“Sitting around watching tiny virtual people succeed in their fabricated lives does not get old,” promised a friend of mine. Indeed, I fear she captured a more profound lesson than she anticipated.
I’m sure it comes down to our obsession with instant gratification—in simulated reality we can grow up, get a career and achieve all of our wildest dreams in one [real] day! None of this working hard or biding time in commitment, instead we watch our skill meters fill up, make passes on the virtual dimes down the street, and, most fantastically, look for interesting and fulfilling career opportunities listed in the paper until we get exactly what we want.
There is nothing beneficial in living this virtual life.
Some games, I would argue (perhaps only to justify my playing them), better some skills. Time management games force you to deal with stress and quickly assess situations (I’m not sure why anyone would play a game in the “time management” genre—sounds like waking up to me). RTS games require quick strategizing, cost-benefit analysis, short- and long-term planning, and so on. RPGs require… not much. Anyway, RTS games can be good to play. The Sims, however, is a series of directions that keep your sim “alive” and doing your every un-actualized desire. It is similar enough to real life that the skills it might develop are ones that, if you don’t already have them (which you realistically might not given that your playing the sims), you might not survive. At the very least you’ll probably smell bad and have a diet that consists of Mountain Dew, Doritos and pizza rolls.
OK, the diet thing doesn’t sound that bad.
And, admittedly, it isn’t that far from my diet.
Still I desire to live a meaningless life in a tiny virtual reality in which I am God.
I can turn free will on and off, give and take away, create and destroy life. I can do anything I want.
It feels good having power.
It’s [emptily] encouraging accomplishing everything.
It makes me happy.
(It's funny that I have an option such as this--I have the time and resources to waste my life. What a blessing...)
And so I go, watching life pass by my virtual self and me (incidentally, both playing computer games).
I have always found it interesting that for some reason, watching these tiny virtual people become good at things I could certainly spend my otherwise wasted time mastering (like chess, guitar, charisma) still feels like an achievement.
ReplyDeleteAnd, mastering things in real life is difficult: I suppose sometimes it's nice to pretend like things are as easy as playing the guitar for 10 hours straight, and then instantly becoming a rock star.
I don't like what the Sims says about our society. Or me.