Difference between revisions of "The Sims 3"
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'''The Sims 3''' is the third installment of the one-player, life simulation PC game, ''[[Wikipedia:The Sims|The Sims]]''. [[Wikipedia:The Sims Studios|The Sims Studios]] (developer) and [[Wikipedia:EA Games|EA Games]] (publisher) released this much anticipated sequel of ''[[Wikipedia:The Sims 2|The Sims 2]]'' in June of 2009 to rave reviews. It sold over a million copies in its first week alone. | '''The Sims 3''' is the third installment of the one-player, life simulation PC game, ''[[Wikipedia:The Sims|The Sims]]''. [[Wikipedia:The Sims Studios|The Sims Studios]] (developer) and [[Wikipedia:EA Games|EA Games]] (publisher) released this much anticipated sequel of ''[[Wikipedia:The Sims 2|The Sims 2]]'' in June of 2009 to rave reviews. It sold over a million copies in its first week alone. | ||
| − | Just as its predecessors, players create characters called Sims and control their lives with no overall goal. The overarching motto of all ''The Sims'' games has been: "Build. Buy. Live." These are also the names of the "modes" in the game. Build Mode allows players to build property in the Sims World; Buy Mode allows players to populate these properties with objects for Sims to use; and Live Mode (the more prominent game player) allows players to control the actions of the Sims they create. | + | Just as in its predecessors, players create characters called Sims and control their lives with no overall goal. The overarching motto of all ''The Sims'' games has been: "Build. Buy. Live." These are also the names of the "modes" in the game. Build Mode allows players to build property in the Sims World; Buy Mode allows players to populate these properties with objects for Sims to use; and Live Mode (the more prominent game player) allows players to control the actions of the Sims they create. |
Ethical concerns have arisen in the treatment of the online characters, the actions the Sims are able to make, the problem of addiction to the game, and the ages that have access to this game. | Ethical concerns have arisen in the treatment of the online characters, the actions the Sims are able to make, the problem of addiction to the game, and the ages that have access to this game. | ||
Revision as of 02:01, 10 December 2012
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The Sims 3 is the third installment of the one-player, life simulation PC game, The Sims. The Sims Studios (developer) and EA Games (publisher) released this much anticipated sequel of The Sims 2 in June of 2009 to rave reviews. It sold over a million copies in its first week alone.
Just as in its predecessors, players create characters called Sims and control their lives with no overall goal. The overarching motto of all The Sims games has been: "Build. Buy. Live." These are also the names of the "modes" in the game. Build Mode allows players to build property in the Sims World; Buy Mode allows players to populate these properties with objects for Sims to use; and Live Mode (the more prominent game player) allows players to control the actions of the Sims they create.
Ethical concerns have arisen in the treatment of the online characters, the actions the Sims are able to make, the problem of addiction to the game, and the ages that have access to this game.
Contents
Build
Although there are pre-built homes available for Sims, a player may choose to design and build their own home for their family. Build mode involves building the actual structure of the house including walls, flooring and other building elements, as well as the development of the land on the property and certain landscaping measures. Build mode makes available numerous architectural and interior design options for the player to use, but for a price. However, cheat codes for more funds can make the more extravagant options more readily available. At the player’s prerogative, a family of Sims can live in an enormous mansion on the beach or a one-room house in a normal neighborhood.
Players can also build commercial properties such as malls or parks for their Sims to visit. Commercial properties are given unlimited funds, but the quality of any venue is up to the player.
Buy
Buy mode is where players furnish the homes and lives of their Sims. Necessities, such as refrigerators and beds, and luxuries, such as decorations and entertainment devices, are all bought in buy mode using the Sims’ household funds. These funds can be earned through Sims’ work, cheat codes, or selling unneeded items.
Players new to the franchise are encouraged to buy a smoke detector and burglar alarm with other necessary items as Buy Mode is disabled when there is a burglar or fire in the house and these items yield the fastest emergency response.
Live
Sims have the ability to advance to up to seven age-levels (Baby, Toddler, Child, Teen, Young Adult, Adult, and Elder) before eventually dying of old-age.
During Sims’ lives, Sims behave much like the human controlling them. Toddlers are potty-trained and taught to walk and talk by their parents. Children attend school Monday through Friday and do homework. Teens can acquire a part-time job and make some money after school. Young adults and adults can fall in love, marry, and have babies, and elders can retire.
