There's a girl who lives just down the block from my own humble abode. She's a young, athletic, beautiful brunette ... with a wonderful home, in which she consistently hosts the town's most perfect parties. I've been watching this lass for two full years ... though entirely without her knowledge. I see her working in the yard. I watch her swimming in the pool. I know when she has guests in the house. I've watched her soaking in the tub ... observed her taking long, hot showers. I've even spied on her while sleeping ... and watched her dreams unfold.
Sally, the subject of my prolonged, near-obsessive infatuation, is a character from the famous "Sims" videogame franchise. As you may know, this is the biggest selling series of games in history, with more than 46 million copies sold since the title's inception {incidentally, it's also the only videogame in existence to have more female players than men}. Long for the PC crowd only, the power of current generation home consoles has made them available to many more folks than ever before ... of which I am now quite happily one.
The Sims, as virtually every newcomer learns within the first fifteen minutes of booting up, is all about playing with modern-day high-tech doll houses. You design a home, provide it with furnishings, and spend all of your time telling the occupants when to eat, sleep, talk, use the bathroom, and throw outrageous block parties. A "life simulator" if you will ... hence, the completely fitting name.
Cooking meals, cleaning the house, and gossiping with neighbors are hardly exciting tasks in the real world. Why then, like me, are so many millions of people fascinated with doing these things in a game? In reality, no decent person is interested in watching his or her neighbor sittin' on the doggone can {let us emphasize the word "decent" here}. And yet with The Sims, everyone openly takes on the role of a Peeping Tom. We watch their every intimate moment with eager anticipation.
I've heard it said that very few players are ever lukewarm about The Sims. We either love the very concept, or else we think it's the stupidest idea ever conceived for a so-called game. I quickly fell into the first camp, which seems rather strange when considering that it doesn't have any of the stuff which normally attracts me to a game ... big guns, lots of explosions, and blood that sprays with all the force of a chopped-off appendage in the "Kill Bill" movies.
I'm not a voyeur in real life. Yet with The Sims, I can "spy" on other folks all I wish. Not that I have any conscious wish, mind you now. Yet subconsciously ... hey, who knows? Psychology was never one of my strong points. Perhaps we all have a secret "naughty" side, one that seeks to be indulged in such seemingly non-threatening ways. Even we "civilized people" of today must have the remnants of an ancient, less-than-civilized ancestry. Or maybe I'm getting too heavy here?
Could be merely that the game is so much doggone fun. Whatever the case, I have become enthralled with watching my girl's most private behavior ... of which I relish every moment. Does this make me some kind of pervert? Nah. Not any more so than how wasting the bad guys in another game makes me an actual killer. This therefore allows me to enjoy a "guilty pleasure" without experiencing any actual guilt. And maybe that's exactly why this franchise has proven so darned popular.
Whatever. Now then, I'm back to my Sally ...
