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How Many Sims Would You Kill?

When my kids play Sims 4, they treat it very much as a game with objectives. If they need a piano for their household, they're as happy for it to be in the garden as anywhere else. It does the job, and the game doesn't seem to care. On the other hand, I worry about the mess birds might make on it.

When my son discovered that you can get a ghost in the game, should tragedy befall one of your household, he built a swimming pool with a fence around it, and sent one of the Sims to a watery grave. He wanted a ghost, and that's how he got it.

I was quite upset! Okay, in a minor sort of way, but still. My son did abandon that world, for quite different reasons, and the Sim was revived. I felt relieved that the Sim was again 'alive and well'.

And yet, it's not alive. It's just a data-structure in a game, with graphics generated from 3D models as a crude and cartoonish facsimile of real-life.

Why do I feel nothing when I brutally crush the stick-man pictures my kids draw on paper, and throw them in the recycling bin? Or discard a magazine with photos of *actual people*?

My kids seem more in tune with reality than I am! They don't empathise with video game avatars, yet they do care for the well-being of snails in the garden, horses in a field, and even for my well-being, from time to time at least.

For me, the thought of neglecting the welfare of a Sims toddler, which tootles around in an uncannily cute way, genuinely causes a negative emotional response.

I can tell myself that "it's just a game", but as a adult - I shouldn't have to! Rhetorically, I'll ask "does this phenomenon extend beyond video games, and into passive video (TV, films, etc.) as well?". Of course, the answer is "yes!".

To be clear, I do differentiate reality from fiction, since I rationalise things easily. But it's still interesting to consider that it's an emotional response to algorithmically generated fictional events.