Using games to study human tendencies

Randomed by Rituraj / at 5:08 PM / /

Back in 2000, when Sims was just released, my Irani cousin and I were completely hooked to the game. We used to take turn playing the game with the sim-family that both of us had created. At that time, entertainment seemed to be the only consequence. However, while I was thinking back remembering those days I suddenly realized the stark differences in the way the game was played/managed by my cousin and myself.

A major difference was that I played the game to advance my character's career etc. while my cousin played the character to chat around the neighbourhood, party all the time and experiment. Other differences included the way we built our house. I preferred a a house that could just accommodate all my belongings while my cousin methodically designed the entire house for it to 'look good'. Not to sound racist but Indians pay little attention to aesthetic values while Iranis are obsessed with it. Just compare the amount of make-up on an Indian woman and an Irani woman.

Obviously, such differences arise from personal preferences most of the time. But what I feel is that, given a large number of players belonging to a particular cultural background, one can deduce patterns to pin-point certain cultural traits. Especially, the latest version of Sims, Sims 3 I suppose, is so feature packed that one can arrive at these cultural tendencies with a fair amount of accuracy. I feel using simulation games to study human nature possess huge potential. And obviously, once this data is extracted it WILL find many uses.