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

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

[pyrrhonist]

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

Well, they are more than meets the eye.

The Sims taught me...

[John Courtland]

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

They're not dolls!

[the_humeister]

They're action figures!!!

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: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!"