Paper and Public Art

Christine Almendras

ART 381: Critical Play

Professor Jeff Ray

22 February 2017

Ideal Life in Simulation Games

            Often times, videogames are made for the mere purpose of escaping reality. Humans engage and create interactive games in order to distract themselves from the real world, and allow them to interact with a world that they are able to manipulate and change to their desire. In McKenzie Wark’s book, Gamer Theory, Wark discusses and argues that computer games are becoming a “utopian version of the world itself.” Within the book, Wark touches upon subjects and different games such as The Cave, The Sims, Vice City, Civilization III, etc. However, the purpose of this essay will be to analyze the fact that people often create what they deem “a perfect life” in utopian, simulation games such as The Sims.

            To begin, the purpose of any game made under The Sims is to give the player the power to create a virtual reality, and play as “themselves” through a character called a “sim.” These “sims” are allowed to engage in daily human activities such as getting a job, getting married, cleaning the house, eating, and even going to the bathroom. Wark mentions that The Sims is a game “that could be a parody of everyday life in ‘consumer society’” (Wark, 28). In other words, Wark is arguing that the player often lives vicariously through their “sim” character, while engaging in the consumerism society and buying items which they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise in the real world. Therefore, I often believe that people tend to play The Sims in order to become successful in life within their heads. A majority of people all dream of owning a yacht, having a successful marriage, owning a mansion, and having steady income. So, with this claim, players often believe you have completed the game of The Sims when you have successfully achieved everything in your life, and at the point, it would be pointless to live in that virtual reality because there is no more goal to achieve.

The Sims is a game that starts the player from the bottom. From personal experience, the player makes their sim and is given about 10,000 dollars to either build or refurnish a home. From there, the player has ultimate control of what happens to their Sim. Most of the time, people play the game in order to advance to the top. The feeling of accomplishment, and going from nothing to everything and success at once is a feeling most people are proud of. As said in Gamer Theory, is it mentioned that “the game rewards the player every time [they] buy new stuff … it is a parody of consumerism and at some point your stuff takes over your life” (Wark, 28). Because society is surrounded by the idea of capitalism and consumerism, we are often discouraged when we cannot afford the finest things in the real world. However, we find comfort and engage in a world of fantasy when we are able to do that through our sim characters. Therefore, I believe that The Sims allow people to live a life that they fantasize about, and wish to achieve “the American Dream” at some point in their lives.

It should be noted that The Sims is a game in which the player has full control of their destiny and their character. In Game Theory, it is mentioned that “as the player proceeds through the game, [they] gradually discover the rules that operate in the universe constructed by the game.” FIX LATER

In relation to my city that I wish to build in this class, I definitely have this type of mindset and I was able to make a connection with the types of people who play The Sims. As someone who was an avid player of the Sims, I was the type who was determined to live a successful life and to live vicariously through my sim. I wanted my sim to have a nice, modern home, have a significant other and children, and have a job that made a lot of money. In various ways, I can connect this with how I want my city since I want my city to be a modern utopia. I have accepted the fact that I want perfection in my city, and I want everything to look nice, simple and modern because this is how I want my future life to be. Therefore, I think that I have been living vicariously through my city as other people live a successful, ideal life through their Sims. To further explain what my city entails, I want all of my buildings to have some type of modernistic feel to it. In particular, I would want my housing and apartment buildings to have a modernistic influence, while my commercial and government buildings to have a futuristic and unique look.

Overall, I believe that videogames often given us a reason to distract us from the real world.  Whether it is to distract us from personal problems or gives us pleasure, it allows us to live in a virtual reality that is so different from our own lives. Videogames serve the very purpose of allowing humans to unleash their inner imagination.

Public Art

I like the idea of having interactive public art in my city. Maybe the player can interact with this art, and this type could be find in commercial areas or parks. 

I want some of the public art in my city to have to do with water, since water is a motif throughout the whole environment.

I would also want my public art to be modern, unique and stand out. Again, maybe it could even be interactive with the environment around it.

Notes about Lecture Week 4

Commenting on the content of Lecture 4, I liked that the game Minecraft was included within the lecture. If anything, I think it is a game where I have the most experience building a city, and I have had some inspiration for my current city in past Minecraft worlds I have created. Within the lecture, I also found Vito Acconci's "Muir Island Walkway" a beautiful piece of art. It even gave me some ideas I had about my city, since I wanted to incorporated bridges over still water in my city. I think the architecture on his work is very modernistic, and gives other people an idea of how I want my city to look like.