The Sims

## What is "The Sims"

The
most relevant game to life being a game would most likely be The Sims, The Sims
2, The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 by EA Maxis. In this game, you have the ability to
control any of the preset households or composing your own by creating every
person or, in this case, *sim*,
separately. In the game you are able to switch to individual people of the
household and decide what they are going to do, choose their actions. This
isn’t just whatever you want them to do because, much like a more simplified
version of real people, they have needs to manage. Not only do you have to
manage their needs such as hunger, sleep and bladder but also their career. You
need to allow them to improve certain skills needed for them to do what you
want them to do. For example, in the scientist career, you will need to improve
their logic skill. The other last thing you will have to manage are
relationships. Keeping up relationships is important since the sim also has social needs. Relationships will also allow them to marry
and start their own family. The lifespan of one sim goes from a new-born to an elde or possibly even until the afterlife.

## What does "The Sims" have to do with "Life is a game: live it well"

The
game is clearly not a realistic simulation of what real life is but that would
make it too complicated and often less fun. The fact you can do things there
you can’t do in real life is what makes it a game that’s interesting to play.
But from the managing perspective, it does a good job to make you realise how
much planning and management is needed to take control of a life. Granted in
The Sim, you can buy furniture on the spot as long as you have the money,
instead of going out to buy it and maybe assemble it. But it does show how stressful
the managing can be, especially considering it leaves out big parts of what is
part of real life.

Another
aspect in the game is building. You can construct buildings on plots and make a
house or a public venture. There in you can decorate, paint the walls and place
furniture. This gives the player a level of control where they aren’t just
living another life. The player is taking control over a world and the virtual
lives in it, as it were. If you are like me, you can even find ways for your
sim to die by choices you make. This level of control the game offers is, in my
eyes, part of why it is so appealing. A lot of people like the feeling of being
in full control. This might be because it’s just not possible or just plainly
not morally right to do these things in real life, if you even could. Once
people realise they are in control they might do things they wouldn’t have done
otherwise. You are able to assign different personalities to different sims if
you chose to create them and because of this they will interact with things
differently.

So
in the end, The Sims is a very basic simulation of real life, if even that.
It’s a quirky reconstruction to make it more fun and silly at times. One aspect
that The Sims has that is exactly the same as in real life is the lack of an
overarching story or plot. You set your own goals. You can’t finish the game,
but you can achieve things in it. To create a legacy is part of the fun in the
game and to some it is their goal to leave a mark in real life. The concept of
there not being a main goal is a bit controversial since it ties in with the
question what the meaning of life is. As with life, the goal, or meaning of it all, is up to the choice of the person in control.