The Sims 5
Game
Documents about The Sims 5
Whitepaper3 pages
The Evolution of Emotion Work in The Sims 1-4
This paper, presented at DiGRA 2026, examines how The Sims series, particularly The Sims 4 (2014), has evolved to require increasingly complex emotional management from players, and argues that this design reinstates a patriarchal feminization of emotion work.
- The paper argues that The Sims 4 (2014) increasingly requires complex emotional management from players, and that this design reinstates a patriarchal feminization of emotion work.
- The central claim is that the game's moodlet system, which assigns positive and negative emotional effects to social interactions, objects, and life events, materializes Sara Ahmed's concept of "happiness scripts" and encodes specific ideological expectations about happiness.
- The author contends that the game quantifies and makes emotional labor visible via moodlets and a satisfaction-point reward structure, contrasting this with patriarchal systems that typically render women's emotional labor invisible.
DiGRAJun 2026
Whitepaper8 pages
From Designing Houses to Studying Architecture: Did Those Who Study Design Share Any Similarities in Playing the Sims Game?
This study by Yüzyıl Nevin Aydın at Beykent University examines whether players of The Sims, the life simulation series from Electronic Arts, show shared patterns in how they engage with the game, particularly among those who later pursued design-related education in architecture, interior architecture, and industrial design.
- A study by Yüzyıl Nevin Aydın at Beykent University found that 71.8% of surveyed players spent most of their playtime designing or modifying houses in The Sims, rising to 80% among design-faculty participants.
- In the second survey phase, 45% of participants said The Sims influenced their career choice, rising to 59% among current players, while those who had stopped playing reported little influence.
- Many design students in the qualitative responses described the game as an early influence on their decision to pursue design careers.
European Conference on Games Based Learning (ECGBL)Oct 2024