|
Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
|
and maybe he can hire the sim mafia to rough up some of the people there 
Quote:
Justice has its price in Sim world
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 1/14/2004
Alphaville's a tough town, the sort of place where even the street-smart are rarely safe and newcomers are often eaten alive. You can call the cops, but they usually don't arrive in time. That's why so many Alphaville residents seek justice by hiring guys like Jeremy Chase. He runs a band of thugs who'll gladly deal out ugly punishments for the right price. Chase, a 26-year-old resident of Sacramento, runs the Sim Mafia
(thesimmafia.com), a gang of digital enforcers for a digital world. They lay down the law inside the Sims Online, a multiplayer computer game run by Electronic Arts. "Our job is to basically take those complaints from the normal citizens of the game, who can't go to EA because EA won't do anything about it, and do an eye-for-an-eye for them," Chase said. There are many groups like the Sim Mafia inside the multiplayer universe of the Sims Online. Unlike other Internet games, this one is an open-ended experience, a sort of "life simulator" that lets players create just about any kind of environment they choose. And some of the choices they're making are surprising, and disturbing.
If a player feels his character, or Sim, is being ill treated and can get no justice from the game operators at EA, he can arrange to have bad things happen to rival players, by approaching a local Mafia and ponying up some of the game's currency, called simoleons.
The Sims is a nonviolent game. There are no guns, and characters can't hit one another. But that doesn't mean the Sim Mafia has no weapons. Chase sends instant messages to other members of his group, and a campaign of harassment begins. The target starts receiving a flood of insulting messages. The Mafia members can add him to their "enemies list," a way of affecting the target's popularity rating inside the game. Unpopular players find it hard to make friends and buy new properties, or "lots."
There are more severe punishments, such as the dreaded "lot job," in which a Sim Mafia member gains access to someone's lot, then trashes it, destroying properties the player might have spent months acquiring. But the most severe punishment -- forcing someone to delete his Sim character -- is reserved for Sim Mafia members who've violated the rules of the organization. Chase calls it a "Moe Green Special," in honor of one of the gangsters murdered by the Corleone family in the film "The Godfather."
Chase insists that he and his Mafia are only out for a good time. "This is my break from reality," he said. But there's a dark side to the fun. Chase admits he and his crew have sometimes been little more than "griefers" (troublemakers) themselves, using their skills to attack innocent civilians. And some of the activity sponsored by groups of Sims has been particularly disturbing. There's the Sim sex trade, for instance. "I'm not going to lie," said Chase. "When I first started the game, prostitution was one of the services I offered." Fear that an underage player would visit his digital bordello persuaded Chase to quit.
Peter Ludlow, a philosophy professor at the University of Michigan who's researching a book about online gaming, also runs a weblog, alphavilleherald
.com, that covers Sims Online news. The weblog featured an interview with a man called "Evangeline" who claimed to run a brothel inside the game, one that featured simulated child prostitution. "My first thought was [EA] might want to do something to clean up the game," said Ludlow. Instead, Ludlow was ejected from the game last month for publishing links to his weblog inside the game -- a violation of the rules. Ludlow, who has opened a new account and rejoined the game, claims that Evangeline went unpunished. He has closed the brothel but is now in the business of stealing simoleons from new Sims Online players. He wonders why EA won't put a stop to it. "The only thing that makes any sense to me at all is they don't care what's going on in the game," said Ludlow. "They just don't want people to know what's going on."
Not so, said EA spokesman Jeff Brown. "There's a rule that says no sexual content allowed in the game." But EA doesn't have a Sim police force constantly monitoring the players, so it can't catch every violation. "The only instance where we take action is when somebody files a complaint," Brown said. As a result, "the rules are enforced about as well as the rules are enforced on the Mass. Turnpike."
But many people have to use the Pike; playing the Sims Online is strictly optional. Some players, disgusted by the online environment in places like Alphaville, are having second thoughts.
"I've been cutting back . . . because I'm just fed up with the world that it's become," said Catherine Fitzpatrick, a 47-year-old freelance writer in New York City. Fitzpatrick is particularly appalled by yet another curious Sim subculture -- players who simulate sadomasochistic sexual practices and invite their horrified neighbors to join the fun. "I'm a member of the ACLU," said Fitzpatrick. "I'm not from the Bible Belt. But I'm concerned when it goes too far, when people are touting this lifestyle that involves violence and enslavement."
Fitzpatrick's especially worried because the Sims Online is part of a series of games, beginning with the original SimCity, that have built up a reputation as family-friendly titles suitable for kids. The online version is rated T for teens, but according to Fitzpatrick "there are plenty of kids in the game." She thinks that if EA wants to allow seamy activities on the Sims Online, the company should set up a version open only to people over age 21.
If EA is interested, the company had better hurry. An online adults-only game called Sociolotron, now under development, will embrace behavior that's supposed to be illegal in the Sims Online. Players will be encouraged to act out fantasies of prostitution, drug dealing, and sexual fetishes.
Sociolotron might appeal to the more vulgar Sims Online players, leaving the decent folk in peace. Then again, the Sims Online has been a big disappointment to EA, attracting just 80,000 subscribers, compared to 650,000 for Sony's online game Everquest. The company can ill afford to lose loyal players -- no matter how tacky they may be.
|
link
__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
|