Derrick
ლ(ಠ_ಠ )ლ
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,085
- Reaction score
- 5
I have been playing PC games since I was twelve years old. That’s twelve years by the way. In those 12 years I have seen a lot come and go. There have been highs and lows, trends and cycles. The games industry is a complicated beast, with new innovations being implemented all the time.
It’s been around ten years since graphics accelerators were first made publicly available, and we are getting pretty close to photo realism. There’s no doubt that the technology behind games has developed exponentially. I remember getting my first graphics card; a Riva TNT 2 Ultra with 32Mb of onboard memory. Now, equivalently priced hardware comes standard with 1GB!
Games are offering a more cinematic experience than ever, with tremendous effort going into story-line and character development. Games with multiple endings and ethical deliberations are all the rage, and if Peter Molyneux has his way then we will all be falling in love with our in game pets. Developers are thinking up the most gloriously gruesome ways to kill virtual enemies, and games often advertise how many customisable weapons their latest and greatest will feature.
It’s beautiful.
I could go on, but I think I have made my point. Or at least I’ve set the precursor to my actual point.
Amidst all this progress and creative new development, there has been one thing, one element of the industry that has been haunting me for eight years. The Sims.
The Sims, or The Sims 2 has managed to remain in the top ten global sales charts over the past 8 years. The franchise is unstoppable. Month after month, EA rakes in millions off this cash cow. This month you will find three Sims 2 expansions in the top 20 global sales charts. It really scares me, that in this age of progress and development, the Sims is still such a major player in the gaming world.
I don’t know what it is about this series. Sure I played it, for about a month and then got bored and never returned.
How are people still going back for more? I just don’t get it. You can do pretty much anything in games today. You can wander around a nuclear fallout zone, killing zombies and mutants. You can tear around the African bush dodging mercenaries and looking for diamonds. The possibilities are endless, yet people keep going back to the Sims, where all you can do is lead a normal life.
Conservatives complain about the state of our society, when people escape into violent and farfetched realities for the sake of enjoyment. I am more concerned with the idea of people escaping reality, and choosing to substitute it with a cardboard copy of the real world!
It’s been around ten years since graphics accelerators were first made publicly available, and we are getting pretty close to photo realism. There’s no doubt that the technology behind games has developed exponentially. I remember getting my first graphics card; a Riva TNT 2 Ultra with 32Mb of onboard memory. Now, equivalently priced hardware comes standard with 1GB!
Games are offering a more cinematic experience than ever, with tremendous effort going into story-line and character development. Games with multiple endings and ethical deliberations are all the rage, and if Peter Molyneux has his way then we will all be falling in love with our in game pets. Developers are thinking up the most gloriously gruesome ways to kill virtual enemies, and games often advertise how many customisable weapons their latest and greatest will feature.
It’s beautiful.
I could go on, but I think I have made my point. Or at least I’ve set the precursor to my actual point.
Amidst all this progress and creative new development, there has been one thing, one element of the industry that has been haunting me for eight years. The Sims.
The Sims, or The Sims 2 has managed to remain in the top ten global sales charts over the past 8 years. The franchise is unstoppable. Month after month, EA rakes in millions off this cash cow. This month you will find three Sims 2 expansions in the top 20 global sales charts. It really scares me, that in this age of progress and development, the Sims is still such a major player in the gaming world.
I don’t know what it is about this series. Sure I played it, for about a month and then got bored and never returned.
How are people still going back for more? I just don’t get it. You can do pretty much anything in games today. You can wander around a nuclear fallout zone, killing zombies and mutants. You can tear around the African bush dodging mercenaries and looking for diamonds. The possibilities are endless, yet people keep going back to the Sims, where all you can do is lead a normal life.
Conservatives complain about the state of our society, when people escape into violent and farfetched realities for the sake of enjoyment. I am more concerned with the idea of people escaping reality, and choosing to substitute it with a cardboard copy of the real world!