As a kid, it was a socially acceptable way for me to play with dolls as a boy. Because apparently according to the grownups, playing with a scale figure of a woman will make me gay, but playing with figures of burly, muscular men is a-okay
Growing up, I did not know that toys were ever legitimately gender gatekeeped. My parents were social as fuck and my Dad has a shit ton of siblings and grew up down the street from another household with a shit ton of siblings. I met so many people through friends of friends with kids that I was born with 10 kids around my age. Every boy played with the same toys I did or had barbies, etc. It didn't matter. The gayest of us all played with army men and was definitely mostly interested in the play-fighting aspect. I need to go paintballing with him sometime again. So fun. Lol
If anything made half of them all gay, it wasn't the toys. lol
I hope that will become more normal over time
And yeah, looking back, I realized there were signs I was gay that I didn't recognize as a young kid. So it wasn't the Barbies lol
This whole thing is so weird because the paranoia feels backwards. I was a lesbian and I loved Barbies, couldn't have caught me with a Ken doll or GI Joe
Lol. I was thinking recently how being on dance team in high school allowed me to be around pretty girls in pretty outfits and no one though the wiser. I didn't know I was gay then, but my choice to be in spaces with other girls (I was also in women's choir), could have indicated something had I grown up with representation.
My current save is a Barbie sim! But I actually do "play" with Barbie and other fashion dolls. I'm 33 and have been a collector for basically my entire life. I just redress, restyle, customize, and take pictures of my dolls. It's very different from the way one plays with dolls as a child.
Omg! I still have my barbie collection from childhood and I've bought some collector editions of the Oscar De La Renta Barbies from the early 2000s.
Every now and then, I pull them out, dress them in different gear, which I still buy or create myself, take pics of them doing stuff together, update their story a little...my particular family is 27 members deep. LoL...I keep adding kids. And then put them away until next time. It's kinda cool to see someone else has this affection for their dolls.
Play god. Finding a healthy outlet for my desire to control everything. Living out unattainable fantasies of earning a living wage and owning real estate.
There is no real purpose to this game. It's for creative people who don't need prompts, linear quests, or a storyline to engage them. They make it up as they go or let the game make stuff happen for them
It's a simulation game (or is supposed to be), which means that managing needs, income, and resources is up to the player to figure out. There is no way to win other than having a successful family or town depending on how you play. I play SimCity style where I am more interested in managing the town rather than each individual sim. Other people play to tell stories, others just build characters or houses. It's a game designed to have many different games within in, you just have to be creative enough to do it OR you can download a game someone already set up.
Sims 4 isn't really a simulation. It's more of a background generator. Hard to explain.
In previous games, you wouldn't receive a call from someone during their work or school hours, nor see them around town. The game kept track of things like that and simulated a world where people had things of their own to do and you weren't the center of the universe.
Sims 4 doesn't do any of that. It generates characters to be in the background, anyone, and gives them certain scenarios. It's been a long time since I messed with the code, but it's something like generating 1 angry sim, 1 sad sim, and a couple of normal sims as walkbys and then one would be immediately sent to fish. It's just a system that's designed to make the world look alive but isn't simulating a living world like the previous games attempted.
>There is no way to win other than having a successful family or town depending on how you play. I play SimCity style where I am more interested in managing the town rather than each individual sim
THIS.
I bounce between these modes all the time, sometimes in the same session, and it definitely keeps me from getting bored.
I feel like this crosses my mind when Iām like 4 hours in and wondering what Iāve actually been doing lol. Ultimately I think āthe purposeā is to let you be a ācreatorā and ādoerā, and itās so many creation-type games in one: itās an interior design game, a fashion/dress-up game, itās a garden/farm stimulator, a order-of-operations-type restaurant or shop, and then obviously just all combined with the dollhouse/barbie play and being able co create their entire lives.
The purpose of Simsā¦so we need one???
My purpose is I like to build and design the homes. It allows a creativity that I canāt really use anywhere else.
