What is the appeal of The Sims?

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Mostly to torture DrSpike

[DrSpike]

No one has really nailed it.

The popularity of the Sims comes from (and has reinforced) the widening of the customer base.

The new entrants to the market don't want games where skill affects the outcome, they don't want to achieve difficult goals and they most definitely don't want to lose. Where's the fun in that?

Instead they play in their sandpit going "look Edward he's cleaning the kitchen!!"

It's perfectly clear.

[Blake]

DrSpike, that's true of the MAJORITY of the Sims player base, but there are also those who use it as a medium for telling stories, or for the fun of designing and building Sim houses and yes - there are Sims power gamers.

www.moreawesomethanyou.com is a very cool Sims bulletin board (Subject aside, I find it interesting even from a sociology perspective, it's a safe haven in a sea of stupidity), for it has many idiot filters (the typical idiot wont even be able to find the forums from the front page before their head explodes) and it's focused on making the game harder, adding challenge and fixing bugs. The environment is also great, again mainly because of the idiot filters which cause idiots to betray their idiotic nature. Heck, it even has a sub forum called "Retardo Land" just to give them a habitat.


It is of course true that the extreme popularity of The Sims series comes from the appeal to non-power gamers but that's not to say that the Sims is a game completely void of substance or challenge... it just has to be modded to introduce those elements and fix the numerous bugs.

As for why expansion packs are popular... well for a start the "more stuff" factor appeals pretty much universally, secondly there's the blackmail factor where Maxis only really fixes bugs in new expansions. And they do add some new interesting stuff so the power gamers have to upgrade too... (especially when involved in the community).

Note that I don't play TS2 anymore. Probably wont again, maybe TS3 though... (it is inevitable).

[Bkeela]

I thought the appeal of The Sims was obvious. It is pure escapism.

For awhile you can forget your own messy, unsuccessful life, and indulge your fantasies with your pet sim.

The spell is eventually broken because success is inevitable. Anything that is easily attained is worthless, but that doesn't seem to bother little girls who love playing the game.

[Blake]

Um....

All games are escapism.

Heck, reality is escapism from your own mind.

Um, lol. I just made that line up, but I like it.

But seriously, all games are escapism. The Sims 2 definitely involves puzzling solving elements (mainly in getting the Sims to do what you want :P) and design/artistic elements so it's not really any less a game than any other game... it's just more accessible.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Blake
DrSpike, that's true of the MAJORITY of the Sims player base, but there are also those who use it as a medium for telling stories, or for the fun of designing and building Sim houses and yes - there are Sims power gamers.

I accept that, but it is not the predominant factor explaining the popularity of the Sims, as you yourself said later in your post.

And I still maintain that powergamers that use the Sims as their vehicle aren't really powergamers at all. A Sims powergamer is roughly equal on the DrSpike powergamer chart to someone that tries but can't beat Prince at Civ4 .

[Sandman]

The new entrants to the market don't want games where skill affects the outcome, they don't want to achieve difficult goals and they most definitely don't want to lose. Where's the fun in that?

This presumably explains the proliferation of RPG style 'levelling' in all sorts of games.

[Solver]

All games surely are escapism. Civ isn't any less escapist than Sims - you can say Civ helps you forget how relatively insignificant you are in the grand scheme of history (probably), letting you rule a civ for 6000 years and conquer the world.

Notice that Sims isn't the first Sim-style game. There was SimCity (which even featured the term Sims), and I somewhat liked it - it was a strategy game, and could certainly be played as such. The excellent decision behind The Sims, later, was to create a toy, not a game. Sims is exactly that, a toy - there are no "win" or "loss" conditions, no game-defined (as opposed to player-defined) goals to reach for, etc. and it turned out that yes indeed, a toy like that is hugely successful.

[alva]

(she always uses the money cheat so she's not constrained by cash). She waits eagerly for each expansion pack, and trots dutifully out to the store to buy it.^

Is that cheat called: "dad'sWallet" by any chance?

All games are escapism.

Hmmm, while I'm certain that's true for many games or players, you can't exclude 'challenge' as being a (main) reason to play a particular game.

[Blake]

It is exceptionally challenging to manage a household of more than about 6 Sims - to manage twins for a new couple (or god forbid, single mother Sim). Granted, it's sometimes challenging for the wrong reasons - like the interface sucks, the Sims are retarded and the NPC workers are incorrigible... but if you want to make the game fricken hard, you sure can!

And there are a lot of ways you can make the game easier, but by the same token you can play CIV on Settler difficulty...

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Bkeela
The spell is eventually broken because success is inevitable. Anything that is easily attained is worthless, but that doesn't seem to bother little girls who love playing the game.

Success is inevitable? You obviously haven't seen a 4yo girl playing the game without access to cheats.

[DrSpike]

Yours is 4 already? Wow, they grow up fast in Aussieland.

[El_Cid]

Interesting thread guys

The Sims is like the modern day equivalent of all those 'sandbox' games of yesteryear.

Little Computer people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Computer_People

http://www.mobygames.com/game/little-computer-people

Could be seen as the game that started it all? Though i think there are other games in the genre that can also be included in 'who's to blame'

1. SimLife

http://www.mobygames.com/game/simlife

2. Simant

http://www.mobygames.com/game/simant-the-electronic-ant-colony

And all the other games in that series.

Not having played The Sims, i can't comment directly, but it seems to me that where many of the games that preceded it were difficult to manage, The Sims made things much more accessible.

Also it came along at just the right time where people had become used to soap-opera TV and the rise of the celebrity.

So where a game like Little Computer People was played and viewed as more of an experiment by the computer geeks in the 1980's, The Sims had a much more mainstream acceptence as it allowed anyone to play out their own little soap-opera's, and importantly you didn't need a degree or interest in science to get into it.

[Dis]

celebrity. This gives me a great idea for a game. I wonder if I could market it for money. .

Instead of some nameless sim, you control a celebrity. Go to wild parties celebrities go to. Act in movies, or perform in rock shows. The hard part is getting permission to use their names (it would suck if you had "generic" celebrities). with the celebrity mania we have today, this would sell.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Yours is 4 already? Wow, they grow up fast in Aussieland.

Strangely, my daughter isn't the only female in Australia.