The Sims: The enduring appeal of the second life simulator

Twenty years after it first launched, The Sims is still going strong. Much more than a nostalgic relic of the noughties, the game has a thriving community of fans. In this episode, Tara, a longtime player of the game, explains it’s enduring appeal to Simran — a self-identified Sims noob. We get into the tensions of escapism and introspection within the game and talk about the challenges of reflecting the ‘real world’ in a simulation. We’ll also ask: is The Sims “a beguiling capitalist fantasy” or can a more meaningful commentary on consumerism be found amongst the hypnotic tones of the ‘buy mode’ music? Got a favourite culture moment from 2000 you want us to talk about? Suggest an episode idea here. You can also

You can listen to The Sims: The enduring appeal of the second life simulator online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Sims: The enduring appeal of the second life simulator is an episode from Twenty Twenty: A Pop Culture Podcast by Message Heard.

This episode is 47:39 long.

This episode was published on Nov 10, 2020.

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