"Why Are We Sadistic Towards Our Sims?" (New Statesman article)

@Uzone27 I haven't had them catch fire by cooking except once! I thought the fire alarm would bring the fire department too.... It is kind of pointless to have one, isn't it? Now that I think about it, it only alerts ME the Sim is on fire...

I've killed a sim on purpose twice, with fire, in my simming life. Once was in TS2, and once in TS3. The screaming was so unnerving, that I've never done it again. It was particularly bad in TS3.

I've "punished" a sim in TS2, a particular father who would often shove his daughter away when she would run to hug him at the mailbox when he got home from work and make her upset. I used to make one of his fears come true as punishment for being mean to his little girl.

In TS3 I mainly let my sims interact and whatnot as they please. I like the game to have things like divorce, cheating, slapping, fighting, negative interactions and whatever else, for my stories, and my sims everyday lives, but I see no reason to purposely torture sims unnecessarily and just for the fun of it. I know it's just a game, and the sims are just pixels, but that just isn't me.

I'm in the "I never tortured my sims for fun" boat. Sure, sims die and suffer and make each other's life miserable over the course of the stories I play, but that's sims doing that to other sims. I'm strictly outside my game.

However, I did all the fun things the author mentions about Zoo Tycoon: dropping visitors into predator fish tanks, unleashing the big cats on the visitors, testing which species eats which other (sadly, hunger doesn't fill up)... So the appeal of torturing pixels is certainly there, it just doesn't manifest when I play the Sims. Maybe I percieve Zoo Tycoon as a game but the Sims as a storytelling environment? I mean, I wouldn't punish my OCs for something I had them do in a story, either. That would be silly.

"EnkiSchmidt;15439524" wrote:
I'm in the "I never tortured my sims for fun" boat. Sure, sims die and suffer and make each other's life miserable over the course of the stories I play, but that's sims doing that to other sims. I'm strictly outside my game.

However, I did all fun things the author mentions about Zoo Tycoon: dropping visitors into predator fish tanks, unleashing the big cats on the visitors, testing which species eats which other (sadly, hunger doesn't fill up)... So the appeal of torturing pixels is certainly there, it just doesn't manifest when I play the Sims. Maybe I percieve Zoo Tycoon as a game but the Sims as a storytelling environment? I mean, I wouldn't punish my OCs for something I had them do in a story, either. That would be silly.

lol I did some of that in zoo tycoon. Minus the testing species to see who was where in the food chain. I can get on board with virtual people dying, not keen on virtual animals dying! :D

"MidnightAura;15439528" wrote:

"EnkiSchmidt;15439524" wrote:
I'm in the "I never tortured my sims for fun" boat. Sure, sims die and suffer and make each other's life miserable over the course of the stories I play, but that's sims doing that to other sims. I'm strictly outside my game.

However, I did all fun things the author mentions about Zoo Tycoon: dropping visitors into predator fish tanks, unleashing the big cats on the visitors, testing which species eats which other (sadly, hunger doesn't fill up)... So the appeal of torturing pixels is certainly there, it just doesn't manifest when I play the Sims. Maybe I percieve Zoo Tycoon as a game but the Sims as a storytelling environment? I mean, I wouldn't punish my OCs for something I had them do in a story, either. That would be silly.

lol I did some of that in zoo tycoon. Minus the testing species to see who was where in the food chain. I can get on board with virtual people dying, not keen on virtual animals dying! :D

I never saved afterwards, so any eaten animal would still be there safe and sound the next day :)
But for a time opening the cages and watching the chaos unfold was a sort of morbid routine before shutting down the game.

"EnkiSchmidt;15439540" wrote:

"MidnightAura;15439528" wrote:

"EnkiSchmidt;15439524" wrote:
I'm in the "I never tortured my sims for fun" boat. Sure, sims die and suffer and make each other's life miserable over the course of the stories I play, but that's sims doing that to other sims. I'm strictly outside my game.

However, I did all fun things the author mentions about Zoo Tycoon: dropping visitors into predator fish tanks, unleashing the big cats on the visitors, testing which species eats which other (sadly, hunger doesn't fill up)... So the appeal of torturing pixels is certainly there, it just doesn't manifest when I play the Sims. Maybe I percieve Zoo Tycoon as a game but the Sims as a storytelling environment? I mean, I wouldn't punish my OCs for something I had them do in a story, either. That would be silly.

lol I did some of that in zoo tycoon. Minus the testing species to see who was where in the food chain. I can get on board with virtual people dying, not keen on virtual animals dying! :D

I never saved afterwards, so any eaten animal would still be there safe and sound the next day :)
But for a time opening the cages and watching the chaos unfold was a sort of morbid routine before shutting down the game.

I might have dropped guests in the lion cage and shark tank.. :p

Love the zoo tycoon series! It makes me want to play now!

Anyhow back on topic.. :-)

Oooo yes, certainly killed many a park guest with the release of big wild kitties who were hungry. Also did a lot of that roller coaster going to fast with no end- people flying off and crashing. Looooved dropping them in the lake too.

Funny enough, I first the read this post earlier at work and decided to come home and make an old boss just to see what torturous fun I could have with her.

Well, i can be really mean toward some sims, lately it's Summer Holiday who get a bad ending. My sims brother marry her and moved with her in a different house that my sims because Summer were pregnant. Everything were fine with her until i made my sims visit the couple and their newborn. I noticed that he was nearly starving but he and Summer didn't cook, so i made my sims make a meal for them, and Summer ask me to leave. So i moved my sims with her brother and kill summer as a revenge ...

I think it all depends on how much you love those sims. I like to kill sims that I don't care about, so yeah, in a way I'm sadistic. XD

I guess I'm just no killer. I've even tried to make a particular succubus where she would make them fall in love, move them in , kill them and take the money they brought. I wanted her to become a millionaire off of it. Didn't happen lol. She fell in love got married and had a kid.

They have so many facets about them it's hard to just be evil to end them. If I don't like them, I just don't play them. I don't like death nor pain.