Opinion
 

'Sim' life can't beat the real thing
 

by Justin Vann

It is the No. 1 selling computer game of all time. It has been a milestone in the world of computer games. It scares me more than a roomful of Nazis. It is called The Sims.

Enter the computer world of The Sims. With the click of a mouse, you have control over the lives of hundreds of people who live as generically as your typical American community. You can let them go about their business or take complete control over a single "Sim."

While I was playing the game, I got up to get myself a drink. When I returned, I discovered that my little computerized man had peed himself and was now suffering serious depression because I did not tell him what to do. I never played the game again as soon as I discovered how interactive the game actually was. I take out enough trash in the real world; I don't want to do it in a game.

Since The Sims' conception, countless upgrades to the game have been written. The most ironically titled one was called The Sims: Bustin' Out. The upgrade allowed your Sims to go clubbing, take vacations and generally get a life -- unlike the flesh and blood humans actually playing the game.

Until this point in time, I have held my tongue. I would tell myself, "It's a free country, Justin. People can have little make-believe lives if they want. You shouldn't harp on people for playing a game you don't like." But recently, the line has been crossed.

In April, Koch Media will release Singles: Flirt up Your Life in Great Britain. Not to be confused with the Hot Date expansion pack for The Sims, Flirt is unaffiliated with the Sims franchise. While it mimics the interface of The Sims, it has one additional feature The Sims lack: your characters can have full blown sex with each other. Not just your average missionary sex, mind you, but gay and lesbian sex, sadomasochistic sex and even quickies in the shower before work. 

One would be inclined to see the game as purely pornographic, and nothing more. But the game doesn't revolve totally around sex. Your characters still have to do the dishes, go to work, go to the bathroom, wash their cars and socialize. Flirt is something far creepier that just pornography -- it is the final step in creating a totally realistic world for gamers to vicariously live through. 

Freud would have had a field day with this.

I've looked back on my life and wondered what I could have done with the hundreds of hours I spent playing computer games. I could have been learning how to play the bass guitar or speak a different language. But I wasted that time.

Now, games like The Sims have taken the concept of wasting your life to unprecedented new heights. You can sit at a computer and do things you could be doing in real life, all without the personal growth that comes from doing it yourself. Does anyone else see the horrible irony of these games?

Sure, I'll admit it sounds like fun to live as someone else, or to control the lives of a handful of people you mentally conceived. But when a game reaches the point that your little Sims can prefer bondage, somebody has to slap some sense into these gamers. 

Please, for the sake of being a real human, "bust out" and live your life without a computer game.

Vann, an editorial writer for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at vann_mann@homtail.com