Imitation of Life: Shelley Jackson on The Sims

I know next to nothing about computer games, though I have played a precursor of The Sims -- I remember spending one afternoon back in 1995 or 1996 playing SimCity (I think) and realizing how dangerously addictive the game could become. I sort of decided back then that I hadn't enough time in my life for both literature and video games and decided to stick to the former as my preferred mode of virtual reality. That said, I recognize that game theory has a lot to contribute to literary studies and, if pressed, will acknowledge that "the book is no longer the main portal to another world."

This last observation is quoted from a short essay by Shelley Jackson, "The Village Voice: NY Mirror: "The Sims: Life In A Glass House". Jackson's essay is a review of the new The Sims 2 video game, but is also a meditation on how to go about constructing an engaging imaginary world.

As someone who constantly struggles with a perfectionist issues when writing, I was particularly struck by Shelley’s comments on creativity and the necessity of failure. Her advice to creative artists in the business of producing simulations is not that failure is inevitable, but necessary. Shelley writes, “So one thing an imaginary world needs, I think, is to fail. Those toiling away on CGI dinosaurs and VR helmets might consider this: When the illusion is perfect it will no longer amaze. Lifelike is impressive because it’s like life, meaning slightly, deliciously different.” This is basically the argument informing Richard Powers’s Plowing the Dark, and the next time I teach the novel you can bet that my students will be reading Jackson’s essay along with it.

Shelley’s remarks are equally applicable to novelists, filmmakers and videogame makers, all of whom would do well to remember that flashy f/x and technical pyrotechnics should not be a work's raison d'etre.

This reminds me, I should get offline as I am about 100-pages away from finally finishing David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and I have other writing to do.