Is Real-Life Boring? The God Simulator In ‘Sims 4’ & We Love To Play It

The newest addition to The Sims 4 family of DLCs is the High School Years expansion pack. Come July 28, you will have the ability to play out your sims’ life in high school, going to prom, ditching class and expressing your creativity.

The Newest DLC For The ‘Sims 4’ releases on July 28

The Sims evokes a lot of memories in the community. Likely the most famous of the life simulator genre, The Sims franchise consists of four main games and several spin-offs, with The Sims 4 making landfall back in 2014. The main concept is easy to grasp. You control a ‘sim’ and play out their life ingame, working on their careers, skills and hobbies. This game made plenty of memories for me. My friends would question why they always saw me playing it online late at night. Helping my sim apply to university invoked both nostalgic and agonizing memories of my time in college.

Is Life Boring? The Question Of Why The Sims Is Popular

The real hard-hitting question to ask. Why play the Sims when you can live out your own life? What’s so cool about watching an AI live out its life?

Because you get to play God.

When you play The Sims, you get to control nearly every aspect of the sim’s life. Without suffering the real-life consequence, you wield the power to make your sim splurge on food. You make your sim go out and play whenever you’d like, suffering the mildest of penalties for missing work. You can even make your sim succeed at work by simply hitting a ‘work hard’ button. The real power comes in with the realization that you decide whether your sim lives or dies. When you can trap your sims in the swimming pool or remove the house’s toilets, the player goes from a guiding hand to an uncaring puppetmaster.

Barebones On Release, Filled Out Over Years: A Controversial DLC Plan

One of the reasons that The Sims maintains its relevance is due to its steady release of downloadable content. These DLC packs add the ability mechanics such as owning restaurants, playing out working hours, becoming a vampire and much more. While these DLCs add much to the game, a common critique of the release plan is the idea that these should have been included from the start. On release, The Sims 4 found itself criticized for its rather barebones content. Players believe they must pay for content that should’ve been included from the start, rather than buying them years later after release.