The Sims

I admit that I do own one of The Sim's games and that my friend Kelsey and I used to play the game and thought it was fun for a little while. After reading what Chuck Klosterman had to say about his experience playing the Sim's made me think back at all the hours that I must have spent playing the Sim's and how pointless and time wasting it really was. Chuck kind of took some of the fun out of playing the game. He said that "Clearly, video technology cages imagination, it offers interesting information to use, but it implicates that all peripheral information is irrelevant and off- limits. Computers make children advance faster, but they also make them think like computers." I somewhat disagree with him. I do not think that that video technology necessarily cages your imagination, although it may weaken it. Like when Chuck asked his niece about his Sim's character; about how he got there, if he had no job where the money came from, where he went to college, etc., and how she answered was by saying that's just the way it is. She could have used her imagination to make up a little background story about the character just like she would have about her Barbie doll. Except maybe if a parent decides to let their child play nothing but video games they may lack an active imagination, but is it technology to blame or would it be the parents fault for not limiting the time spent playing video games.

As Chuck went on playing the game he sort of became angered by the Sim character he created of himself because he had to keep him happy by buying him things and making friends. Chuck was mad because some of the materialistic things he purchased for his Sim would make him happy, but for other expensive things he bought, his Sim would become unsatisfied. Then when he bought a nice table, which was meant to impress the lady Sim that Chuck had met, he reaction was just to clap her hands excitedly. So Chuck decided to have a talk with the creator of The Sims, Will Wright, because he started to question what the purpose of life was. And basically what he said was that while playing this game people discover interesting things about themselves. Also that if by chance the game had changed a person’s perception of the world surrounding you, then the game was successful. I have never thought of the game in that way before. When I played The Sim’s I didn’t create a Sim that was just like me, I just created made up people and just had fun with the game.