I turned on the TV today to find that video games invaded MTV. Maybe I’ve been living in a hole or something, I haven’t watched much TV since I started college, and I’m not surprised that there’s Xbox 360 coverage, but what on Earth is This Sims Life? That was certainly an eye opener on the MTV generation of today. This Sims Life is a pseudo-documentary in the style of a human inspiration story that takes a glimpse into the lives of various Sims addicts. Since I am a great believer of bringing video games to more mainstream audiences, I guess I should consider this to be a positive step. However, the content of the show, or lack thereof, creeped me out a little. One girl talked about how the Sims helps her understand her relationship with God and it got me to think—“wow is this what it means to make games mainstream?” On a station like MTV I’m sure they went for the unique stories and good-looking people to interview, but they could have said something about our generation of gamers, or of gaming addictions, good or bad. Instead it was, “Hi, my name is Jane, I am addicted to the Sims, this is my boyfriend Paul, and this is what happens when I kill one of my Sims.” Sure, this is a fabulous marketing ploy, it felt more like an infomercial rather than a documentary anyway, but couldn’t it have said something a little more? I think I would’ve preferred yet another criticism on how games destroy our lives just for a little more substance. This was some attempted praise for a game that had no substance and had a funny way of saying that people who play the Sims are superficial and live to deeply in a make-belief world.
Since when were gamers part of the MTV generation? When I was part of the MTV generation, I barely even played video games. I guess, for me, it sucked the character out of the gaming population, at least the part of it that was personal to me. In their attempt to maybe show the diversity of the Sims audience, they somehow reduced everyone to a shallow annoyance who all sound the same in the end. For a while, I thought that the Sims demographics was a group that broke out of the demographics of violent or nerdy young men. Instead, they get to be shallow. How did gaming culture fall into this depiction? Mass culture doesn’t depict movie-goers or theater buffs this way!
I guess the bottom line is, the MTV generation tends to lead to stereotypes that I just don’t want to be part of. As a female gamer, I already deal with stereotype and often feel strange playing certain video games. The conventional gaming audience, altogether, is one big stereotype! There is just so little out there to really give substance to the richer gaming population out there. This show is one of the only ones of its kind, and it is speaking for the Sims audience. Well, I am a Sims fan, and I resent that This Sims Life would choose a wishy-washy way of saying nothing about our culture and giving its fans no true substance. I’m glad that The Sims has more publicity now, but this show really shouldn’t have been made.