciding that all humans world-wide are 5.5 ft tall and have slanted eyes and black hair. That's how god or the evolution intended humans to be. There are obviously no blacks, no red-heads, no 6 ft tall swedish blonde girls, because he personally hasn't seen any in his home town. Or if he eventually sees one, he'll decree that it must be some disease ("hormonal imbalance" maybe?) that caused that poor man to be black or have red hair. Surely there can be no country or continent where that's "normal".

To get back to the point, yes, the greek culture was very different from hours, in more than one way, but that's actually the whole point: humans can be educated to view radically different things as normal. They were educated to view the females with _small_ breasts as beautiful, and, no, if you gave them the same choices, they wouldn't have chosen the same one you'd choose.

Yes, they had a bit different views on homosexuality too. That's just the point: people raised in a different culture can view different things as "normal", "repulsive", or whatever. They didn't need to find "they must have some hormone imbalance" euphemisms for "well, I find that abnormal". They just weren't educated to find that abnormal.

In fact, I'll up the ante there. Forget the greeks. IIRC, there was (is?) at least one tribe, I think in Oceania, where homosexuality and paedophilia were considered the _right_ way. The local myths was that a young man can't produce his own sperm until he's basically acquired it orally from a grown up man. Tribal customs also pretty much dictated, presumably to keep population low, that most sex happened between men.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending those cultures or anything. I'm just saying they exist. Nothing more. The whole point is just that it's learned behaviour. Educate a bunch of people that homosexuality is the right way, and you get 100% of a tribe's males having mostly homosexual sex.

The fact is, humans are a very programmable animal. Yes, we all have biological signals, like getting hungry or horny, but we're all very able to control them. (You don't see people humping in the streets whenever they get horny, nor shitting on the sidewalk like dogs when they felt a need to shit.) That's biology, but it doesn't really control humans that much.

What comes on top of that is a set of learned behaviours. There are thousands of little rituals in everyone's day that have nothing to do with biology. There was nothing of evolution importance that said, for example, to bring your girlfriend flowers or to wear a suit and tie to a job interview. (If anything, most animals would try to get rid of a rope around their neck, not make it a thing of pride and fashion.) You learn what clothes to wear to be fashionable, what kind of girlfriend to look for, again to be fashionable

Re:I've been wondering about that too

[mysticwhiskey]

What does loving your wife have to do with having a mistress? That almost implies some sort of relationship between love and sex. I love my wife with all my heart. The reason I don't sleep around isn't because I love my wife and wouldn't want to, I would love to have lots of anonymous sex. The reason I don't sleep around is because it would hurt my wife if she found out.

Just curious - I wonder how your wife would feel if she knew that the only thing preventing you from sleeping around was making her feel hurt, when deep down it seems you want to fuck around.

Re:I've been wondering about that too

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the same way she'd feel if you honestly answered the question "do I look like I've put on weight?"

Re:I've been wondering about that too

[shaitand]

Roughly the same way that any mans wife would feel if she found out the same thing? It's a guy thing, not a me thing.

Tamagotchi

[taursir]

This makes complete sense. Look at the previous crazes with electronic things you could play with or "feed" or create your own world.

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Very interesting post, but moderators have already told you.

Heck, I learned life skills from Unix "Konquest"

[Fantastic Lad]

--That is, launching your campaign to change the universe until you have invested sufficient time, energy and planning to make the effort worthwhile results in failure.

I'm willing to bet that this would hold true for almost any game.

When you strip away all the other bells and whistles, a computer is just another element of the Universe and will behave accordingly. You can learn kung-fu from watching water move, or how to build bridges from watching leaves fall, so why not learn from computers as well?

However. . .

Other than that, I'd say that trying to learn directly how to be human from watching the behavior of a bunch of little pretend computer humans might not be such a great idea. All you're really learning is the behaviors some programming staff think are appropriate and real. There's the medium and there's the message, right? The medium itself is what it is, and as such the things you learn from watching its behavior are going to result in 'real' knowledge. The deliberate messages sent over the medium, however, can lie. This is what, (IMHO), Marshall Mcluhan was getting at when he said, "The Medium IS the Message". (Or maybe not. He didn't write very clearly.)

Anyway, the thing which consistently annoys me when I play computer games is that computers limit possible actions by players to rule sets created by people with biases. The number of times I've cried out, "#@*! Pick up that object right in front of you and pry the lock with THAT, you stupid piece of junk computer! I don't need no steenkin key!"

After a few years of playing computer games, I basically accepted that I would have to conform myself to arbitrary rule sets, and thus my brain was trained. Those synaptic pathways become grooved with repeated use, and so society trains people to be good little slaves, and people go through life not breaking with dumb conventions.

How charming.

Even D&D will stream-lines a kid's imagination, whereas playing 'Pretend' with dolls or what have you, offers no such limitations beyond those already present in the kid's head.

Turn that thing off and go play outside!

-FL

Re:Really... You know the REAL lesson she learnt..

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife is a psychologist. When our daughter acts out, she'll give her the option of losing one of two things. Daughter will choose item #1. Sometimes my wife will take away item #2. Terrorist will use similar techniques to pick a victim from a group of hostages.

