User: alantrotter

Re:"Bias" in The Sims

On: Biases in Simulation Video Games

"there is definately an implicit ideology: Happiness is a function of the things you own."

Actually I read an interview with Sid Meier in which he described wanting to satirise that sort of commercialism with the game. Your sims do get happier when you buy them new things, but every item you buy them has the capacity to spoil. Gadgets break, expensive plants die, and they end up ruining the environment and making your sim less happy.

The result is that you spend all your time replacing and replacing, throwing money at the problem, but it's just treading water with weights tied to your feet.

The 'message' is that you can't hope to just buy happiness.