1/13/04 9:42 PM
A couple of years ago I happened across a quant little game. You were able to control every action that a little person in your computer did. If you didn’t want them going to the bathroom for several days, you could arrange that. If you wanted them to slowly starve to death, no problem. If you would like nothing better then to seal them into a room until the cold hands of the Grim reaper came to eat everything that made them who they were, it could be done inside half an hour.
What I liked about The Sims was that I could play the game for three hours and not think about the damn thing for another couple of months, and be perfectly ok with that. About once a month Maxis would release an update as well, another little toy to add your life of nothingness.
What I thought was entertaining for a couple of minutes, which for the poor cyber life I was torturing must have felt like an eternity, quickly turned into Maxis’ only steady money maker. With the failing of SimCity 3000 due to massive oversights and poor Gameplay (making the game enjoyable seems to be a little hard for Maxis nowadays) and no one going through the effort of buying SimCity 4, Maxis seemed to have to turn back to the one true moneymaker it had kicking around, The Sims.
Maxis started by having a game that's entire purposed based on inviting your Sims friends over, and then having the entire party consist of nothing more then your little torturee wet himself, over and over again. Some how this turned into Maxis selling virtual capitalism. All it seems that people do in this game is try and get their avatar happy enough to go to work tomorrow, to make more money, to buy more stuff.
Now, just a couple of years later, Sims Online has gone to hell. Not only is there an underworld government controlling the actions of every shop and whore house (I wish I made that up) in the game, but Maxis allows all types of actions to be followed through with and turn their backs at what is happening. I think that if Maxis would really like to package capitalism they should also have other types of jobs that a Sim can have. Here are some of my ideas.
Welfare Bum: Your life now focuses around that magic end of the month check. All you do all day is lay around your house and complain about your sore back. The less you do and the filthier you manage to make your living conditions the more you get paid. It is advised that you don’t buy anything necessary for your home, just four wheelers, horses, and a Camaro or two to sit in the front yard and rust and/or attack your neighbors and passersby.
Queer Eye for The Straight Guy Host: You go around and alienate all of your friends with your life partner Troy. You tell them how horrible they dress and how much better life could be if they just “accessorized” a little more. The more that you make people spend on stupid, horribly colored pieces of eye vomit the farther you progress in this career.
Social Leech: Different from the Welfare Bum you don’t have a home of your own, yet are to proud to collect welfare. You drift from home to home taking what you can from people around you. The more that you manage to take from someone the higher up the ladder you have gone. The highest ranks can permanently place themselves in another’s mansion and never have to worry any again.
Nudist: You walk around all day without clothing. Yet another job that alienates neighbors and has parents asking their children to not follow the bad man’s lead. You make money through government grants. You are a religion after all. The more people that you get to join your communion the more money the government will dump your way. Don’t tell anyone but this is just your secret plan to get laid.
Arsonist: You set fire to things. You get paid through the aforementioned underground government. They pay you to go into shops and start fires. The more you advance the bigger fires you set. This is one of the more rewarding jobs because you get to see all of your plans come together right away. Don’t worry about the cops, by the way, they are sitting outside with you chanting the litany of “Fire is pretty in the night.”
These are just some ideas that I had about how
to improve the Sims. In the long run I can pretty much bet that none of them
will be taken and you will just get another dumb job like “Celebrity,”
or “Magic using Harry Potter fan”