
Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature? - prostoalex
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/is-simcity-homelessness-a-bug-or-a-feature
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popeshoe
It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise
homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set
of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if
you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's
wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in
the game are impeding some peoples enjoyment and it's a problem that is not
obvious to solve.

Some games that offer more freedom let you solve problems like these in more
interesting ways, for example when I played Dwarf Fortress (years ago now), a
common strategy was to make the nobledwarfs accommodation floodable with lava,
so if they got too uppity with their demands (sometimes nobles would insist
that you make certain items or not sell a certain items or they'd get furious
and make everybody else unhappy) they could be dispatched. I think it'd be
funny if Sim City offered a similar option.

~~~
simonh
The 'final solution' option? It's been done in real life of course many times
in many countries, but I don't think adding an option to Sim City to round
them all up and shoot/gas/incinerate them, or build a 'killing fields'
facility is really what people are looking for in that game. In DF we can get
some distance from it because it's explicitly a fantasy world, but Sim City is
a bit too close to emulating real life for something like that to be a
reasonable option.

~~~
ajuc
There's value in giving people choice and making them uncomfortable with the
consequences of easy options. The Witcher series is famous for that, and I'd
like to see more games took that approach (show what can be done, even give
in-game bonuses for evil behaviour, don't judge but show consequences).

DF skips over this problem because it's more abstract, and it's just not this
kinds of game. Another example - Crusader Kingdoms 2 - this game is all about
incests, backstabbing and assasination, but somehow it's funny not deep.

I agree it's probably not good idea for games targeted at children.

~~~
spdustin
Bioshock was the first to make me uncomfortable with a choice. Do I harvest
the Little Sister, and get more powerful? Or do I "rescue her", which itself
looks a bit like torture at first, and send her off in a place that is filled
with psychopaths who'd want to kill her anyway.

Later in the series, when I experienced what it's like to BE a Little Sister,
it almost made me regret "rescuing them" before, because the way they see the
world as a Little Sister is quite beautiful, and they did serve a profound
purpose.

The final choice seems to be a moral absolute, but it was a deeply unsettling
choice, for me, to make, and to revisit again later.

~~~
tsotha
It's not _really_ a choice, because in the end you get more powerful by not
harvesting the Little Sisters. The only reason to do it is to see the evil
ending cut scene.

~~~
Dylan16807
And you get that world-conquering evil cut scene for even a _single_ slip.
Immediately you are irredeemable.

~~~
spdustin
_Would you kindly_ not spoil the game too much.

(See what I did there?)

~~~
Dylan16807
I'm amused by the joke, but I don't consider it a spoiler to explain how one
bad act _ever_ leads to the uber-evil ending that has no connection to the
rest of the game. It's just pointing out that the claimed 'moral choices with
consequences' feature is a farce.

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ttty
>How to get rid of homeless reproduces dozens of threads concerning
"homelessness" that appeared in Electronic Arts' online forum between 2012 and
2013.

This is the $ 150 book?! with 438 pages?

This is easy money!

~~~
teddyh
I wonder how they cleared all those copyrighted posts.

~~~
brazzy
I'll bet you five to one that the EA forum terms of use have users sign away
the copyright on their posts. So they only had to get a license from EA.

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ceeK
Reminds me of the Mitchell and Webb sketch 'Kill all the poor', where they
statistically decide whether it would solve their problems.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg)

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TazeTSchnitzel
It is amusing what happens when you make games that are "realistic" in a way
which isn't fun for players but _is_ like real life, and get to see how the
player base reacts.

Depression Quest springs to mind. Or way the book the protagonist of _The
Fault In Our Stars_ loves cuts off abruptly once the main character dies,
which upsets her to no end.

~~~
V-2
In the original Civilization, if your political system was Democracy, there
was no Corruption :))

~~~
RobertKerans
My main strategy for quite a while was to race toward Statue of Liberty, then
use it to immediately switch to communism; I'm pretty heavily on the side of
'be careful about using games as a metaphor for life' re the OP.

~~~
V-2
Yeah, on the other hand they do indoctrinate, whether this is intended or not.
Everybody talks about brutal games and how a twelve year may go on a shooting
spree having played too much of Call of Duty or whatever. Causation never
proven, given the number of players vs. rampage killers.

Now isn't planting an idea such as that Democracy is inherently Coruption-free
(or something equally nonsensical) much worse brainwashing in broader scheme
of things?

~~~
pherocity_
But it generally is, relative to the other forms of government. Democracy is
the only form of government where you can prosecute corruption or end corrupt
regimes without violence, and in my book that's close enough. For a simplified
game mechanic, this is intuitive and makes sense. Anything more nuanced, and
it isn't a game anymore.

[http://blog.transparency.org/2009/11/17/cpi2009/](http://blog.transparency.org/2009/11/17/cpi2009/)

And Civ is not responsible for the CPI

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unimportant
Copy stuff people post on forums - sell it in form of a book - pitch it in a
way that makes it sound profound - ??? - profit

~~~
SixSigma
Not the first time.

See: Voices from the Hellmouth

[http://everything2.com/title/Voices+from+the+Hellmouth](http://everything2.com/title/Voices+from+the+Hellmouth)

One of the posts

[http://slashdot.org/story/5415](http://slashdot.org/story/5415)

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WBrentWilliams
I'm going to earn my downvotes today. It was more interesting reading the
comments than the article, especially when one of the threads devolved into
saying the article is political.

The other entertaining point is the offense at the notion that America is it's
entertainment. The fact that some took offense at that is interesting from
both a technology standpoint and a startup standpoint. It is an imperfect
mirror, reflecting why we do things and why some businesses fail and others
succeed, from a certain point of view. In other words, perhaps part of why a
given venture gains customers in not just need, but need coupled with
entertainment used to market and sell.

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yourad_io
> By removing the aesthetic markers of online forums—author’s signatures, side
> banners, avatar pictures, and so on—Bittanti's book recontextualizes the
> discussion to reveal what players and the game are saying about
> homelessness.

Except the players were talking about beating the game, not the homeless/real-
life homelessness. Not amused.

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wmil
My favorite part of this article (and in general discussions about SF) is that
asking the homeless to move to Oakland is considered so inhumane it's
unmentionable.

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davidw
> "To me video games are the so-called 'real America,'" he said. "The real
> America operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is
> neo-liberalism

Homelessness is a real problem, but, uh... yeah. I'm going to flag this as
essentially a political article (most everything vice.com publishes is).

Maybe for his next book he can chronicle how Quake is the real America too,
with the mutant monsters representing ... well... whatever the hell you want
since you're willing to make such huge non-sequiturs.

~~~
V-2
Well, I haven't played SimCity (or any games, for that matter) for a while
now, but if I recall, this type of games was always more akin to central
planning model than laissez-faire; or else they wouldn't be that playable.

~~~
ginko
From my European perspective SimCity actually misses several city planning
tools to reduce homelessness. The most important being the ability to build
public housing and set up social services.

~~~
rsynnott
Simcity 2000 used to have subsidised housing and homeless shelter ordinances,
which reduced crime, though you never actually _saw_ anything. It is weird
that they've never tried adding a public housing mechanic; it could be quite
interesting.