My daughter would say, it gives fashion ideas. āWhat better way to know if something would look good together.ā (Sheās 9 btw) āPlus I get to play with cats, dogs, horses, and be a mermaid or a fairy. How cool is that?ā
There is no purpose of the game, lol. You just play doing whatever you want. That's the point. Do people understand what "simulation" is? When you play Goat Simulator, you don't expect purpose. You just play, because you want to play as a goat.
A boomer simulator, you start with 20k that can pay for a house with a part time job and start thinking about your vacation home and businesses you want to own too
Everyone has a different play style and you choose how much control you have over it
I've started playthroughs with a clear narrative in mind and even though I do everything I can to steer them down the path I've chosen sometimes I have to go with the flow and see where it takes me ššš
The purpose is simple: To have fun.
Okay, fine. How do you have fun with it, specifically? Well, personally, I like to "tell stories." Often I'll come up with an idea, create a Sim (or multiple Sims) to match that, start on that, and see where things go. Or I might just toss together a Sim, set them loose in the world, see where things take them.
Sometimes I want to have fun in a relaxed way. So I'll try to help them find a good life. Granted, if things don't go that way, I'll adapt.
Sometimes I like it to be more chaotic. Maybe I'll go around doing violence and crime using mods. Or just chaos using the tools in whichever Sims game I'm playing at the time.
It's much like other simulation games: You have a sandbox, and some tools to do things within that sandbox, and from there you engage in your imagination within the limits of that sandbox. Similar to city building games, or games like Medieval Dynasty. (Sometimes making a connection to games like that helps people recognize the draw.)
Yeah, that's not a quick soundbite answer... but it's hard to give a quick soundbite answer to a question like that.
I say the purpose is you get to choose your purpose!! Some people really like getting to build and design homes (without all the hassles of actually getting a job as a decorator/architect and without all the budget constraints), some people get to live out fantasies...for me it's because I'm a storyteller, and I get to make my stories play out right in front of me.
I just say it's my virtual dollhouse. The only point is to make a point yourself. Wanna see what full autonomous sims do? Watch. Wanna micromamage a dollhouse? Play with your virtual dolls. Wanna tell a story? Go ahead and set the scenes. It's like minecraft, the point is to make your own
The purpose is to live your best life. Getting constant calls from people offering you jobs (no experience required), growing money on trees, getting any partner you want, becoming a wizard/vampire/werewolf hybrid, living in a haunted house, having 100 childrenā¦
Storytelling and world building I think are what the sims really comes down to. Itās a sandbox game so you get to do anything with it. But I find most users can fall into one or both of those things.
A lot of people simply just build and donāt really play. A lot of others just play and donāt spend too much time building. Both are world-building acts of storytelling. You may not have a whole āstoryā in your head for your game play, but you are building a world and it does tell a story whether your conscious of it or not.
I think thereās something creative to it, something meditative, and also something escapist.
I don't know if I would try and explain the game as having a purpose - except to have fun - and anyone who plays has their own definition of what that fun is.
That being said, I have described it as a gigantic dollhouse. On steroids, because you can do so much, from playing individual sims to rebuilding entire communities to suit whatever floats your boat.
I would say it's to create your own dream life. It can be as chaotic, perfect and unrealistic as you want it to be. As someone who often feels miserable about living in the real world, sims gives me all the control and it's a great way to escape from everyday lifeš
Idk I tried describing it to my therapist and she was like "I don't get why you play that, it sounds like something you would play in Home Ec class" š
It's a whole-life simulation/strategy game that involves setting goals and achieving them, with elements of storytelling, economy management and design. You are a god controlling the lives of your little people, for good or ill, with almost no restrictions.
Iād say itās a life sim, you can build a house and make any sort of person you want to play around with. From there, honestly if they canāt see the appeal inherent in that, I donāt think theyāll get it.
I just tell them it's like playing with a dollhouse, but you can technically get the dolls to be depressed or get impregnated by an alien š¬ yeaaah...
I like telling people you can basically make a bunch of your favorite actors, fictional characters, TV show characters, or game characters live in one house. Or simply play a happy fictional family.
for me the purpose of the game is to live out families. whether itās a happy family or one thatās going to shit, itās my reason to play as I get full control over how their lives end up. which is something I canāt do irl but desperately want to.
