For me it is, but that's just because of how I play and how I payed with dolls. I was always giving them careers, friends, romance, they were traveling, having families, going shopping...just like my Sims. And that's not restricted to girls. Boys have and pay with dolls too. They aren't something I see as restrictive.
So for me it is the same, though my dolls did always give me personally a little more organic whimsy. My sister and I once strung yarn throughout our entire room, zigzagging from bedposts to drawer handles and chair frames to have a zip line for our Barbies to get to their different locations (it totally worked too). So in that sense, I'd say my dolls were better in that they didn't limit me and my imagination.
With a computer game I have to wait for things to be implemented, and even then they may never come. I'm almost... preemptively limited in what I can do. Not bashing the games, I love them. Just thinking.
I was a tomboy as well - never actually had a dollhouse and never played with dolls. I was a teddy fanatic. But I think of my Sims as virtual dolls. Of course, there is more to it than simple play with dolls, but overall, I think of Sims as a virtual dollhouse. And sometimes fish in a tank.
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I would say it’s very much like a virtual dollhouse in that it’s creative and imaginative play. My daughter and my son both play with dollhouse and I did as child as well. It is also a life simulator even though the game does not simulate many aspects of life. 4 in particular has moved away from that due to its utopian play style.
When I was younger, I used to love playing with my dolls. I'd have tea parties and everything - Including host dinner parties where the dolls ate real food. I think my childhood is why I love the Sims today. Although, I don't think it's gender-exclusive at all, and the gameplay is what you want it to be. It doesn't have to be "girly", it can be rough if that's what you truly want.
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I find this very interesting and funny, I smiled when I read this because once when someone asked why I play the sims, I told them that when I was 10 my mother said I was to old to be playing with my doll house and she took it and put it in the cellar, I remember going in the cellar and finding it and use to sneak down there to play with it. When my grand daughter gave me the Sim 19 yrs ago, I thought now I have a virtual doll house and can play when ever I want. I love the sims. they are interesting and created, I love writing, and in sims you can created amazing stories to go along with you game. they stir up the creative part of your brain I believe.
I think some people here are taking "virtual dollhouse" a bit literally. For instance, a game like Minecraft is called a "sandbox." It's not a literal sandbox in that you're not building in a virtual box with nothing but digital sand, but it encapsulates the sheer degree of openness of imagination that an actual sandbox presents to a child playing in one - they can imagine anything, they can build anything with the sand within the boundaries of the box, and they're only limited by their imagination and how clever they are at manipulating sand. Actual sand boxes don't have creepers running around exploding, they don't have hammers and swords that you use to burrow deeper into the earth, they don't have wild animals running around, etc, etc. You see where I'm going here? The Sims may not exactly behave like a real doll house - sure, the Sims move and are free thinking while dolls are stationary and mobilized when you move them and place them, and you design homes and structures in the Sims whereas you don't have as much control in a real doll house, but it still is a virtual dollhouse down to it's core. You're creating a world, an imitation of reality, and you're acting out life and fantasy with the characters (Sims, dolls, whatever) within your world, using your creativity, imagination, and the characters you have decided to populate your world with. That's how dollhouses are at their core, and that's how the Sims operate at it's core. Like Minecraft though, it transcends physical dollhouses and expands on the concept and evolves it into something that can never be achieved in a real dollhouse, but it still remains that it captures the same concepts of imagination and life imitation that children experience when playing with dollhouses.
It's the dollhouse I dreamed of as a kid. I no longer have to move them around physically and pretend that they're eating their little plates of food - the computer animates that - I still have to tell them what to do. It's just a step beyond the dollhouse, in that you control them with a mouse and animation takes care of the rest. I still make up the stories behind the CGI, just as I made up the stories for my plastic dolls.
Of course, the other part of the dream doll house aspect is being able to build the house, decorate it and buy furniture and clothes that go far beyond what my pocket money or Santa could do.
Maybe Sims 1 and 2 felt like a doll house to me, but once we got into Sims 3 it stopped feeling that way because the aspect of the whole town being involved.
I guess it depends on how you play, and how you played dolls. It has very similar aspects for sure, but I would say no just because a dollhouse was one house and with the Sims you have a full world with lots of houses. Also for me it's not in the same because when I played dolls I never acted out their lives. I just came to their hair hahaha! But for others yes for sure
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So for me it is the same, though my dolls did always give me personally a little more organic whimsy. My sister and I once strung yarn throughout our entire room, zigzagging from bedposts to drawer handles and chair frames to have a zip line for our Barbies to get to their different locations (it totally worked too). So in that sense, I'd say my dolls were better in that they didn't limit me and my imagination.
With a computer game I have to wait for things to be implemented, and even then they may never come. I'm almost... preemptively limited in what I can do. Not bashing the games, I love them. Just thinking.
A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear
Time enjoyed is never time wasted
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It's the dollhouse I dreamed of as a kid. I no longer have to move them around physically and pretend that they're eating their little plates of food - the computer animates that - I still have to tell them what to do. It's just a step beyond the dollhouse, in that you control them with a mouse and animation takes care of the rest. I still make up the stories behind the CGI, just as I made up the stories for my plastic dolls.
Of course, the other part of the dream doll house aspect is being able to build the house, decorate it and buy furniture and clothes that go far beyond what my pocket money or Santa could do.
That's Kotaku for you! Sometimes you get a rare gem from them, but usually... *poop*
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"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
Loved those books! Now I want to reread them.
I also have all the Borrowers Movies as well.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....