Social Commentary?

Consumer America!

If you advance your sims in their careers, you will be making a good amount of cash (and the game has a habit of dropping money in your lap through random phone calls). So you will be buying Sims stuff nearly every day. New Dishwashers, toasters, TVs, computers, chess boards, basketball hoops, pool tables, new kitchen counters, deluxe auto-flush toilets, bigger beds, nicer couches, art for the walls, better lighting. It's a world of consumer pleasure. Each successively finer good they procure allows them to satisfy their needs more efficiently, which is important because as they grow richer, they have more needs and less time.

In real life, these people kill

Now that's a promotion!

Tiptoeing around issues

While some item descriptions are lively and contain some ironic awareness of household consumerism, the game overall does not imply any particular critique of consumer goods. Whatever wit or insight The Sims provides into our lives, you would never mistake The Sims for social commentary. This is a simulation of mainstream suburban Americana. There are slight areas of deviance or progressive politics in The Sims - they ride in carpools and characters can be gay lovers (but not naturally - only if you encourage them to be). There's a criminal career track, so your otherwise sweet and petite housewife can moonlight as a pickpocket or bookie. But otherwise, The Sims represent the people who unrepentantly consume most of the world's resources, much like computer game players themselves.

This is about as nude as Sims get

Just out of the shower, all fresh and blurry

After you shut the game off

The Sims can inspire a bit of perspective on this lifestyle - as I was walking down the aisle of a plane (in real life) after playing some Sims, I noticed each person seated in their little seating unit, each with their own information entertainment device. Another time, after a very long day of The Sims, I lay down and closed my eyes and I saw people moving about their household chores at a very rapid rate. I was playing the Sims, and their houses were cleaner than my own!