Tomato's ART studies: Sims 4 as a reflection of social network culture

Sims 4 is the last released part of The Sims series. It is a life simulator where you create your own characters – sims, and make them go to work, raise kids, cook dinner, and do other everyday tasks.

Distracted attention

"Constantly receiving text messages encourages its owner to submit to a constantly distracted state" - Kazys Varnelis (2010).

Sims 4 has lots of notifications what at the same time is a part of gameplay, but also a distraction from the game. Most of them appear at the up-right corner and look pretty similar to the notifications on the phone. Sims get messages or calls in the left-down corner next to the phone icon. Also sometimes kids ask for advice from their parents and the box with questions and several answers appear in the middle of the screen.
Browsing in social media might give the sim a happy, tense or angry moodlet depending on was the sim trolled online or got a positive comment on his post. Moodlets affect the actions of sim – for example, the tensed character would not be able to do any creational activities and angry sim might scream at someone on his own.
Also, the Sims 4 is the first game in the series with multitasking. It is not only because technologies became better and now it is possible to add this feature, but also because life simulation would look much more fake without it.
All mentioned definitely illustrates distracted attention of the sims, and of the player, who gets distracted even by the game on its own.

Replaced newspapers

There are newspapers in all parts of The Sims series but Sims 4. In old games, papers are delivered daily and are mostly used for finding a job. There are several vacancies and they are changed every day, so it is hard to find something that really suits the sim. On the other hand – searching for a job on the computer shows all existing vacancies in the game. Probably newspapers were added not only as a part of everyday life but also as a free opportunity to find a job. In Sims 4, each sim has a smartphone on default, so there is no need for newspapers anymore. Each character now has an opportunity to pick any occupation from all existing by using the internet on their phone.

Lack of privacy

Characters in the game respect their privacy when someone (their spouse is an exception) comes into the bathroom while they are on the toilet or taking a shower. But the fact, other people know something about their personal life is not questionable at all. Sim’s friends might send messages with the reaction of him having new friends, getting into a fight, stealing something, etc. The way other characters knew this out is never raised in the game. It seems like “people” inside the sims universe have no confidential information, and it does not bother them.

Fiction dominate

Although The Sims is a life simulator game, it always had lots of fiction in it. The world consists not only of humans and animals, but also vampires, aliens, ghosts, spellcasters, and mermaids. It also has some unrealistic things as cowplant eating people, Grim Reaper as the NPC, garden gnomes that might teleport at the random place of the house, potion creation, and so on.
That proves the statement nowadays fiction dominants in video games since it takes a huge part even in the most famous life-simulator.

Reference list:

Jovan J. (2016) "Becoming an Internet Celebrity in The Sims 4 City Living", Sims community, 12 November. Available at: https://simscommunity.info/2016/11/12/becoming-an-internet-celebrity-in-the-sims-4-city-living/ (Accessed: 24 October 2021)

Kazys V. (2010) "The meaning of network culture", Open democracy, 11 February. Available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/meaning-of-network-culture-1/ (Accessed: 24 October 2021)

Life state (2006) Available at: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Life_state#The_Sims_4 (Accessed: 24 October 2021)

Multitasking (2018) Available at: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Multitasking (Accessed: 24 October 2021)

Newspaper (2008) Available at: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Newspaper (Accessed: 24 October 2021)

Teaching moment (2018) Available at: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Teaching_moment (Accessed: 24 October 2021)