Sunday, April 14, 2002

When I saw the subtitle, my hackles arose in a most pleasing way and I knew what I'd be doing with my Sunday morning.

The link on today's Washington Post Online front page read "Guys and Digital Dolls", and was subtitled "What's not to like about an ingenious computer game that tries to imitate real life? A skeptical parent's guide to The Sims". The opening sentence seemed to confirm my suspicions: "It was the Swimming Pool Love Killing that first got my attention."

This all had an eerily familiar ring to it. As a pre-teen, I'd had many "why Dungeons & Dragons is an evil game" articles brought to my attention by well-meaning relatives and older acquaintances. This story seemed to promise the same kind of uninformed knee-jerk reactionary piece full of half-truths and paranoid assumptions so often written about Gary Gygax's little dice-and-paper game in the 1980's.

With righteous glee, I anticipated spending the next couple of hours writing a deliciously sneerful blog entry that would rip Bob Thompson, the article's author, a new one. All I had to do was read the thing, gathering examples to use as ammunition as I went, like a kid picking dandelions in a vacant lot.

I knew what I was going to find: anguished hand wringing by a "concerned parent" who couldn't be bothered to play the game himself or even talk to his kid about it, instead basing his entire opinion on hearsay; quotes from the media director of the Society to Ensure a Fun-Free World; melancholy questions about what happened to all the good games, like Sorry! and Life; calls for a government investigation. And all of this tempest brought on by what is one of the most benign, engaging and constructive games I've ever played. I sharpened my rhetorical knife and got ready to carve.

I ran into one problem. The article wasn't the hack job I'd expected it to be. Instead it was a thoroughly researched, well-balanced examination of the game. Thompson not only talked to his daughter and played the game himself at length, he spent time interviewing Sims creator Will Wright and co-designer Roxy Wolosenko to find out how the game came into being and what they hoped to accomplish with it. He read up on the history of computer gaming and discovered why The Sims and predecessors like Sim City are such a welcome new direction for the industry. He examined the subculture that has grown up around the game, surveying the thriving community of custom skin makers and online scrapbook keepers.

Most importantly, it's clear from the finished product that Thompson actually thought about all he had learned and wrote his report with that knowledge in mind. In short, he did something not often seen in a story of this kind. He practiced good journalism. In the future, when I'm looking for an enjoyable, intelligent read, I'll know to look for his byline.

As much fun as writing a scathing rebuttal to a sloppy piece of reportage would have been, reading this solid and thoughtful column was ultimately much more satisfying. I guess I'll just have to wait for the next piece of half-baked forwarded glurge to hit my inbox before I can vent my spleen.

Posted @ 1:46 PM

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