I'd say I 90% agree with you....

[King_TJ]

Most of what you said is quite true. I guess my big question for you would be; What are your thoughts about the concept of children challenging authority because of a need to find their boundaries?

I think part of the "mechanics" of parents yelling at their kid and trying to "make them do their homework" or "make them clean their room" or what-not is due to the kid testing the authority figures. If they discover that they don't really "get into trouble" for any of the "bad" things they do - then they tend to experiment with doing even "more wrong" things, until they get a reponse. (Deep down, I think there's a craving for a figure in their daily lives that they can trust to provide some guidance. If they can't generate a negative response to their actions, then they start doubting that figure cares about them.)

Re:I'd say I 90% agree with you....

[kfg]

What are your thoughts about the concept of children challenging authority because of a need to find their boundaries?

Boundries are one of the things that kids need to learn. There are, however, better ways to impose them than yelling at them. Sticking an animal with a cattle prod in conjunction with some other stimulus simply creates an aversion to that other stimulus. Parents canna change the laws of physics, or patterning and conditioning.

If they ignore these laws and go against them, they fail as parents. Learn your Pavlov and Piaget.

Now think about just what a boundry is. A boundry is something you must not cross. It is proscriptive. Don't go in the liquor cabinet is a boundry. Do your homework is not. Boundries are imposed by negative reenforcemnt. Desired behaviors are created by postitive reenforcment. How about instead of yelling at your kids for not having done their homework you give them a hug and a cookie for having done it?

My problem with typical parental behavior is not in the imposition of boundries or the promotion of desired behaviors, but rather in the way they go about it.

To wit, they adopt strategies that cannot achieve the desired result, and in most cases actually drive the kid in the opposite direction of the desired result. They want what they want, not what is possible. They act like two year olds with regards to their own two year olds, stamping their feet and holding their breath until they turn blue and such.

Because the parents are seeking to be "authority," to control, not teach. You cannot control people. You can induce them, or you can force them, but you cannot control people. They will ultimately do as they wish.

If you wish people to adopt certain behaviors you must induce them to wish to.

Using a real, proscriptive boundry as an example, think about the difference between someone who does not rob a liquor store because he is afraid of being punished and someone who does not rob a liquor store because he does not want to.

It is very, very important to remember that kids are people, not "things." Before birth even they begin simply living their own lives. They will persist in this "undersirable" behavior after birth. Like it or not. They are incomplete people, they are people in need of care, protection, teaching and; most importantly, simple experience, but they are people.

They are your charge. They are your responsibility, but they are not yours. They "own" themselves.

Get off your psuedo-intellectual high horse and go read your Kahlil Gibran. The man knew what the fuck he was talking about.

Kids are also acutely aware of the difference between boundries that are real (such as those imposed by fire) and those that are artificial (like those that are imposed by "authority" with no natural consequences). They know when they are being told to do/not do something because essentially arbitrary reasons for the purpose of imposing will.

And, as a corralary to your point, it is very, very important for kids to also learn to oppose authority, and to do so with success, as well as failure. To push and expand the boundries to their natural limits.

Because authority itself has boundries; and it is the job of the kid to teach the parents just what the limits of their authority is, in order to come into their own authority as adults.

Parents who do not recognize that their authority has limits are going act like dumbasses. Especially since some of those limits on authority are proscribed by law. i.e., a higher authority.

An obvious example of this is that you can't beat your kids. If the higher authority learns about this their will be consequences to the parents.

There are less obvious examples, however, and they are very, very important. Contrary to popular opinion legal ad

Re:I'd say I 90% agree with you....

[King_TJ]

To be perfectly honest, I'm having a tougher time "digesting" all of the interesting points you've made, because you seem to have an element of personal attack mixed in with all of it.

EG. "Get off your psuedo-intellectual high horse and go read your Kahlil Gibran. The man knew what the fuck he was talking about."

My pseudo-intellectual high horse? Simply because I had a question for you about your thoughts on the whole issue of "boundaries" and parental enforcement of them?

I get the idea that you have some resentment or bitterness towards your own folks and the way you were raised, and that's why this is such a "hot topic" for you?

In any case, though, I'm in agreement with your statement that children are people, not things, and parents don't "own" them. I'm not so sure I get your point, stated multiple times, that society makes a mistake of "expecting kids to suddenly become adults, magically, when they hit 18"? The law certainly doesn't imply this in any form. We allow people to become employed at age 16, and we issue them driver's licenses at that age as well. By contrast, we don't even allow them to purchase their own alcohol legally until they reach age 21.

Furthermore, you say: "In most states kids have the legal right to come and go as they please, when they please and with whom they please." It has always been my impression that curfews are imposed in most places. Again, illustrating that the "law of the land" recognizes that children shouldn't necessarily be given all of the rights that we give to adult members of society. (With rights come responsibilites - and I think we, collectively, realize that children, pre-teens and even teens are generally unable to handle the full spectrum of rights/responsibilities efficiently. Therefore, we try to give them those rights piece-meal, in stages, so they aren't simply thrust into an "adult world" and expected to handle all of their freedoms responsibly at one time.)

