The Sims it is one of the most popular video game series ever on PC, and one in which the majority of the player base is female. Approximately 60% of The Sims players are women between the ages of 18 and 24affirmed Maxis herself.
The Sims is a saga that more than 20 years ago moved away from the stereotypes that games are “boys’ stuff”, and today it has a base of wide and diverse players (Maxis is one of the companies that has invested the most in updating itself with options for sexual diversity, representation of identities and bodies of all kinds…).
That doesn’t mean men don’t play The Sims, too. Although, perhaps under the influence of the stereotypes of the classical conception of masculinitySome deny it.
Some men would rather say they had done crazy things in The Sims than admit they decorated the bathroom
Rod Humbleveteran producer of the saga (and who now works on his rival, Life by You), recalls in PC Gamer (via Kotaku) a curious anecdote with a group of young boys who lied in a group session (un focus group).
They would rather say that they had been torturing their sims and fucking the whole town than admit that they had been decorating the house.
“I remember a group of young people who were asked, in a mixed room, what they did. And they answered who murdered people, starved them to death, and had sex with everyone in town.“
“But actually, what they did was redecorate the bathroom. That’s what they really did. There’s this idea that there are some things you should say you’re doing, even though you’re not actually doing them. You are cooking, you are decorating the house.”
“They were people who we just saw what they were doing. And then they would come and lie to us and to the group about what they did.”
Rod Humble learned from his experience on The Sims and will respect player privacy in Life by You
Humble recalls this anecdote in an interview at the GDC, where he did not directly allude to The Sims (although he was obviously referring to that game, probably The Sims 3), since he is currently working on a competitor, Life by You.
And it all comes down to an interesting observation about this kind of simulation games: many people do not feel entirely comfortable referring to these alter egos in the first person: there is a tension between “I am controlling a little person, and I am controlling myself in another life”.
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Life by You – Tráiler
This reflection has led Life by You to discard a function that does exist in The Sims: will not use telemetry to monitor what players are doing in-game.
This data is private and is often used to improve the game, but Humble prefers to ensure complete privacy when playing games. Life by You… and that absolutely nobody knows that you have spent two hours choosing tiles for your bathroom.
