Sims the New Dolls?

philgross writes "According to the New York Times, lots of girls and younger teens are abandoning their dolls for the Sims. Says one professor, "We leave most of the social work in our society to women and The Sims lets young girls, in particular, work out their desires and conflicts about those relationships." Says another, "Children generally want to create characters, but with girls we see them wanting to create a friend." Meanwhile, says Will Wright, boys will "do the same stupid thing over and over again and be happy," (and I wince looking at my vast collection of first-person shooters). The article does quote one 10-year-old boy who plays with Sims, and has learned valuable life lessons. "I learned don't leave your baby crying or people will come take your baby away."" And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

I think I helped start this

[Anonymous Coward]

Right before the first Christmas after the Sims came out, I was having my haircut and discussing the holiday. My hairstylist said she still need another gift for her pre-teen daughter, and I suggested The Sims. Well, she loved it, and apparently she loved it too much, as the next time I visited for a haircut, I learned grounding now involved loss of The Sims.

Natural Selection

[Donniedarkness]

The article does quote one 10-year-old boy who plays with Sims, and has learned valuable life lessons. "I learned don't leave your baby crying or people will come take your baby away."

So what you're trying to say, young man, is that The Sims helped your family line from becoming a victim of natural selection?

The Sims taught me...

[John Courtland]

that taking a piss takes about an hour. Seriously, the timescale on that action is ridiculous.

They're not dolls!

[the_humeister]

They're action figures!!!

This is an outrage

[defile]

The article does quote one 10-year-old boy who plays with Sims, and has learned valuable life lessons. "I learned don't leave your baby crying or people will come take your baby away."

Subjecting one's offspring to unspeakable torture is every American's GOD GIVEN RIGHT.

Re:The Sims taught me...

[Bacon Bits]

They normalized the timescale between both sexes.

An Important Lesson

[Crash Culligan]

And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

Memo to Myself: If I ever need a babysitter, do not call CmdrTaco.

Re:Natural Selection

[pyrrhonist]

When I was ten, I could barely take care of my Transformers.

Well, they are more than meets the eye.

Forget dolls, what about ponies?

[Benzido]

So if Sims are the new dolls, what are the new ponies?

Barbie Horse Adventures, it should be pointed out, doesn't have any ponies.

Re:An Important Lesson

[Carthag]

I had enormous fun building a 7-bed one room house inhabited by 8 men & a huge bigscreen TV. It's amazing & hilarious how often they get in fights when their lives are so completely horrible.

Torturing Sims....and Little Computer People

[abbamouse]

Hmmmm.... I learned some of those lessons from Little Computer People on my Commodore 64. If you don't feed the LCP he gets sad and turns green. If you leave the machine on overnight to watch him starve, your mother will decide that you probably shouldn't have a pet just yet, even though it turns out that you can't kill an LCP. Seriously, my mother was so moved by the suffering of my LCP that she made me give him food and water while she watched :)

Re:An Important Lesson

[Jeremi]

I had enormous fun building a 7-bed one room house inhabited by 8 men & a huge bigscreen TV. It's amazing & hilarious how often they get in fights when their lives are so completely horrible.

Too bad you didn't have a copy of the Sims handy at the time... you could have found out the same things without going to all that expense!

What I learned from The Sims

[jdbartlett]

I learned that if I type "ctrl+shift+c" and "motherlode", I get loads of money for free. Only it didn't seem to work when I tried it at First National Bank.

Also, pizza costs $40

EA finally...

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Sims 2 even includes things like buying groceries. If you don't go buy groceries you don't eat.

So more than a decade after buying/destroying Origin they've recreated characters buying food and getting hungry.

Moderated: Troll

Re:Purple Moon, John Romero, and sexist games

[Saint Stephen]

The only thing I ever did with either the Sims or The Sims 2 is have two chicks living in the house flirting as heavily as they could with each other until they finally did it. Then, no more interest. Took about 8-10 hours each time.

With Sims 2 I tried to get 3 girls to all simultaneously be in love with each other, but it was too tricky.

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Re:It's a little sad

[MourningBlade]

Sigh...I might as well finally admit it: MourningBlade <3 KFG. KFG <3 Mourningblade?
|__| Yes |__| No

Re:EA finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Avatar! My stomach doth gnaw at my backbone, can we stop for food soon?

Iolo, if you dont stop whining I swear by the Eight Virtues that I will gut you and feed your still-living innards to giant rats.


The more things change, the more they stay the same.

boys will do...

[Landshark17]

boys will "do the same stupid thing over and over again and be happy,"

It's true. The first thing any new Sim does under my control is get a girlfriend, and I never tire of it.

Re:It's a little sad

[ockegheim]

Three cheers for KFG, MorningBlade, and their confused-to-be kids!