I've become a gaming widower! How's that for a gender reversal? Typically, it's a guy who gets too wrapped up in his latest computer game to pay attention to his partner, but Eileene is deeply hooked by our recent bargain bin purchase of CaesarIII, Pharaoh, and Cleopatra. She's spent the past three days doing nothing but, and that includes coming home early after business meetings and skipping dinner while her face is pressed remora-like to the screen. That's not a complaint; I've been down that road many times, myself.
We're both slowly working our way through the Pharaoh tutorial - slowly, because the game isn't so much a win/lose challenge as a building exercise. Efficient players can progress more quickly, but given enough time, even a ramshackle city can construct a monument and win. You spend a lot of time waiting at the end, watching the pyramid go up. Fortunately, there's a lot of pretty buildings and individual activity to watch, but, once your industry is self-sufficient, there isn't much to do.
That has me wondering again about the success of the Sims, critically acclaimed and popular even among non-gamers. The game is very similar to the Tomogatchi gizmos: the player's electronic people (sims) go about their lives, and meters monitoring their hunger, exhaustion, comfort, and so on gradually worsen. When your sim gets hungry, push the "go eat" button; when he's dirty, push the "go wash" button. The Sims include more variables to watch, and a variety of cosmetic choices (Blue wallpaper or yellow? Be a doctor or a policeman?), but that's the essence of the game.
The game isn't a game, in the technical sense of the word; there is no winning or losing, just the occurrence or non-occurrence of events. (Maxis takes great pride in making "toys" instead of "games.") So the appeal isn't the challenge of winning. It's not even the challenge of maxing out all the obvious goals: successful career, high income, a really nice place, and an expansive social life, since such goals only take patience, not skill. When I consider what the appeal, I don't like the answers I keep coming up with.
There's voyeurism. While there's no sex more graphic than kissing on screen, the Sims are a promiscuous lot. Affairs are common, easy to keep secret, and hardly a trouble even if you're caught. Complete strangers can fall in love within twenty minutes, if you're on the ball, so there's no shortage of partners.
There's sadism. In a relatively short time, you can give your sim a perfect life; thereafter, there isn't anything to do but deliberately neglect your sims, just to learn the amusing ways their lives can fall apart. And there are many more ways to make your sims miserable than happy. You can keep your sim swimming in a pool until he drowns. You can wall him up in a cul-de-sac and watch him repeatedly wet himself, pass out, and starve. You can fail to pay the bills and watch your sim's household repossessed.
Most disturbing of all is the game's pseudo-vicarious nature. We can waste a lot of time on computer games, neglecting more important facets of our lives, largely because games give us the vicarious thrill of slaying terrorists or forging empires or exploring lost cities, thrills we either couldn't have or don't want in reality. But the Sims gives you a chance to vicariously be? a guy in a house, going to work, paying bills, fixing the toilet, and calling friends over to watch TV. Sims junkies go through all the hassles of getting a life, without actually getting a life. When someone wants the hassle, but not the life, something is deeply wrong.
So I watch my tiny Egyptian populace wander about town, grow crops, mine stone, drive off Nubian raiders, and slave away to raise a pyramid to their pharaoh. They're cute. Their city is beautiful. It's fun to watch their houses improve and their industries prosper. But I think I'm a little relieved to find their lives boring when I don't have to work to keep things progressing towards a specific goal.