It's honestly kind of wild that Sims 4 turned into exactly what Sims 1 was making fun of ...
It's unfortunate this isn't common knowledge .... what a lot of people don't know is the first game wasn't just a life simulator ... it was SATIRE. Everything was slightly off in a way that made you laugh, maybe cringe, question, and could almost relate to in a weird sense. Playing The Sims with an ADULT perspective (after growing up with it since I was 5) is actually insane.
You'd work all day just to be able to afford that cool lava lamp from the buy catalog ... you could literally die from trying to cook your family dinner ... your sim would throw a fit if the environment score was too low ... it was campy, chaotic, and DELIBERATELY ridiculous, like it was aware of just how fucking absurd American suburban life is.
Sims 1 exaggerated real life to show just how EMPTY and consumer-driven American culture is. Fulfillment came from stuff, and the game was in on that joke.
25 years later? The Sims 4 ... it's not in on that joke anymore. It isn't just the joke - it's the whole damn circus.
What's wild is The Sims 4 became the very thing the original game was mocking ... it leans all the way, full-force into that curated lifestyle it used to mock. It sells you anything and everything, with overpriced content .... the game series that used to mock that idea of buying happiness now profits from it. One overpriced pack at a time ... and people eat it up. Every. Damn Time.
Yet somehow, the people calling this out get labeled as "haters," while EA gets defended like they're some scrappy little indie team instead of a billion dollar corporation.
And don't even get me started on the "don't like it, don't play it" crowd. Or the ones who say "It's just a game" ... The Sims has never been just a video game !!! It was an art. It was SATIRE. It was SOCIAL COMMENTARY. It used to actually mean something. Now it's a storefront. And people keep lining up.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk 💋