Sara Mosberg Iversen
(spanish)
Grandpas do it, teenagers, football mums, hardcore programmers, homosexuals, religious people, average Joe, and just about everyone else: play The Sims (Maxis, 2000) or The Sims 2 (Maxis, 2004). These two games, which allow the player to control and watch the everyday life of simulated people – the sims – are one of the graphical computer game’s greatest success stories. Both in terms of the different demographic groups they attract and when it comes to the sheer number of players.
Calling these applications “games” is much too limiting, though (1).
Although The Sims 2 contains game-oriented features such as short term goals and scores, the application can be used in many other ways as well. The applications offer players seven different activity modes as well as a mode for program configuration (see table 1).
The number of featured modes gives players much freedom to choose their own style of playing and the games are used a variety of ways. Some players mainly build houses, sometimes copying historic or well-known buildings. Others spend much time on recreating themselves and their friends or celebrities in sim-form. A great number of players even create new content for the game in the form of game modifications, objects for the home, and clothes for the sims. Examples of all this can be found aplenty at ModtheSims2. Then there are all the stories, documentaries, and tutorials created by using the game’s story-telling features. Of course, many players even combine all these activities in their use of The Sims and The Sims 2.
Despite being sold in game stores, The Sims 2 is not merely a game but, rather, an application which allows players to be active and creative within some quite wide frames. It is an easily accessible tool that everyone from eight year olds to grannies can use for participating in the exchange, assessment and consumption of digital craftwork of various types. It is a platform for the many, enabling the sharing of personal interpretations of popular culture as well as highly original works. In fact, when observing some of the large forums dedicated to The Sims 2 (such as the official exchange at http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/index.php?=
Exchante,www.mothesims2.com it seems quite plain that participation rather than the originality and quality of the created is the important thing for a majority of active users. Although this may seem unfortunate in terms of excellence, I do not think that the instructive aspect of this engagement should be underestimated. Eager to participate and get recognition, players, who might otherwise not care to work on their skills, may be motivated to develop in order to get more hits, readers, praise. In this process, it is likely that some may eventually realised that the most popular works are usually characterised by high originality and skill.
Story-telling with The Sims 2
Featuring camera, video and an album function which allows the player to order pictures and add text, The Sims 2 offers players all the tools needed to document their play sessions, tell stories about what happens in their game, and, even, stage pictures to accompany an already created narrative. These are the tools for explicit story-telling. What is important to note here is, that narration whether expressed in a sharable form or only taking place inside the player’s head is a more or less inescapable part of playing The Sims 2 in its live mode. The clear causality, the toll of time on the sims, all the funny little events that the players make sims do or sims do “on their own account” are most naturally perceived in some kind of narrative frame. Even when creating sims players may already be thinking in narrative related terms such as character type, life goals, and, maybe even life stories as the game offers a slot for adding a sim’s biography. This is not surprising as, according to, for instance, Paul Ricoeur, we even turn our own lives into narratives in order to understand ourselves and the events taking place around us (2).
Interestingly, the game even offers a means for implicit or embedded story-telling. Any sim is defined by personality traits, a life want, an aspiration, interests, but even gets “memories” at special events in their life, which can be accessed in a small panel. Also, their relationships to other sims are indicated. All this information available for every playable sim can be used for implied story-telling together with items on the lot and snap-shots in the album. The story, in this case, not yet whole but rather consists of bits and pieces left for the reader/player to puzzle together into a unified plot. An example is the Specter family in the neighbourhood Strangetown that ships with the game. Old Olive Specter, it becomes clear, is a lady with a quite past. Her garden is filled with family members, neighbours and partners’ graves and all these deaths, of course, are marked in her memory panel. – whether Olive killed them herself or not is not directly stated, but some events in her past, coupled with her personality traits, suggests she may have done it. Looking at her memories, it seems everything went well until she got left at the altar by one Earl E. After that people around Olive seem to be dying at an alarming rate – even those gentlemen that she falls in love with and marries. At one of the death scenes something bizarre apparently happens, as she gets pregnant with Grim Reaper – a non-playable character in the game who comes to pick up all sims that die. Sadly, another memory tells us, that the child was later removed. Looking at the family tree, this child is identified as one Nervous Subject, a poor young man who is used as a test subject by the Beaker couple living on another lot in the neighbourhood. In this way Maxis has provided different bits of an embedded story, which the player may seek to piece together, work on further, or disregard as she likes. I have not found any examples of this form of semi story-telling employed by any players, but this would be an interesting way to experiment with alternative ways of sharing a story.
Sim-writers, I have learned from observation and (net-based) conversation, roughly fall into two categories: Those who have written most of their lives, using different kinds of media and platforms for this and now use The Sims 2 as another tool; and those who have never been much interested in creating stories before trying the game. Either seeing all the other stories at the exchange or realising the game’s potential, these players begin producing and sharing their sim-stories with others. While access to immediate feedback, the supportive role of images, and a new challenge are important for the first group, participation seems to be the main motivation for the latter although this may well change over time as they warm to the story-telling. While many sim-writers begin with creating stories based on what happens in their play sessions, many of the more accomplished writers play in order to tell stories. Knowing the possibilities of the application, they meticulously stage the scenes they need for their stories, often photo-editing important details in which the game does not offer.
