cross-postowane z: https://szmer.info/post/300231

Niby prosty tekst o jakiejś planowanej grze komputerowej, a… fascynujący

1. Simsy jako możliwość eksplorowania alternatywnych tożsamości

One reason people play life sims, says former Sims studio head Rod Humble, is that they offer a noncommittal way to explore new identities. Players can try on lifestyles and experiences they’re curious about, but if they feel uncomfortable, they can always hit the eject button by deciding that they’re playing a game about their sim people rather than as them.

“I remember a bunch of young guys, and they get into the room, it’s a mixed room, and we’re like, ‘Hey, what did you do?’ and they’re like, ‘Murdered people. Went in and starved people, had sex with everybody in the town.’ But actually, what you did is you redecorated that bathroom, right? Like, that’s actually what you did. There’s this idea that there are some things you should say you’re doing, but actually, no, you’re cooking, you’re making house.”

2. Wybiórcza identyfikacja z naszą postacią

If you hear us talk about playing a life sim, we’ll often alternate between first- and third-person," said Humble. "So we’ll say, ‘I asked Jeffery on a date, we went on our date, and my person messed it up.’ And so they’ll change from ‘me as the player’ versus ‘my agent did something.’

3. Prywatność w grze komputerowej

The idea that players may want plausible deniability about what they do in life sims also led Humble to leave something out of Life By You: telemetry, or the collecting of anonymized gameplay data for statistical purposes.

“It’s very important for this community, in this day and age, to know that this is a private experience,” Humble told me. “There’s no in-game telemetry gathering data that could, for example, go to a hostile government.”