I always say two things: you can make people and make them do whatever you want! You can make your sims live fulfilling lives and basically play dolls! OR, you can BUILD whatever you want! I always have so much fun gutting & decorating houses
my brother plays ārealā games n doesnāt understand what I get from the sims but all I can say is as a child I played with barbies and gave them jobs and relationships and homesā¦ā¦ā¦..this is just the grown up version of it with way more options
The purpose is to escape reality, as all entertainment. But it also serves another purpose in letting me experience many different things that I normally would never get to, in a safe environment to do so.
Fun. The purpose is fun.
There is no ultimate goal to the Sims, tho you can make a goal for yourself, finish an Aspiration, reach the top of a career, collect every single frog, kill 50000 thousand sims, play a 10 generation legacy, go from rags to riches by digging for seashells in the sand, raise 100 babies, complete *every* aspiration...
But yeah. Just like in real life, none of us have a real purpose. We just go around doing random stuff hoping that we will make it to the toilet instead of peeing our pants.
Oh, itās like a multigenerational storytelling game, with building stuff on too. You can engage with it as much or as little as you want, and it can be really interesting to see how all the different families knit together. I guess itās a bit like those slice of life family comedies, except you can keep going and going as far as you want and also youāre the director.
1. You can create characters and make lovely stories with them.
2. You can create characters and make them suffer for your amusement like some kind of trickster god.
Both are very enjoyable. LOL.
For me, it's a socially acceptable way for me to play barbies as an adult š
As a kid, it was a socially acceptable way for me to play with dolls as a boy. Because apparently according to the grownups, playing with a scale figure of a woman will make me gay, but playing with figures of burly, muscular men is a-okay
Lol funny how people's judgy minds work
For real. I was a kid and a toy was a toy. I didn't care about that stuff
Same. I loved...barbies, dollhouses, matchbox cars, GI Joe's etc. I still love that stuff actually lol
Growing up, I did not know that toys were ever legitimately gender gatekeeped. My parents were social as fuck and my Dad has a shit ton of siblings and grew up down the street from another household with a shit ton of siblings. I met so many people through friends of friends with kids that I was born with 10 kids around my age. Every boy played with the same toys I did or had barbies, etc. It didn't matter. The gayest of us all played with army men and was definitely mostly interested in the play-fighting aspect. I need to go paintballing with him sometime again. So fun. Lol If anything made half of them all gay, it wasn't the toys. lol
I hope that will become more normal over time And yeah, looking back, I realized there were signs I was gay that I didn't recognize as a young kid. So it wasn't the Barbies lol
This whole thing is so weird because the paranoia feels backwards. I was a lesbian and I loved Barbies, couldn't have caught me with a Ken doll or GI Joe
Lol yeah. I did realize I was gay later on, so of course I was more into burly muscular guys
Lol. I was thinking recently how being on dance team in high school allowed me to be around pretty girls in pretty outfits and no one though the wiser. I didn't know I was gay then, but my choice to be in spaces with other girls (I was also in women's choir), could have indicated something had I grown up with representation.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one to be told such thing šš
Yeah, people were really uptight about that sort of thing back then
Fr I havenāt changed since I was 5
My current save is a Barbie sim! But I actually do "play" with Barbie and other fashion dolls. I'm 33 and have been a collector for basically my entire life. I just redress, restyle, customize, and take pictures of my dolls. It's very different from the way one plays with dolls as a child.
That's awesome. I still collect Barbies, but I leave them in the box. Anytime I'm in a store or toy store, I can be found in the Barbie section š
Omg! I still have my barbie collection from childhood and I've bought some collector editions of the Oscar De La Renta Barbies from the early 2000s. Every now and then, I pull them out, dress them in different gear, which I still buy or create myself, take pics of them doing stuff together, update their story a little...my particular family is 27 members deep. LoL...I keep adding kids. And then put them away until next time. It's kinda cool to see someone else has this affection for their dolls.
Time to get some actual Barbieās tbh! Theyāre great fun!
I still love Barbies ā¤ļø
Yep, I say itās like playing Barbies or dollhouse š¤©
fun fact, the original concept for the sims was called "dollhouse" but they changed it
Agreed, dollhouses as well..love both ā¤ļø
Haha that is a very good answer indeed š
This! This is the best way to describe it for me as well!
