Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

motherboard.vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 107 posts

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#21

Post by hueving »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #4

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.

I'm not sure it's amusing to make a game that is unfun because it reflects an unappealing part of life. In this case it was just amusing because reading the comments made it seem like they were talking about real homeless people, especially when the article slaps you in the face with the relationship to real homelessness over and over and over and over.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#22

Post by hueving »

simonh wrote: post #20
popeshoe wrote: post #11

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 enj…

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…

It would be more interesting if they had that option just too see how often players would resort to something like that.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#23

Post by ginko »

V-2 wrote: post #14
davidw wrote: post #2

> "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 represen…

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.

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.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#24

Post by michaelx386 »

popeshoe wrote: post #11

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 enj…

> a common strategy was to make the nobledwarfs accommodation floodable with lava

I've not played Dwarf Fortress for a while, but were there any consequences to killing the nobledwarfs like that? The game is so comprehensive I'm wondering if the creators considered that strategy.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#25

Post by hueving »

V-2 wrote: post #14
davidw wrote: post #2

> "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 represen…

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.

Yeah, building a new housing complex would take years to attempt and would likely be shot down by some lobbying group either because it didn't have enough low income housing or neighbors were concerned about the bad energy it would give off.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#26

Post by [deleted] »

ginko wrote: post #23
V-2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#27

Post by anon1385 »

davidw wrote: post #17
brazzy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, yes. It is indeed overtly and primarily political once you have rewritten it to be.

> Um, yes. It is indeed overtly and primarily political once you have rewritten it to be. I changed two words - I replaced America with France and "neo-liberalism" with "socialism".

Actually at first you used the word "communism", which is why I downvoted you and flagged your comment. You are just using inaccurate emotive language to rage wildly against a line in the article that offended your zealous patriotic/conservative sensibilities. You loudly complain about pretty much any article that contains a hint of politics you dislike. It just fills the comments with useless noise (I know I'm adding to it, but after seeing you do the same thing dozens of times it's getting pretty tiresome). If you don't like a submission, move on, don't post dozens of whining comments about how it hurt your feelings and how such submissions need to be banned from the site.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#28

Post by 7952 »

davidw wrote: post #6
chicofarm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does that make it political?

Let's rewrite it. Say it's some conservative commentator like Bill O'Reilly: "To me video games are the so-called 'real France,'" he said. "The real France operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is socialism" That doesn't strike you as overtly and primarily political in nature? Beyond that, it's simply inane.

There is a tendancy to treat real world problems in an overly abstract way. That you pursue an argument because of a particular dogma rather than actual empathy for the victims of a problem. For example people love to debate funding of healthcare (which we can all disagree on) whilst loosing site of its actual purpose (which we mostly agree about).

The same is true of homelessness where it is easy to discuss it in broad economic terms that can be dogmatic. But actually it is a social problem which means that it is caused by people breaking the agreed rules of the game. If a family member has no home you are supposed to let them sleep on the couch until they get back on their feet. When these basic societal rules break down we are only left with the state which is not a good replacment for family and friends.

Re: Is 'SimCity' Homelessness a Bug or a Feature?

#29

Post by davidw »

anon1385 wrote: post #27
davidw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Um, yes. It is indeed overtly and primarily political once you have rewritten it to be. I changed two words - I replaced America with France and "neo-liberalism" with "socialism".

Actually at first you used the word "communism", which is why I downvoted you and flagged your comment. You are just using inaccurate emotive language to rage wildly against a line in the article that offended your zealous patriotic/conservative sensibilities. You loudly complain about pretty much any article that contains a hint of politics you dislike. It just fills the comments with useless noise (I know I'm addin…

I actually flag all politics here, even the articles that agree with my political views, which are not at all what you seem to think they are, either.

It helps to get rid of these articles and keep the site a good one for startups/hacking/interesting articles, so for me it's worthwhile.

The article doesn't hurt my feelings: I think it's genuinely silly and low-quality.

Post reply on HN