You know that new-age internet saying, “all women do is eat hot chip and lie?” Well, now we’ve got a new gamer saying for men. And no, it has nothing to do with them chugging Monster energy drinks and punching holes in the wall when they lose in Warzone, because all men do is “play The Sims and lie,” according to the former studio head of The Sims.
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Caught playing homemaker in 4K
During a GDC interview with PC Gamer about Life by You, a Sims competitor developed by Humble and Paradox Tectonic, former head of The Sims and lead developer for Life by You Rod Humble recounted a time when he witnessed a bunch of dudes lie about what they did during a focus group test for what PC Gamer believes to have been The Sims. Toxic masculinity is one helluva drug.
“I remember a bunch of young guys,” Humble told PC Gamer, “and they get into the room, it’s a mixed room, and we’re like, ‘Hey, what did you do?’ and they’re like, ‘Murdered people. Went in and starved people, had sex with everybody in the town.’ But actually, what you did is you redecorated that bathroom, right? Like, that’s actually what you did. There’s this idea that there are some things you should say you’re doing, but actually, no, you’re cooking, you’re making house.”
Kotaku reached out to The Sims developer Maxis for comment.
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Humble explained this admittedly embarrassing folly of man by comparing it to a self-identity phenomenon that often occurs among life sim players.
“If you hear us talk about playing a life sim, we’ll often alternate between first- and third-person,” Humble told PC Gamer. “So we’ll say, ‘I asked Jeffery on a date, we went on our date, and my person messed it up.’ And so they’ll change from ‘me as the player’ versus ‘my agent did something.’ And that tension is where there’s a lot of magic in life simulation. You’re going back and forth between, ‘Am I playing that person, or is that a little creature that I’ve got a distance on?’”
Anything you can do, I can do better
Apparently, Humble’s upcoming sim game, Life by You, will further explore self-identity by going harder than past iterations of The Sims with customization options for players. For example, a player can control their characters through a first or third-person point of view and “override the default gender, sexual orientation, age, and skin color distributions in their towns” according to PC Gamer. Non-binary and trans identities will be represented, as well.
Early access for Life by You is slated to release on September 12 on Steam and the Epic Games Store.