We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

Exactly that; it’s the same sort of tap into how a number of people watch reality TV, or wish they were rich/famous/smart/beautiful/powerful all the time but miiiight be better off not chasing after that. Psychological research has largely converged on the idea that once you’ve got basic needs secure, the judging and the wishing makes people much happier than the worldly concerns ever will. Once you reach the top in The Sims? Basically, that “wishing” stage is over, and you gotta find something else to do. You could, however, just enjoy watching the interpersonal relationships and stuff play out. People get a kick out of that, too, the whole “playing with dolls” aspect of it. You can spin some yarns out of that, certainly. And finally, you have a number of people whose enjoyment is in introducing whatever chaos they can contrive to just such a system (Pleasantville: THE GAME). Of course, I figure most players enjoy some mix of these aspects in exploring the game.

Well, there are some aspects of humor in the game, too. Maxis-style humor was always of the tongue-in-cheek sort; a “Daredevil” sim takes an Extreme Nap instead of a Nap, and an Evil character will Donate Money to Undermine Charity. Doesn’t change much about the game, it’s just a chuckley sort of thing.

I see parallels to that appeal in other genres, too; MMORPG devs (for subscription-based themepark-style games especially) have what they call “content churn”. They’re always trying to satisfy the people who run through and try to experience everything the game has; if the developers don’t do this, they’re out of a job because they have all those level-capped players quitting in droves. But then you have the role-players, and people like them, who use the game as a sort of glorified chat room, and to these, most of the game is just decor, even if they do like to go see the content, too. They don’t generally quit just because the game ran out of things to do; there will always be talking to do.

Me, I get my enjoyment out of overthinking things, I guess. I’m not very good at video games. I’m just a dabbler. An X-TREEEME dabbler.