Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 398)

Trigger Happy
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or sulk all by themselves as the player watches. Your
job is to change their environment to their advantage
and help them succeed in the careers you choose for
them; but you can also set up deliberately fraught love
triangles and chuckle over fights in the chintzy living
room.
The Sims, by genre a God game, computerizes
exactly the kind of voyeuristic fascination that led to
the television programs Big Brother and Temptation
Island becoming such a huge success on both sides of
the Atlantic, with the added attraction that you can
meddle directly with the environment. As an openended
process toy that attempts to simulate complex social
interactions and affords the player great freedom in her
actions, it also became very popular among women:
numerous testimonials on the internet and in
newspapers described how women who had always
previously been bored by videogames found themselves
thoroughly addicted to the management of their Sims
household.
The Sims also, however, exemplifies the rule that
any attempted “recreation” of the social world inside a
videogame is predicated upon a set of moral and
political assumptions. In this game, consumerism is the
preferred religion: much of the gameplay centers on