The Boston Globe reports that Electronic Arts is mulling over a proposal to have "Sims TV". In the words of Jan Bolz, vice president of marketing and sales for EA Europe: "One idea could be that you're controlling a family, telling them when to go to the kitchen and when to go to the bedroom, and with this mechanism you have gamers all over the world 'playing the show'."
Now the first response to this must be: Genius.
I mean, this is surely a break-through. Game devs have taken a long time to wake up to the fact that eBayers are prepared to pay for someone else to play the game for them through to a certain point (ie up to the point where the Sword of Ultimate Vanquishing is available), and then they'll take it from there. Now EA are working on a way for people to pay to watch others to play the whole game for them. It takes a peculiar kind of intelligence to take an interactive medium and turn it into a passive and/or pseudo-interactive medium: "If you want your Sim to go to the bathroom, press 'ok' on your remote control, now."
But perhaps they're on to something. No really. I often find the experience of MMOGs to be a bit like Wilde's (apocryphal?) observation about the problem with Socialism is that it takes too many evenings. The greatest virtue of the telly is that it doesn't ask you to do anything. Eyes and ears mandatory. Brain optional.
Of course, if FPSes are boring to watch (see your local cable listings for schedules of extraordinarily tedious deathmatches between people who seem to be famous for no good reason) then I can't imagine what Sims TV would be like. Presumably it would have to come with one of those warnings about not operating heavy machinery while watching.
After 'reality' TV shows I pretty much gave up on humanity altogether. :)
Posted by: Andres Ferraro | Jan 17, 2005 at 01:55
I got rid of TV more than two years ago and I never felt better :-) Believe me, there is so much reality beyond "reality TV" :-)
Posted by: Wandering Taoist | Jan 17, 2005 at 06:40
We did quite a lot of work on Inhabited TV at CRG. The idea was the people went from watching virtual worlds to interacting with them and vice versa. Our experiments included Avatar Farm and Out Of This World. An early inhabited TV experiment, Heaven and Hell Live, was shown on Channel 4 in the UK.
Posted by: Jim Purbrick | Jan 17, 2005 at 06:53
The switch between interactivity and passivity sounds similar to the lurching transitions from cutscenes to action.
I'm sceptical because I also got rid of TV in favour of games and the net. I think I'll stick to peering over friends shoulders ;)
Posted by: Nachimir | Jan 17, 2005 at 11:45
FFXI has a system like this. It's called Live Vana'Diel, a streaming video of random areas in FFXI. It's on the web site
Posted by: Damien | Jan 17, 2005 at 21:27
Surely a reason will be needed in order to keep an audience involved. A person likes to play a video game such as the Sims because they have direct control over their perceived environment. A show like this would suggest that a large amount of the "user audience" would be responsible for one action or more. I am not sure it is enough to validate their single effort and as a result invested time may be lost. Will Wright himself might say that the value of his game is the control aspect.
A show like this is a breakthrough into new interactive tv genres, however, the most important aspect of this show is the structure for live massive user surveys. Forget the game, what does this mean for social forecasting using simulated media?
As far as reality television is concerned, I don't feel it should be disregarded simply because our favorite movies are better. We should look at the changing structure of how reality television is being created. I would bet that we will see more reality based content invading our lives in infinite forms.
Posted by: Jimbob Peltaire | Jan 17, 2005 at 21:49
You ever look over the shoulder of someone playing a game? How long did it hold your interest? I can't imagine this getting good ratings after the novelty wears off.
Posted by: Mark Asher | Jan 18, 2005 at 05:52
Er, let me add that I think the way to do something like this is to Hollywoodize it -- take the original footage, add new animation, voiceovers, new camera angles, and clever dialog. Even with that, I don't know if I'd be interested beyond a couple of showings. Real actors are more interesting.
Posted by: Mark Asher | Jan 18, 2005 at 05:55
Yes, real actors is the first thing that popped into my mind. Real life sims, a wicked twist of the Truman show.
Posted by: Krones | Jan 18, 2005 at 10:05
Sorry to interrupt. Is anyone else having trouble with the Preview and Post buttons on the Plagued by Popularity topic? I posted a messaged and part of it was cut off, and now the buttons are gone on that topic for me.
Posted by: Jessica Mulligan | Jan 18, 2005 at 14:57
Is it becoming clear that the folks at EA have completely lost all hope of coming up with a good idea?
Posted by: Michael Hartman | Jan 18, 2005 at 19:01