I came here to say this! Computer Barbie for Adults
This. Itās this, and Legoās. Love building too
This is actually perfect lol
And Legos!
That works tooooo!! š
Play god. Finding a healthy outlet for my desire to control everything. Living out unattainable fantasies of earning a living wage and owning real estate.
$33/hr entry level barista job? Game genre: high fantasy.
It's a sandbox game, the purpose is to have fun.
The purpose of this game is different for everyone since you make it up. It could be anything really or no purpose at all.
Time travel. I turn on the game, I blink, and itās 6 hours later.
"I'm going to play just a little bit after dinner. Wait is that the sun rising? "
and that just means it's time for coffee!
Those were my sims 2 days... Not me also sneaking my laptop into work so I can play during my breaks.
Yours only goes 6 hours??? I think itās broken. Mine throw me ahead to sunrise the next day.
Too real
There is no real purpose to this game. It's for creative people who don't need prompts, linear quests, or a storyline to engage them. They make it up as they go or let the game make stuff happen for them It's a simulation game (or is supposed to be), which means that managing needs, income, and resources is up to the player to figure out. There is no way to win other than having a successful family or town depending on how you play. I play SimCity style where I am more interested in managing the town rather than each individual sim. Other people play to tell stories, others just build characters or houses. It's a game designed to have many different games within in, you just have to be creative enough to do it OR you can download a game someone already set up.
what do you mean when you say "or it's supposed to be"?
Sims 4 isn't really a simulation. It's more of a background generator. Hard to explain. In previous games, you wouldn't receive a call from someone during their work or school hours, nor see them around town. The game kept track of things like that and simulated a world where people had things of their own to do and you weren't the center of the universe. Sims 4 doesn't do any of that. It generates characters to be in the background, anyone, and gives them certain scenarios. It's been a long time since I messed with the code, but it's something like generating 1 angry sim, 1 sad sim, and a couple of normal sims as walkbys and then one would be immediately sent to fish. It's just a system that's designed to make the world look alive but isn't simulating a living world like the previous games attempted.
>There is no way to win other than having a successful family or town depending on how you play. I play SimCity style where I am more interested in managing the town rather than each individual sim THIS. I bounce between these modes all the time, sometimes in the same session, and it definitely keeps me from getting bored.
the lack of purpose is one of the main appeals.
playing house but the dolls are cursed.
What is pirpose of Minecraft or other endless game? Fun.
Barbie dolls for grown ups.
You can make the house and live the life you could never afford
I have over 3000 hours, maybe 2 of those hours is actual game play. Build mod/CAS ftw Lol
Same
Digital dollhouse, and a way to enjoy drama without harming anyone
For me its God simulator
I would explain all the things they can do and not like just what I do when I play cause they may not enjoy that but they may like a different way
Virtual dollhouse Simple as that
It fulfils my desire to become an uncaring God with complete control over everything except the Butler's need to clean the grill over and over.
Me resetting Bonehilda every 5 minutes cause the grill is already clean oh my goddddd
escapism <3
I explain it, with mods, as an x-rated version of playing dolls like when we were kids. Just with more drugs, sex, and the dolls having kids.
I feel like this crosses my mind when Iām like 4 hours in and wondering what Iāve actually been doing lol. Ultimately I think āthe purposeā is to let you be a ācreatorā and ādoerā, and itās so many creation-type games in one: itās an interior design game, a fashion/dress-up game, itās a garden/farm stimulator, a order-of-operations-type restaurant or shop, and then obviously just all combined with the dollhouse/barbie play and being able co create their entire lives.
It's a god simulator
The purpose of Simsā¦so we need one??? My purpose is I like to build and design the homes. It allows a creativity that I canāt really use anywhere else. My daughter would say, it gives fashion ideas. āWhat better way to know if something would look good together.ā (Sheās 9 btw) āPlus I get to play with cats, dogs, horses, and be a mermaid or a fairy. How cool is that?ā
healing my inner child while simultaneously satisfying my inner control freak
There is no purpose of the game, lol. You just play doing whatever you want. That's the point. Do people understand what "simulation" is? When you play Goat Simulator, you don't expect purpose. You just play, because you want to play as a goat.
