Source: DiGRA ’03 – Proceedings of the 2003 DiGRA International Conference: Level Up , 2014

Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666

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This article discusses some ideological issues related with the simulation of social systems in The Sims, proposing an interpretation of The Sims as an ideological game. This paper will focus on describing The Sims as a social simulator of a postcapitalist society: what The Sims proposes as an ideological game is a simulation of a specific set of values linked with a capitalist culture. Therefore, it can be considered not as a social simulator, but as a simulator of an ideology of modern capitalist societies. The last goal of this article is, then, to propose an analysis of the relation between rules, gameplay and ideology in certain computer game simulations.

Keywords: Computer Games, ideology, Philosophy, sociology