Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Miami Herald - July 10, 2004
Ana Veciana-Suarez, aveciana@herald.com
The Sims 2, scheduled to be released at the end of this summer, will feature characters capable of having digital sex. It will also allow players to differentiate between love and lust, a true breakthrough considering that many of us, especially the young, have a difficult time doing just that.
In the original Sims version, players created a family of characters with lives -- and chores -- all their own, but sex was optional, and only if you downloaded an update. In the sequel, intercourse doesn't have to be downloaded. It's already part of the package, though the on-screen act, according to one report by the Associated Press, resembles "giggly horseplay or tickling."
By all accounts, The Sims 2 is pretty tame. But two other games -- Playboy: The Mansion and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude -- promise more serious vicarious pleasure. It may not be long before we abandon the messiness of romance for the smoother script of virtual love. This is not, I think, what keepers of family morals meant by safe sex, but perhaps pixilated coitus may be the unexpected remedy to promiscuity in the era of HIV and AIDS.
Exaggeration? Sure -- but not entirely. Consider this: Video games are a multi-billion dollar industry, and growing. The industry has been compared to the Hollywood of the 1920s, when movies were just coming into their own. What's more, the average video game player is in his late 20s, a man who often plans his social gatherings around the launch of a new game. (In fact, singer Courtney Love is said to have quipped that a young woman's biggest competition is not other girls but PlayStation.)
Players spend hours, if not weekends, competing against each other, sometimes sitting alone in front of their computers in different parts of the globe. Though not a gamer myself, I am surrounded by a younger generation that views video games as their fathers once viewed Monday Night Football with the boys: the new town hall, neighborhood tavern and networking happy hour all rolled into one.
On a more practical note, there have also been news reports that the military uses these games to train its soldiers, and studies show that surgeons who play are more skilled in using certain equipment.
Yet, for all its potential, the industry has moved too slowly to protect those who were its original consumers -- children. For the first time, the National Institute on Media and the Family gave the industry an "F" grade this year for "slipping backward by standing still," and there has been talk in Congress about re-examining the video rating system that was established years ago.
Though M-rated videos (M stands for mature) make up a minority of all games sold, that percentage is growing. Worse, kids don't seem to have much of a problem buying these violent games, or obtaining them from friends, and many adults have no idea that there's even a rating system for videos.
Ultimately, of course, it is up to parents to monitor what games their children are buying and playing, but in this digital world where the lines between fantasy and reality are blurring, many of us feel totally out of our element. We often can't tell the difference between BMX XXX and Madden 2004. Or between The Sims 2 and Leisure Suit Larry.
Surely the industry that is bringing us a new version of safe sex, the industry that gave us Smash Brothers, SimCity and Mario, can provide us with better, more realistic guidance -- guidance that makes the grade.
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