Presentation: Ethics of video games

The Sims

In my childhood, there were no lack of video games, included Donkey Kong, Mario, Contra, to name but a few. However, i had never thought about what the message and effect beneath those game as every children and teenagers else did. Indeed, many of them can provide excitement as entertainment, release stress, learn more about guns or wars or other knowledge and the sense of danger. But more provide wrong message and cause bad effects to teenagers--people who have less critical thinking and could easily be affected.

The Sims is a life simulation video game, developed by EA Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is one of the most successful video games series of all time. As of September 2013, it has sold more than 175 million copies worldwide.

In the Sims, Players control everything from their Sims’ career choices to their eating habits. It is similar to the real situation that players should control the physical and spiritual needs. What special this game is characters would not grow and be older except accident of fire, drowning or starvation, in which players can murder other people, otherwise they will not have natural death.

Pro (individual) :

1.    Improve the Social Awareness:

Forming friendships, practicing social engagement, exploring other character’s reactions to various interactions, repairing damaged relationships, just like what players did in the game

2.    Improve creativity:

Decorate and design the house, garden, furniture and characters’ look

Decide the actions of the characters

3.    Responsibility

In order to keep the character alive, player should take care of them, feeding them, cleaning them or find a job for them. Also, it trained the planning and problem solving skill because something always be broken in the game (e.g. Tap, oven, tv.), so the player should solve the problem on their own.

4.    Entertainment

Pro (society):

Due to the Sims players’ behavior is similar to the real life behavior, so the Sims has been used by school-age children with cognitive impairments to create narratives of their characters’ lives and to address issues such as anger management, socialization, and pattern discovery in low-income youth.

Cons (individual & society):

The game is violent that players can kill someone on purpose, the way to murder people is far crueler than shot someone in the shooting games or war games. Also, players can burn their neighbor, starve them and drown them to death. It provided a wrong value to players that you can destroy someone’s life easily because of bore or for fun with no blame.

To conclude, the Sims, unlike other pet or human simulation games such as pet society and Tamagotchi, should be played under parents’ supervision. If government did not strict the supervision of video games, parents should play a major role to correct children’s wrong value learn from those games and choose the games for their children carefully.