Sims can also gain skills, making gameplay more interesting. For example, Sims can take cooking classes and read cooking books to increase their cooking skills and gain the ability to prepare fancier meals than Sims with lesser skill. The advantage of having cooking skills is that the Sims' meals will be more satisfying and help feed their needs more than normal to keep them happy. Without certain skills, your Sim is more likely to cause accidents such as starting a fire when cooking or being electrocuted while fixing the TV. These skills are also pivotal to careers around town. For example, Sims in the military and police careers need a large amount of athletic skill to advance. Having a higher skill level means being promoted in a career track and thus, bringing in more money.
A Sim’s relationships with his family and neighbors is also an important part of the game. Just as there are there are friends, lovers, and enemies in real life, these relationships exist in The Sims 3 as well. Sims with jobs have bosses that they’d be wise to keep happy with them. Sims are also able to form a committed romantic relationship with one Sim, such as “going steady” or marriage, and have affairs with other Sims. (However, there are consequences if the victim witnesses this betrayal.) Interacting with other Sims gives you actions you are able to perform. These can be both friendly and unfriendly and change with the Sim's age and the relationship status they have gained with the other Sim.
Time passes at a rate of one second in real life to one minute in the game. Following from this, 60 seconds in real life is one hour in the game and so on. While time passes in this way during Live mode, time freezes in both Build and Design mode.
Create-A-Sim
See also: Avatars
The Create-A-Sim tool allows the player to personalize each Sim’s clothing and physical features. Create-A-Sim also allows the player to give Sims personality traits that will affect gameplay such as Slob, Evil, Charismatic, and Heavy Sleeper. Combining Sims with contrasting traits can make households complicated. For instance, a "Neat" Sim and a "Slob" Sim may encounter difficulties living together.
Expand
The previous Sims games (The Sims and The Sims 2) were limited in ways to customize Sims. While The Sims strictly restricts Sims to pre-made outfits, faces, and hairstyles, The Sims 2 allows players to choose these. Also, with the release of The Sims 2, developers allowed the exchange of Sims through the game's website.[1] The area of the website in which players share their Sims is called "The Exchange." A player creates a Sim that they are proud of - using the create-a-sim tool in the game - and shares it for other players to download.
However, using mods from private websites, users add new clothing, hairstyles, and accessories to their individual games. When a Sim with these mods are shared through the exchange, the mod is shared as well. Often times, the third-party game modifications are more stylish and desired than the clothing offered with the game. One of the most popular private exchange websites is The Sims Resource (TSR) [2]
Due to the popularity of mods and The Sims 2 Exchange, The Exchange returned for The Sims 3 along with The Store, offering premium content from the game developers for currency called SimPoints. (A number of SimPoints are given to new players, but new SimPoints are bought using real money.)
Expansion Packs
The Sims 2 franchise has released 8 expansion packs. These packs include: University, Nightlife, Open for Business, Seasons, Bon Voyage, Pets, Free Time and Apartment Life. Each pack revolves around a common theme, complete with new neighborhoods, objects and non-playable characters to support the theme. [3]
For example, in University, Sims can attend college as part of the aging process. The game becomes built around university, through having "rewards" and "aspirations" of each Sim centered around college. Whereas in Nightlife, this pack focuses on adding a downtown filled with restaurants, shopping centers and night clubs to allow Sims to relax and have fun. These expansion packs can be played simultaneously or separately to add to the overall gaming experience.
The franchise has also released a "Stuff" Packs. These include: Celebration, Family Fun Stuff, Glamour Life, H&M, Happy Holiday, Ikea Home Stuff, Teen Style and Mansion and Garden. Each pack comes with an array of new items for Sims to use. Items range from clothing to makeup to wallpaper patterns to furniture. [4]
Ethical concerns
In its most popular PC form, The Sims 3 is a single-player game. However, as a human life simulator, the game can still be used to discuss real-world ethical concerns. The design of the game allows for the possibility of setting up and playing through a simulated world of moral ambiguity. Players can perform psychological experiments using Sim characters as subjects without considering real-world ethics. Although the outcomes of these experiments do not have an effect on the real-world, they can provide insight into the happenings that may occur if human ethical code allowed for such studies to persist in the real-world. [5]
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/#ixzz2EZjIHvKA
Free Will versus Complete Control
In the options menu, there is a slider called "free will" that controls how much the player must control the Sims of their household. (At the highest free will Sims will fulfill their physical and social needs on their own; at the lowest, Sims may die if left unattended.) When choosing the lowest free will setting on the game there may be more ethical concerns. Is neglecting to help the Sim survive by ignoring it and letting it die ethical? Or, to take it a bit further, how about making all you Sims die on purpose with the intention of making a graveyard? Is it sick and unethical to want to kill all of your Sims? People will argue both ways. Authors, like Spence, argue that avatars are extensions of oneself on the virtual enviornment and therefore have universal public morality. Leaving them unattended under the conditions of free will would therefore be unethical.[6]
Good Sims and Bad Sims
Left with the game’s autonomy, are Sims who perform unethical or ethical actions. Are the Sims who carry out unethical behaviors morally wrong? Is this an example of artificial agents being held responsible for their actions?
