and their suspension of disbelief will be shattered instantly. Working with a subject that
players are intimate with may serve to draw them in, but if it is not done correctly it
may drive them away as well.
Safe Experimentation............................
On first inspection, one might not think that whatThe Simssimulates is actually all that
interesting. Indeed, for the suburbanites who are likely to own a computer to play the
game and have the disposable income to purchase it, how different is the game-world of
The Simsfrom real life? It would seem that the escapist and wish-fulfillment qualities
many games possess are totally lacking inThe Sims. Furthermore,The Simsdoes not
even present “life with all the dull bits cut out.” The players’ sims still have to engage in
the more mundane aspects of modern life, such as going to the bathroom, going to
work, paying bills, and taking out the trash. Is this fun? Strangely, it is, since these more
tedious chores lend an air of “realism” to the proceedings, which makes the players’
successes or failures all the more meaningful.
WhatThe Simsreally provides to players is an environment for safe experimenta-
tion. While prudence may prevent players from pursuing a career as a criminal or
professional athlete in real life, the game will allow players to take their sims in that
direction with little risk to the players. While building a house is a major undertaking
involving great financial risk for the purchaser, inThe Sims,players can build lavish
houses, spend money on frivolous trinkets for their sims, throw wild hot tub parties, or
pursue homosexual relationships just to get a sense of what life might be like if they
lived it differently. If these experimental lifestyles turn out to not work as well as the
players had hoped, the only loss is for their sims, an effect considerably less serious
than real-world bankruptcy or social ostracism. Indeed, if players avoid saving their
game after a catastrophic event or decision, the loss is easily undone entirely. The life
players control inThe Simsmay be one quite close to their own, but the ability to try
new things without fear of serious repercussions makes the experience compelling and
exciting.
Depth and Focus...............................
A big part of what makesThe Simswork is the range of choices players are presented
with for what they can do with their sims. Abdicating authorship is all well and good, but
if the designer fails to provide players enough meaningful choices, players will find
themselves only able to author a very narrow range of stories. Indeed, it is the
designer’s responsibility in creating a software toy to design that toy with a broad
enough range of possibilities that the appeal of playing with it is not quickly exhausted.
And Wright did that expertly withThe Sims, leaving players with a constant feeling that
there is so much more to do and see in the game-world, that one could never hope to do
it all.
Players can concentrate on building their house, starting either with some of the
pre-built houses or constructing one from the ground up. A robust set of house-con-
struction and landscaping tools allows players to create a very large variety of houses,
with probably no two built-from-scratch houses ever being the same, even with
386 Chapter 20: Game Analysis:The Sims