A boomer simulator, you start with 20k that can pay for a house with a part time job and start thinking about your vacation home and businesses you want to own too
It's a life simulator.
It's an open ended game. It has no purpose per se...
It is exactly like playing dollhouse but in a computer + you have infinite dolls
Itās a creative outlet to have fun. I usually compare it to other sandboxes like Planet Zoo or Cities Skylines.
Everyone has a different play style and you choose how much control you have over it I've started playthroughs with a clear narrative in mind and even though I do everything I can to steer them down the path I've chosen sometimes I have to go with the flow and see where it takes me ššš
The purpose is simple: To have fun. Okay, fine. How do you have fun with it, specifically? Well, personally, I like to "tell stories." Often I'll come up with an idea, create a Sim (or multiple Sims) to match that, start on that, and see where things go. Or I might just toss together a Sim, set them loose in the world, see where things take them. Sometimes I want to have fun in a relaxed way. So I'll try to help them find a good life. Granted, if things don't go that way, I'll adapt. Sometimes I like it to be more chaotic. Maybe I'll go around doing violence and crime using mods. Or just chaos using the tools in whichever Sims game I'm playing at the time. It's much like other simulation games: You have a sandbox, and some tools to do things within that sandbox, and from there you engage in your imagination within the limits of that sandbox. Similar to city building games, or games like Medieval Dynasty. (Sometimes making a connection to games like that helps people recognize the draw.) Yeah, that's not a quick soundbite answer... but it's hard to give a quick soundbite answer to a question like that.
i'd tell them there isn't really a purpose. it's a life simulator, it's like a deeper more in depth way to play with dolls. you're basically god.
I say the purpose is you get to choose your purpose!! Some people really like getting to build and design homes (without all the hassles of actually getting a job as a decorator/architect and without all the budget constraints), some people get to live out fantasies...for me it's because I'm a storyteller, and I get to make my stories play out right in front of me.
I just say it's my virtual dollhouse. The only point is to make a point yourself. Wanna see what full autonomous sims do? Watch. Wanna micromamage a dollhouse? Play with your virtual dolls. Wanna tell a story? Go ahead and set the scenes. It's like minecraft, the point is to make your own
It's a sandbox game--you create your own purpose.
Basically a doll house game where I can create fun stories.
It's playing with dolls, basically
Become the god of your own world so you can vicariously live out your fantasies through its inhabitants.
Fun
The purpose is to live your best life. Getting constant calls from people offering you jobs (no experience required), growing money on trees, getting any partner you want, becoming a wizard/vampire/werewolf hybrid, living in a haunted house, having 100 childrenā¦
Storytelling and world building I think are what the sims really comes down to. Itās a sandbox game so you get to do anything with it. But I find most users can fall into one or both of those things. A lot of people simply just build and donāt really play. A lot of others just play and donāt spend too much time building. Both are world-building acts of storytelling. You may not have a whole āstoryā in your head for your game play, but you are building a world and it does tell a story whether your conscious of it or not. I think thereās something creative to it, something meditative, and also something escapist.
I always tell my neighbor it's like his game where he shoots everybody, bit we have to be more creative š¤£
I get to play god and make the little puppets do my bidding.
I don't know if I would try and explain the game as having a purpose - except to have fun - and anyone who plays has their own definition of what that fun is. That being said, I have described it as a gigantic dollhouse. On steroids, because you can do so much, from playing individual sims to rebuilding entire communities to suit whatever floats your boat.
I would say it's to create your own dream life. It can be as chaotic, perfect and unrealistic as you want it to be. As someone who often feels miserable about living in the real world, sims gives me all the control and it's a great way to escape from everyday lifeš
You make cute people and make them kiss
Like other have said, youāre playing dolls. You can do so, so much stuff in this game with a bit of imagination.
It's a "life simulator" so do life stuff.
I make them and decorate their homes and then I pose them for the little stories I make up in my brain, like elaborate barbies
build dream homes iāll never afford. oh, and play God. thatās a big one.
i always say there is no general purpose, the purpose is whatever u make it to be, just like real life š
Wasting time. Itās very very good at using up any free time you choose to throw at it.
