Sim City

[mahogany]

Last night, a friend of ours who works for EA Sports, the gaming company that made the Sims was telling us according to a survery that they conducted, everyone tortures their Sims at one point. Apparently, people build rooms with no doors or windows, and then watch as the Sims go crazy, starve, and die. I thought this was quite bizarre behaviour, and said so.

I then mentioned that back in high school and university, I was totally hooked on Sim City, and then later, Sim City 2000. I also confessed to deliberately building ghettos. I would create a heavy industrial area along the waterfront, and then stick a medium sized high density residential area smack in the middle of it, to which my friend said “Ah, ha! You were torturing your Sims. You made ghettos. It’s the same thing!”

Oops. Busted!

Oh, and Happy New Year!!!

Comments

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

The truly gross thing about Sim City is that it's all run on the same political principles (low taxes will goose industry which will bring about prosperity) as the Republicans' mantra.

You know, I hadn't thought of that. That's a really interesting point. Everytime I tried to create a really well educated, artsy farsty city with lots of public services, universities, it failed miserably. The residents started to bitch and compain about the taxes, and people started leaving. I wonder how a game that furthers a socialist viewpoint would work? I'm sure the programming could be adjusted. It would probably have limited appeal, but might achieve a cult like status in some circles...

Living in Canada, I have no problem paying taxes, when I consider the benefits. But it REALLY chafes me to see the waste. I know that my tax dollars could be stretched further, and with greater efficiency, I could be paying less in taxes to achieve the same level of services.

I'm starting to think that perhaps if the government played more of a chaperone role in selecting private service suppliers/distributors, rather than in actually supplying the services themselves, we might achieve greater efficiency. We are starting to see some of this in certain areas, and it seems to be working. The quality of service is far superior, and it's much more cost efficient. As long as stringent quality standards are set and monitored, I think this could work in almost all areas.