A Sims is a digital avatar that carries many attributes that replicate a human being including personality traits, needs, aspirations, and skills. A Sims has five changeable personality traits including sloppy or neat, shy or outgoing, lazy or active, serious or playful, and grouchy or nice. It behaves according to the traits. For example, a neat Sims always cleans up, washes dishes, and flushes the toilet. A Sims has its own basic needs including food, energy, fun, socialization, hygiene, comfort, bladder, and environment. Fulfilling these needs is a primary goal of the game; ignoring them makes the Sims unhappy and tormented, and eventually the Sims dies. A Sims also possesses one of these aspirations: family, romance, fortune, knowledge, or popularity. These aspirations reflect the Sims wants throughout the game play. Finally, a Sims possesses some levels of seven skills including cooking, mechanical, charisma, body, logic, creativity, and cleaning. A Sims learns skills through activities it engages in.
Published in Chapter:
Exploring Personal Myths from The Sims
Vasa Buraphadeja (University of Florida, USA) and
Kara Dawson (University of Florida, USA)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-808-6.ch049
Abstract
Many game scholars claim that the emergent authorship opportunities provided within The Sims may lead to positive game play outcomes. This study hypothesizes that narratives told by game players may be similar to narratives told in real life and explores 66 Sims narratives via McAdams criteria of a good myth (1997). Results suggest that most people who play The Sims do not naturally adhere to the criteria of a good myth when developing their narrative, however, over half the narratives met some of the criteria. Our results suggest that The Sims has the potential to serve as a narrative studio for personal myth development but that some kind of intervention or scaffolding may need to be provided. The concept of psychosocial moratorium (McAdams, 1997) is suggested as one possible strategy professionals in multiple disciplines may use to promote The Sims as a narrative studio for myth development. Suggestions for future research are also provided.