Is The Sims A Virtual Dollhouse?

Well, the game was almost called Dollhouse, but it was changed to The Sims to get more male appeal.

The article is super conflicted, and doesn't really hit the point where it should or develop itself enough to be meaningful. She starts off rambling about how it's not a dollhouse, but closes with a paragraph about how it wouldn't be a problem if it was a dollhouse because of the storytelling components. So is it a dollhouse or isn't a dollhouse, Gita at Kotaku? It sounds to me like the premise of her article should have been to tell us how the Sims IS a dollhouse, but then also how it's the evolution of the dollhouse to become something completely new and unique, yet still retain the childlike potential for imagination and immersion that draws people to dollhouses in the first place. That would have been a much richer article that could have really discussed the game as a series over 19 years, instead of her weird attempt to add gender dynamics into her article that honestly are irrelevant to the Sims as a game and series. The topic she started has potential, but it overall just felt half-cooked.

It was an engaging and good article — until the author dropped the F-bomb. Too bad. A paragraph prior had me in stitches.

"RosettasStoned;c-16942975" wrote:
Yes, it is. I loved playing Barbies as a child. I never got the Dream House, or the Town House. I had 1 pink couch. That's it. Now with the Sims, I got my dolls and the houses!
It's not just for girls. GI Joe was a man "Barbie". He could go out and do his military thing, then come home to Barbie and their one pink couch. With Sims he can really be a soldier and come home to their dream house.
Barbies had a Skipper, a teenager. With Sims there are babies and toddlers and kids. I don't like any of them personally, I hated Skipper. But it's nice to have.
I'm too old to play with real Barbies now. Sims is it for me!

Skipper was Barbie's little sister. I had one. I missed getting her best friend, Midge, though. I had a real Ken Doll, but not GI Joe. I played into my teens, too. :open_mouth: Now, it doesn't matter that my only daughter owns my Barbie collection, I've got my Sims!

My problme with "dollhouse" is no the female aspect of it, but Sims 4 seems to add more content towards female young adults that its really sad. I wish all my sims had the same amount of stuff to choose from, elders, adults, young adults, teens, kids, toddler, males and females. But no, the have gone from life simulator to a dollhouse approach to this game that... urgh... i cant even talk

Because I build my sims a house - does not make me a carpenter any more than manipulating Sims makes you play like a child with dolls in a doll house. For one thing dolls do nothing - you have to pretend they do things and move them around etc. On the other hand Sims are much like real people living their lives. Left to do their own thing they will live their life with or with out you. No dollhouse does that. No doll house lets your dolls have babies and lets you raise them up to have families of their own. Dolls don't grow old and die - they never change.

Men have homes too, raise families, etc just like females do. It's not a doll kind of thing in my view. I have a number of good male friends and relatives who equally raise their kids in homes as their exes do. It's called living life - not playing dolls.

I played with my sister's dollhouse and her Barbie's and I had a GI Joe, is it any wonder I love the sims?

I like to think of it as exercising my inner child as I have been a fan of dolls and Sims my whole life. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :D

It definitely is a virtual dollhouse. I loved Barbie dolls when I was younger and I would get my younger brother to play with me all the time. This game caught my interest for that exact reason. I've even made some of my old favorite dolls in the sims.

I played with 'little people' dollhouses all through childhood and Sims is my adult version :) I would very much say that Sims is a virtual dollhouse.

I know that dolls in dollhouses never moved themselves, never grew old etc. except in your own imagination. But Sims is just an updated version of a dollhouse which allows you to do a little more. You still need imagination for some aspects of the game. Yes, there are differences, but it is still a dollhouse just the same. Anyone who says it isn't is just kidding themselves ;)

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with guys, gals, young or old playing with a dollhouse, virtual or otherwise.