Although non-players may well enjoy the stories created by sim-writers, it takes a player to fully understand the effort that has gone into creating a given story, whether it has been staged or is based on a given playing session. Simply, because only players know the limitations and opportunities offered by the application. In fact, it is interesting to see how players in their story-telling work within and outside the rather obvious template provided by the game. As has been pointed out in analyses of The Sims the game expresses a clearly consumerist ideology and is centred round the typical nuclear family (3). While this view has its merits even in the case of The Sims 2, especially concerning the consumerism, it must be stressed that both games allow alternative family forms such as same gender couples and, so, escapes the stereotypes of ordinary family life. Likewise, The Sims 2 has been regarded as highly controversial and harmful by, for instance, American attorney Jack Thompson as the game shows the sims naked – albeit blurring over the private parts – and allows sims who are in love to whohoo, the game’s term for having sex (4). Moreover, as mentioned earlier, it is even possible to whohoo with the Grim Reaper, which is by no means conventional. Still, the interactions offered by the game centre round family life in the home and the local community – later expansions let the sims go to university, hang out downtown, and own their own shops. This is mirrored in the stories, of which a majority are about falling in love, having a family, and the like. I do not think that the game’s fundamental setup is the only reason, for the majority of romance and drama stories, though. Many of the contributors are teens and pre-teens so for them, working with these stories can be a means of dealing with identity building, trying out roles, and day-dreaming in story form. A good place to look for such stories is the official story-exchange.
Although the various sim-story outlets overflow with more or less uninspired family dairies, there are always players who manage to create something original even within the template. One of my early favourites is Dairy of a Mad Mobile Homemaker by newwave63 . However, not all stories fall within the obvious template. Players write fantasy, mystery, and horror stories along with different types of original work that does not fall within any obvious generic categories. A good place to start looking for such stories is The Sim 2 Writer’s Hangout, which both features work by gifted writers who understand how to make the best of medium but also the usual clichéd story as well as works by those who are just learning the art of story-telling. When asked, these writers will tell you that although the game offers a limited arsenal of expressions and actions any kind of story can be told using The Sims 2 as the image generator. All it takes is a lot of patience and some good photo-editing skills. A striking example of such edited imagery can be found in the newly started series Dominion by Penroyaltea.
While one thread in the stories seems to be about identity construction, another – often related – thread is centred round popular culture. TV shows, Hollywood movies, and MTV significantly influence many stories. This is evident from the large number of stories about beautiful and successful sims, about getting the most popular – or even famous – boy or girl friend, high school dramas, and make-over stories about the ugly/geeky kid who suddenly becomes hot after changing their looks. It is even common to emulate popular TV shows such as Survivor, Big Brother, America’s Next Top Model, dating shows, and various talk shows.
Interestingly, the game has even inspired its own story genres. Most notable is the legacy story. Since the game does not feature a final goal detailing winning conditions, players quickly began creating their own challenges and rules for how to use the game. The most popular has been the legacy challenge by Pinstar which challenges the player to create the strongest sim family in ten generations without cheating and following certain rules. These attempts were quickly turned into, often highly humoristic, documentaries/stories. A search at the official story exchanging using the keyword “legacy” will turn out more than 4000 records. As the story exchange was flooded with more or less interesting legacy accounts, creative players even created sub-genres, such as the uglacy legay, invented by Candi020765, where the goal is to create the most hideous sim within ten generations.
Game-playing as construction
Although the use of games through all times has lead to creative activity, such as the invention of new strategies, moves, and, even, new games, the coupling of digital games and the internet offers players new possibilities to share these activities. In this way computer games serve to promote and “massify” a diversity of digital craftsmanship. While The Sims and The Sims 2 are examples of games that have made the most of offering the player configurative freedom, the list of computer games that have stimulated creative player activities is endless. Highly different games such as Half-life (Valve Software, 1998)¸ The Elder Scrolls III: Morowind (Bethesda Softworks, 2002), Age of Mythology (Ensemble Studios, 2002), and World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004) have inspired players to write stories, create artworks, construct game modifications (mods), or edit together film-clips (machinima). While this may not be regarded as art, such activities may well be the breeding ground for coming new media artists as they seize the opportunity to create, experiment, hone their skills, co-operate, and, as importantly, get exposition to users’ feedback.
Notes
1. The ontology of the game has been a much debated issues these last years. Good sources are:
Salen, Katie & Zimmerman, Eric (2004) Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamental, The MIT Press, Cambridge. Chapter 7.
Juul, Jesper (2005), Half-real: Videogames between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, The MIT Press, Cambridge. Chapter 1.
2. Ricoeur, Paul (1984). Time and Narrative. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
3. Flanagan, Mary (2003). “SIMple & Personal: Domestic Space & The Sims”, Melbourne DAC 2003, DAC, Melbourne. http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Flanagan.pdf.
Frasca, Gonzalo (2001). “The Sims: Grandmothers Are Cooler than Trolls”, Game Studies vol. 1.1, 2001.
http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/frasca/
Kline, Stephen et al (2003). Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture and Marketing, McGill, Montreal.
Chapter 12.
4. Surette, Tim (July 25, 2005). “Sim 2 Content “worse than Hot Coffee””. GameSpot,
http:/www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/22news_6129609.html.
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MA, Ph.D. candidate at Center for Computer Games Research, IT University, Copenhagen. Her research is concerned with computer game criticism, challenge and the formal structures of computer games. Other articles by Sara on The Sims games: “Challenge Balance & Diversity: Playing The Sims and The Sims 2”