I grant you that such concepts as "finishing one's homework" aren't technically "boundaries". I also know from my own experience, growing up, that "positive re-inforcement" wouldn't always work to get me to do my assignments. As I got older, I started to see such efforts as patronizing, and thought I was "smart enough to see right through it". On the other hand, the very real possibility of being "grounded" and not being allowed to talk to my friends on the phone, watch TV, etc. was a good reason to rethink my original idea of skipping another night of homework. (It's the whole "lesser of two evils" thing in action at that point. My homework was unpleasant to do, but more pleasant than the alternatives my parents gave me if I didn't do it.) In the "grand scheme" of things, they were setting up some "guardrails" on my "road of life", making it harder for me to steer myself completely off the path they wished I would follow. Looking back, that was more of a favor than a curse....

Re:I'd say I 90% agree with you....

[tehcyder]

"...boundries...boundry..."

I think if you're going to write a long comment involving multiple uses of a word and its plural, you might want to check the spelling first.

The odd spelling mistake's not a problem, but it gets quite irritating seeing so many in a row.

Learning

[Onuma]

It's great to learn what to do right in a given situation.

However, a more valuable lesson is often what not to do. I can remember most vividly the things I did wrong in life where I got a spanking or yelled at...I most likely did not do them again. The same goes for most children and grown-ups alike. That's why school is a great place, you get to meet and interact with new people all the time and learn how to deal with new things. A computer program that immerses someone in a semi-realistic fashion can be, potentially, equally good.

Mistakes are an excellent teacher. I plan on letting my kids make plenty of them and learn well. I just hope that I don't have any children I don't know about (mistakes...lol).

A MMORPG Game

[FieryShadow]

A real Fun mmorpg game a must try if you like RTS http://www.kingsofchaos.com/recruit.php?uniqid=9dq 95m96

Re:Really... You know the REAL lesson she learnt..

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, when one of my boys acts up I make him go to the pleasure wing and throttle his favorite concubines.

Gay and Lesbian Sims

[SimHacker]

I'm glad that the lesbian Sims got you to play for at least a few hours! The fact that some guys just love to watch lesbian couples was an unintented benefit of a larger goal. If that side-effect annoys any women, then they can get even by making gay guys and watching them too.

The actual intention was that The Sims might prevent at least one person from committing suicide because they were gay and their parents and community couldn't accept it, by providing an idealistic place where nobody makes a big deal or treats you differently because of your sexual orientation, and you can have a relationship with anyone you want without being persecuted.

I came up with the idea of making all Sims characters potentially bisexual. Here are some comments I wrote on the design document, in which I threw down the gauntlet about gay sims.

The whole relationship design and implementation (I've looked at the tree code) is Heterosexist and Monosexist. We are going to be expected to do better than that after the SimCopter fiasco and the lip service that Maxis publically gave in response about not being anti-gay.

The code tests to see if the sex of the people trying to romantically interact is the same, and if so, the result is a somewhat violent negative interaction, clearly homophobic. We are definitly going to get flack for that.

It would be much more realistic to model it by two numbers from 0 to 100 for each person, which was the likelyhood of that person being interested in a romantic interaction with each sex. So you can simply model monosexual heterosexual (which is all we have now), monosexual homosexual (like the guys in SimCopter), bisexual, nonsexual (mother theresa, presumably), and all shades in between (most of the rest of the world's population).

It would make for a much more interesting and realistic game, partially influenced by random factors, and anyone offended by that needs to grow up and get a life, and hopefully our game will help them in that quest.

Anyone who is afraid that it might offend the sensibilities of other people (but of course not themselves) is clearly homophobic by proxy but doesn't realize it since they're projecting their homophobia onto other people.

There's a wikipedia article about Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters in video and computer games, which says:

The video and computer gaming industry has been slow to grab the pink dollar, with Maxis being the first to enter into this new market. It is generally felt that young white males (most of whom are heterosexual) are the force driving the industry forward. Hence any effort to market games to anyone else is tied to an industry question, "Will heterosexual men want to buy this game?" In the 1990s the industry began to make some efforts to market games to women by creating software titles with strong and independent female characters as seen in Tomb Raider and Resident Evil. The commercial success of both games (and their numerous sequels) does suggest that male gamers are willing to play a female character. Yet, it remains to be seen if a straight male would be willing to play an openly gay or transgender character, as they generally are willing to play sexy and powerful female characters.

The Sims

In 2001, Maxis broke new ground with a new television commcerial for its computer game The Sims. Highlighting the ability of the characters to date, the commercial featured an attractive twenty-something man in a nightclub flirting with a woman, until he is suddenly drawn to an attractive man in the club and after a brief pause agrees to date him. The games have become very popular as they allow

Using Sims to try new things...

[HydroPhonic]

Adults already know what happens in realistic situations, but they want to know what happens in situations that they can't try in the real world...

my wife has no interest in leaving me for a lesbian (there are certain things that only a man can provide, and she enjoys those things very much), and I have never cheated on her.

It's not cheating if you have permission!