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Comment by rco8786 | Hacker News Reader

I won’t speculate why but I will posit that this is not a new phenomenon for the casual gamer. Consider The Sims, originally released 22 years ago and enthralled a huge audience of people who had no other interest in games. Where the purpose of the game was to literally play house and go to work. Now that everyone has a gaming “console” in their pocket perhaps it’s not surprising that these more monotonous time killers have caught on with the broader audience.

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I played "The Sims" a lot when it came out. And so did a lot of other people I knew.

Things I did in the Sims:

* Box in one sim into a room to see how long they can survive by themselves.

* Set various sims on fire.

* Try to get sims to drown in the pool.

* Holding house parties WHILE people are drowning, to see their social scores drop at the horror of dead bodies.

* Try to "summon the clown".

* Try to kill the clown by burning its picture / effigy on top of the fireplace.

Etc. etc.

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"The Sims" isn't about "housework". It was about "pretend house", the same toy-houses / Poly-pocket / action figures that we kids grew up with except in video game form.

Just as I imagined fights and killing and battles with action figures as a (younger) child, the Sims offered me a "virtual" version of that, where I can play around and toy with the sims.

I wasn't completely a "Sim Sociopath" (I often made "new saves" when I was in a sociopathic mood). I also tried to reach the top of the job ladders (level 10 jobs and whatnot) and tried to make lots of money sometimes. But not always.

Sometimes, you just want to watch the world burn, and "The Sims" 100% allowed you to mess up the dollhouse's life entirely.

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I never got into Grand Theft Auto, but based off of what I've seen in that game... it sounds more like a sandbox game than a 3rd person adventure game. (Where simulated people act "kinda sorta" like a human with social effects, so you can mess around with the world with your own sick, twisted imagination. Or jump off a building with a motorcycle to see if you can reach the other building with enough speed (etc. etc.))

You just decribed the appeal of sandbox games in the most morbid way lol.

You are right, games let us do things you couldn't and they just give you more control.

Sandbox games specifically just let you do whatever you want, from testing to see how long npcs can survive X scenario to making the perfect environment in your eyes.

Thats why my most played game is garry's mod. One day I am putting npcs into a mini world war and the other I am pitting them against a death robot I build.

> Sandbox games specifically just let you do whatever you want, from testing to see how long npcs can survive X scenario to making the perfect environment in your eyes.

Its really no different from how most children act, honestly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_RZJUAQY4

And of course, don't forget "The Painting Goblin", in which you make an inescapeable, fully equipped basement home and lock one of your sims in there. Then you force them to get _extremely_ good at painting, such that one of their paintings can sell for thousands and comfortably support the rest of your sims family, who never have to work a day in their lives.

Never heard of this strategy, but devious and brilliant in a psychotic kind of way

I also partook in this, except with lots of "goblins". I forced them to live in a house locked away from the outside world with plenty of canvasses in the house, and plenty of things to do that weren't painting (indoor pool).

The specialty rule is that there weren't enough beds, so I tried to get them all into relationships so they would share beds with minimal interaction. If they didn't, then some would pass out on the floor.

They all lived a life of luxury with how much money they printed.

I don't think the average sims users played the game to burn houses down. It's among the most popular game in history not because people wanted to kill their sims, but because it was the first game to appeal to traditionally feminine activities like interior design, socializing and family-making. I get that many of us may have drowned some sims or goofed off, but that's not why the game is among the most popular game of all time.

Look at the still active mod community, social network communities or youtube communities. There are some goofballs doing extremely antisocial things but the 99% of that community are authentically playing the game and enjoying it as an interior design / life simulator.

I fundamentally believe that game developers ignore female and feminine interests in games to their massive detriment, and games like the Sims demonstrate the massive size of the feminine audience for non-violent and rewarding peaceful games.

And the 'nude' showers...

Also, while sims also attracted a lot of female players, especially relative to games at the time, I think there's also something to it dressing up the dollhouse experience in video game trappings that made it appeal to boys too in a way that would have been frowned at if they played with an actual dollhouse.

While there might be overlap, the sims offered players status/career simulation, the option of mating and killing the sims, and a whole host of other things that represented departures from someone's actual life. I'd guess the appeal of the sims was more down to simulated optionality of lifestyles and relationships (+ obvious destructive fun through fires, grim reaper etc) than it was about doing one mundane task.

Owning a house to power wash is a departure from actual millennial life.

I know someone who concocted very elaborate love dodecahedrons, "and the child is not his, and he doesn't know!"

Off-topic: Playing a simulation game like RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 as a kid, I feel in hindsight may have had given me a world-view improvement which story books and other passive learning may have not filled in.

Nowadays, there seem to be quite a few kid EdTech startups/solutions which use gaming. This seems relevant, as the interactivity (from the simulations' simulated actions) helps it seems.

I remember playing The Sims when it first came out. It felt like someone had just distilled the drudgery and futility of modern life into a digital form. I never understood the appeal.

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