A Canadian player of The Sims has introduced his creation in “The Sims 4,” which he created 9 years ago: An efficient, yet cruel place where the nice virtual people work until they drop dead. Six workers enable two capitalists to live a life of luxury.
This is the situation:
- The Sims is a computer game series that began in 2000. Will Wright had a life simulation in mind, where avatars go to work, earn money, and can afford an increasingly comfortable life. Additionally, they fall in love, maintain social contacts, and pursue their hobbies: They live a fulfilling life.
- But a Canadian player created a family called “My Sweatshop Family” in “The Sims 4” in 2015 and sent them into a life consisting only of work and suffering.
- People look fascinated at his creation, which he shares in a series of screenshots on Twitter.
The Sims 4 is a service game that has been continuously developed with numerous updates and expansions over the years, thus becoming a cash cow for Electronic Arts:
What is the life of a Sim in his sweatshop like? The Canadian has built two separate buildings with his meager starting funds:
- An absolutely barren factory with 6 single beds, a kitchen, and 6 workstations with a PC
- A luxuriously furnished bedroom with a double bed
Novels and scripts are written on the assembly line
The player says: He designed the sparsely equipped workspace after his last job, he says. Here, he forced his slaves to write novels and scripts so that he could collect a pile of money in royalties every morning.
One of his slaves died after just 20 minutes:
“He got off easy, I believe,” scoffs the Canadian.
To further humiliate his “slaves,” the player made them wear hot dog costumes.
Workers toil so that the elite can live in luxury
How did it continue? The player said: He quickly realized that writing scripts brings in little money. Therefore, he had them create paintings instead and sold them.
With the money that the enslaved workers amassed, he continued to expand the beautiful part of the house and treated himself to a piano while the workplaces remained bare and miserable.
He will only work for me, never go to school
And what happened when they got older? The Sims grew older.
The player concluded: The workers would just die. While the “hot red-haired baroness” can afford the life serum to stay eternally young.
So what to do? The player set up a “hot dog breeding chamber” to ensure offspring.
The workers then had children as well, but the boss was tough. They would never go to school, but would “work until they drop dead” for him.
Tweet about the lives of the Sims goes viral
What’s behind it. This is a bitter satire on the fundamental idea of The Sims. Normally, one strives for the family – like in a role-playing game – to lead a balanced life and have fun.
However, the player here uses The Sims for social criticism: The masses toil themselves to death while the selected elite lives in luxury.
Apparently, he has hit a nerve, as seen in the many positive comments.
It is said that this is not so far-fetched at all; many companies actually work like this.
The Sims have founded a genre, the life simulation, but there have not been many alternatives in recent years. This might change, as “Sims-like” games could become a new trend: A game on Steam could become exactly what I have wished for as a Sims fan for years
