The Sims 3

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 the 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 its predecessors, players create characters called Sims and control their lives with no overall goal.

Build

Although there are pre-built homes available for Sims, a player may choose to build a home for their families. Build mode makes available numerous architectural and interior design options for the player to use...for a price, of course. (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 in Buy Mode.

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

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.

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. These skills are also pivotal to careers around town; Sims in the military and police careers need a large amount of athletic skill to advance, for instance.

A Sim’s relationships with his family and neighbors is also an important part of the game. Like real life, there are friends, lovers, and enemies, in The Sims 3. 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 is consequence if the victim witnesses this betrayal.)

Ethical Relevance to SI 410

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.)

Left with the game’s autonomy, are Sims who perform unethical actions 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 to blame?

Are the norms in the world of The Sims ethically better or worse than the real world, if there is any difference at all?