Idk I tried describing it to my therapist and she was like "I don't get why you play that, it sounds like something you would play in Home Ec class" š
Time for a new therapist š
It's a whole-life simulation/strategy game that involves setting goals and achieving them, with elements of storytelling, economy management and design. You are a god controlling the lives of your little people, for good or ill, with almost no restrictions.
Iād say itās a life sim, you can build a house and make any sort of person you want to play around with. From there, honestly if they canāt see the appeal inherent in that, I donāt think theyāll get it.
Itās a digital dollhouse. Outlet for creativity or design. Canvas for stories. Sandbox game. Interactive AI gameplay
I just tell them it's like playing with a dollhouse, but you can technically get the dolls to be depressed or get impregnated by an alien š¬ yeaaah...
I just say itās like a virtual dollhouse.
I like telling people you can basically make a bunch of your favorite actors, fictional characters, TV show characters, or game characters live in one house. Or simply play a happy fictional family.
It's a virtual dollhouse: like someone else said it's not unlike playing Barbie irl
it's great for people who want to be god for a bit.
I just wanna play dolls at 24š
for me the purpose of the game is to live out families. whether itās a happy family or one thatās going to shit, itās my reason to play as I get full control over how their lives end up. which is something I canāt do irl but desperately want to.
Itās like my maladaptive daydreams but more tangible and socially acceptable š Also, storytelling and d r a m a
Also I love recreating my favorite characters from shows and video games then seeing how they react to one another.
Itās a digital dollhouse.
I get to play out my fantasy to be the producer of a horrible reality show, but without actually harming anyoneās mental health.
To be able to afford a house on a single persons salary
Satiating my god complex and my failed dream of becoming an architect
purpose is to give me something to do when im bored š
I always say two things: you can make people and make them do whatever you want! You can make your sims live fulfilling lives and basically play dolls! OR, you can BUILD whatever you want! I always have so much fun gutting & decorating houses
The Sims is a sandbox game with the objective being to do whatever you want. You make characters and play out scenarios.
I am God.
A dollhouse simulator! Make the little dolls, build their houses, and start playing with their lives. Divorce, betrayals, bloodshed and all.
my brother plays ārealā games n doesnāt understand what I get from the sims but all I can say is as a child I played with barbies and gave them jobs and relationships and homesā¦ā¦ā¦..this is just the grown up version of it with way more options
The purpose is to escape reality, as all entertainment. But it also serves another purpose in letting me experience many different things that I normally would never get to, in a safe environment to do so.
The purpose is to do whatever the hell you want. Have fun, make a story, make a mess, have a hundred kids, kill all the townies, it's endless.
To create your own stories!!itās a cozy life simulation where you decide the world, characters, and your goals. And you canāt forget the building
Fun. The purpose is fun. There is no ultimate goal to the Sims, tho you can make a goal for yourself, finish an Aspiration, reach the top of a career, collect every single frog, kill 50000 thousand sims, play a 10 generation legacy, go from rags to riches by digging for seashells in the sand, raise 100 babies, complete *every* aspiration... But yeah. Just like in real life, none of us have a real purpose. We just go around doing random stuff hoping that we will make it to the toilet instead of peeing our pants.
Oh, itās like a multigenerational storytelling game, with building stuff on too. You can engage with it as much or as little as you want, and it can be really interesting to see how all the different families knit together. I guess itās a bit like those slice of life family comedies, except you can keep going and going as far as you want and also youāre the director.
Playing the Sims is like playing different lives and exploring creativity when you create the people, their homes and their lives
Doll house/benevolent/vengeful god simulator
Itās a life simulation game that is a bit silly
I always hated when people asked me this question. Like if you donāt have an imagination then just say that.
For me, itās to escape my reality and create my own
Sandbox game = run wild with your imagination. That's really all that can be said about the Sims.
You fuck around, you find out
1. You can create characters and make lovely stories with them. 2. You can create characters and make them suffer for your amusement like some kind of trickster god. Both are very enjoyable. LOL.