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Sims unpack online
By CHIP CARTER
In the beginning, Sim City let home computer gamers create cities, complete with the hassles of zoning, transportation, police and fire protection. Then the Sims let players do the same with people, right down to the smallest nuance of everyday life. Now the evolution of the wildly popular Sims computer game takes the next step: The Sims Online opens Tuesday, creating a new community that could have as many as 500,000 players in a year and reinforcing its image as a gaming powerhouse. "It's like playing God," said 16-year-old A.J. Borges from Oxford, Conn. "It's just the sense of control you get." Since its introduction more than a decade ago, the Sims (and its various expansion packs, including the romantically themed Sim Date) has sold more than 18-million copies, making it by far the most popular computer game ever. Creator Will Wright predicts that within a year, more than a half-million players will have shelled out $50 for the online game and another $10 a month to live in its communities.
Gamers who grew up building cities and later developing characters are now signing on in droves to be a part of the Sims Online, a world that actually exists within our own, with scads of characters doing the things we do every day. They build homes, hold jobs, have hobbies, go to church, get married. Even bodily functions are not foreign to the denizens of Alphaville and other Sims Online towns. You can't take anything for granted in the Sims Online world. If two characters meet and want to marry, they have to find a chapel -- assuming someone has taken the initiative to build one. If you want to start a pizza restaurant, you have to find three other players willing to go into business with you, since it takes four Sims to operate the machinery. The Sims world is made up of any number of themed towns -- Western, science fiction, Americana -- each made up of 100 individual lots where gamers can build a home or business and show it off to other Sims. Unlike the computer version, all Sims in the online game are controlled by human players. Early on, without "simoleans" (the game's currency), players "lot-hop," crashing other Sims' lots and performing various chores to earn money for their own stake. But there's more to it than just working to build a house or opening a pizza restaurant or hotel chain. Sims have basic needs -- such as hunger and rest -- that must be addressed. Ignore the need for food or sleep and your Sim will turn balky and start refusing commands. Wright will be playing as well, as a character named Alan Greenspan, fitting since Wright controls the flow and availability of simoleans in the online world. So what's the appeal? Are people so bored with their daily lives they have to create virtual people to live daily lives for them? Remember sea monkeys? Or actually, the ads that you used to see in comic books and magazines promising that your sea monkeys would deliver hours of entertainment as you watched them go about their business? That's pretty much it. Only instead of nearly microscopic brine shrimp that swim around for a few days before your mom dumps the tank, the Sims deliver the goods. As a result, the Sims have won over gamers and nongamers alike. And the games defy typical gaming demographics by drawing lots of female fans as well. That need for control seems to be greatest among teenagers trying on pseudo-adult roles in a virtual world. A good percentage of online players in the prerelease beta test are in the 14-17 age range, judging from fan sites. One site (www.thesimsworld.com) features several pages of messages from young players who said they lied about their age to take part in the beta test, which had a minimum age of 18.
Younger players will be officially welcome starting Tuesday, as long as they can register with a valid credit card. Moderators will be online to make sure the game remains family friendly. Who are these Sims who attract such loyal real-world keepers? "There is really no way to describe your character -- the character is you," said Borges, the Connecticut teen. Jason Kroll, 15, of Bend, Ore., is a musician in real life, so he's developing his Sims' creative abilities with the idea they'll earn simoleans playing piano and guitar at parties. "I reflect my life into my characters, which I think everyone does to an extent," he said. Another player, 22-year-old James Mitchell of Tallahassee, gave his Sim the name Eddie Vedder, along with appropriate garb and likeness, then built a studio and is now advertising for other Sims-ers to start a band, like Vedder's Pearl Jam. "I'm a full-time student with two jobs. I don't have time to start a real band in my life. Why not a simulated one?" Mitchell said. "It's an interesting concept: the ability to portray your favorite celebrity, or even historical characters, like maybe Freud or Picasso. I'm not sure people have realized the fun you could have with that." Yet another young player is planning a streaming audio radio station for Sims. Matthew Bonnett, 15, of Warren, Ohio, says he and friends will take shifts as DJs, playing music from various Sims games as well as other tunes and perhaps launching some talk show programming. He's even considering selling real-world advertising on the station to earn real-world money. He's also covering his in-game bases by planning to launch a hotel chain. Bonnett wants to earn enough simoleans to build the Motel Sims in his "home town" of Alphaville, then franchise the idea to other players. Another player has founded the Church of the Rising Star in Alphaville. Online pitches for the temple promise "many cool things" such as "free Kool-Aid and bubble blowers, swimming pools (for purification)" and "No electronics -- just to keep it feeling very, you know, templish!" Apparently gamers weren't buying into some of the more cultish overtones of the church. The proprietor has relaxed stringent rules that required members to live on a church-owned lot and dress in robes. How far will it all go? Game designer Wright built the first Sim City as a cybermodel of town planning. He sees the Sims as a chance to micromanage those worlds and expects it will evolve in time, autonomously, to include a free-market economy driven by supply and demand, and some form of player-controlled government. And with all that going on, could Sim Offspring be far behind? -- Chip Carter is a syndicated video game columnist who lives in Tampa.
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