As previously stated, players can give traits to their Sims using the Create-A-Sim tool. If a Sim is given the “Good” or “Evil” trait, who is ethically credited/blamed for their actions? The player or the Sim? Luciano Floridi would argue that its the agents fault. But, the user is in fact in control of choosing the traits, not the game/agent itself. Again, people can argue both ways and it's ultimately a gray area in what is ethical and what isn't.
Video Game Addiction
In the real world there is also a matter of the amount of time users are on this game. In one episode of the television show "Wife Swap", a mother ignores her children all day and plays The Sims. When the virtual world takes over the real world there is the question of whether the game or the player is at fault.
It is easy to spend hours living the lives of Sims. There are no goals that, upon completion, signify the end of the game or a good time to stop playing. The only time the game "ends" is when every member of the active household dies; given there are few accidents and all of the Sims aren't elders, this could take a long time.
Inappropriate Content for Children
The Sims franchise allows players to play a Sim over his or her life course. During this time, as the Sim grows from adolescence to adulthood and beyond, the Sim can engage in activities and interactions that come with aging. For example, teenage Sims can engage in romantic activities with other Sims and adult Sims can become pregnant through related sexual activities. One could make an argument that Sims characters engaging in sexual activities is a form of Virtual Pornography and is not suitable materiel for younger users to witness in a virtual environment. Sims can also start violent fights with other Sims and even work in the criminal field, stealing objects for a living. Although The Sims is rated for Teens, most people of any age group can easily obtain access to it or watch others play the game. This can raise ethical dilemmas: is it appropriate for minors to have their Sims engage in sexual activities? Is it also appropriate for them to begin fights with other Sims because it is part of a fun game?
Cheating
In The Sims it is common to employ cheat codes to gain advantage within the game. It is difficult to Build and Buy things in the game with the insufficient funds provided at the start. Users employ cheats to speed up the process of creating a dream home and environment for their Sims. There are also cheats that exist for silly reasons, one example being "jokePlease" which posts a silly joke onto the screen at random. Other cheats exist as well to increase Sim happiness levels, construct impossible structures, become friends with other Sims, gain work opportunities, or accomplish many other goals you may wish to fulfill. The Sims 3 has a "cheat bar," toggled by pressing varying keys depending on the system you are using[7].
According to Mia Consalvo in her piece "Gaining Advantage: How Videogame Players Define and Negotiate Cheating," using cheat codes are one way of 'hitting fast-forward' to speed through a game. Users can more easily advance their Sims in the game when they have unlimited funds from cheat codes. However, this kind of cheating is a way of gaining unearned benefits. One group of players "acknowledge that items such as cheat codes are readily available and accepted in some quarters, but the reconfiguration of game code is the central key to what constitutes cheating for them." They do not necessarily have a problem with walkthroughs, tips from other players, or other outside elements, but instead see cheating as the point when a player changes the configuration of the game itself, altering it through the code [8].
References
- ↑ http://thesims2.ea.com/exchange/index.php?pid=Exchange
- ↑ http://www.thesimsresource.com/
- ↑ http://compsimgames.about.com/od/expansionpacks/The_Sims_2_Expansion_Packs.htm
- ↑ http://compsimgames.about.com/od/thesims2boosterpacks/The_Sims_2_Stuff_Packs.htm
- ↑ http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/
- ↑ https://ctools.umich.edu/access/content/group/cd00dd55-2128-45a6-99cb-941eae4d8cda/Required%20Readings/3%20Avatars/Spence%20Meta%20Ethics%202008.pdf
- ↑ The Sims 3 Community: "Sims 3 Cheat Sheet." Retrieved from: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/1685.page
- ↑ https://ctools.umich.edu/access/content/group/f4292980-3f7b-4dc1-8f75-9e4ed107a93d/Required%20Readings/3%20Virtual%20Environments/Consalvo%20Gaining%20Advantage%202007.pdf Retrieved December 9, 2012
