In this chapter, Consalvo talks about The Sims which is a game that allows the user to create an online community. Individuals can be made be certain features and personalities such as criminal or school age kid. From there families can be made and then neighborhoods and so on. The game allows relationships to be made such as friendships, dating relationships, and marriage relationships. Heterosexual couples can choose or plan to have a baby while homosexual couples cannot. This is mostly in part to sexuality issues. The creators of the game may have supported domestic partnerships but been against homosexual marriage. So here heterosexual has become the default setting as that’s what a character will be unless specified.
When creating new characters, there are a variety of features and appearances that are used to put together a new individual. Race is a big factor of a new character as skin tones are only given in so many tones and usually there is a maximum dark skin tone that isn’t really all that dark. The default Sims that first pops up is a light-complexioned, middle-aged male. This relates to the idea that this is the norm in American society and all other skin tones and gender have to initially start from it and kind of see it as its maker or founder. The limited range of body types shows that people are expected to fall under certain umbrella sizes. Until recently, there was only one large Sims that was significantly overweight.
The Sims allows for a neighborhood to be built and from there on, society grows and changes as a real one would. Fairy tales can be created from this game as characters can be controlled and whatever the user wants to happen can happen. Society is lost in having the perfect relationship or the perfect wedding when sometimes complete perfection can be outright scary. Mistakes are part of being human as we learn from our mistakes and grow with experience. “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” –Alexander Pope.
Gagan Kular =]
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Have you actually played the Sims, then, Gagan? It would be great to hear about your own experiences trying out the game. It's not so much that there is a default heterosexual Sim setting (it's not something you check off on a list when you create a character), but the sexual orientation is default in the sense that heterosexual marriage is built into the game whereas same-sex marriage is not.
ReplyDeleteThe same sex issue really was something I overlooked until reading this article and discussing it in class. I have played the Sims in the past and never once thought about the fact that you could not have same sex marriages. However, for the homosexual community, this certainly is not something that would go over easy, especially when the game is often times considered one of the best games which replicates or rather SIMulates life. Whether intended to be malicious or not, the game certainly is giving off the impression that only heterosexual marriages should be allowed. This is inherently wrong, seeing as how if the game is intended to simulate life, then its doing a pretty bad job.
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