Comments on The Sims and cheating

Although I have never been a big fan of The Sims myself, it has always seemed to me like an interesting game, and I've never had trouble seeing why people find it so addictive. The player becomes a sort of god, controlling every aspect of their sims' lives, making them suffer or making them happy and successful. I'm also fascinated by the way cheats are so explicitly incorporated into the game. I found a few posts from my classmates that took up cheating in The Sims and thought it would be fun to give my own two cents on the matter, even though I have limited experience playing the game.

My first thought when we discussed cheating in general is that it really isn't possible to cheat in the normal sense at a one-player game. The Sims is a perfect example. By entering cheat codes to attain endless money or instantly enhance other aspects of the game, you are only skipping  over all the strategy and content of the actual game. The essence of the game changes - instead of working patiently to increase the success of your sim, you can perhaps focus more time on spending a bunch of money and seeing how badly you can mess things up for your sims. It is still a game, just that the rules have been bended drastically to alter the core gameplay. And since it is only one person playing the game by themselves, it doesn't ruin anything for anyone else.

Emilie argues differently: "We discussed in class about if it really is cheating when you play against yourself and with no actual finish line?  It is debatable but I will say that the answer to that question is yes. Even if you don’t really have an opponent or a goal, it is still cheating because when you cheat you kind of destroy the purpose of the game when you can make anything happen."

From my impression, the main point in The Sims is that the player has full power over their sims. Removing the time variable to attain money might change the dynamics of patiently following your sim around for hours on end, but it doesn't "destroy the purpose of the game", unless being superfluously patient is the point of the game. The only times I've played Sims or Sim City I've used cheats to quickly create a more interesting game and then see how creatively I can destroy the sims' lives or ruin the city. Does that make me a cheater? I think it just means I want to play the game differently, and The Sims is designed in a way to be open for that.

Nellie points out a different perspective on The Sims: "The goal of the game is up to the individual and it doesn’t have a clear ending which can be both good and bad. On the bad side the player may be unsatisfied if it’s just an endless path of creating new families and completing every career choice. But on the good side the game doesn’t feel rushed and stressful like other games were you are supposed to gather points or race against the clock in some way. While playing I felt like this was good because I didn’t feel much pressure to be skilled to be able to enjoy the game fully."

For many people The Sims is fun because it is a game that takes a lot of time, that it can relieve stress and become some sort of pass-time that is ultimately satisfying. Nellie describes The Sims as a game you don't really have to be skilled at to play, that it is enough to put in time and effort into it and the game will offer rewards. I still don't think that it makes my style of playing The Sims "cheating". I would say that we are essentially playing two different games when Nellie plays The Sim's the correct way and I play with the "cheat and destroy" tactic.