The Sims is a series that already is like a reality show, so trying to actually turn it into a reality show sounds like an obvious yet contrived idea. We’re not quite yet at the point in civilization where the people are demanding bloodsport again, so a show where people catch fire or get trapped in pools isn’t the answer here. Instead, they’ve decided to somehow make it a competition of who can do the best… something in the game. Which also seems weird, but they’ve done reality show competitions of otherwise relatively non-competitive things made competitive.
My first thought is just how do I get on this show to just fuck everything up? I come from the group of people who play Sims with bizarre ideas to begin with and are open to installing a few mods that allow strange things to happen. I figure the people on the show aren’t using mods but probably bought all the DLC. I don’t feel like spending absurd amounts of cash on even a few DLC packs so I resort to a selection of mods. Even if I was to somehow win the grand prize I’d probably spend it on more important things like figuring out how to have my own place/house/country. Also the idea to not be kicked off the first episode (out of apparently only four) to keep the ratings good is another thing. It is weird how I just immediately start thinking of effectively sabotage. Not for any other teams, but for the show entirely, if it could even be aired on a cable channel after what I do to it. Nothing to do with rampant pornography, though, though those mods exist, I don’t use them.
Realistically, though, if you ask me to accomplish something in the Sims games, expect it to not be done, be done with the bare minimum, or have some bizarre roundabout way to do it. If you want a story from me about the Sims, said Sim will probably be quite unusual-looking to start with, and they’ll end up doing something like stealing everything from random houses while getting everyone to cheat on their partners with them. And maybe random murders happen. Seeing as I’m the type who prefers the wild antics of Meme House versus one of many dramatic stories about virtual people, that’s probably not quite the image EA is going for. They seem to want people who live on YouTube with YouTube hair telling YouTube stories. I no longer have a YouTube and I don’t go put on a webcam. Even several of the steamers I typically watch rarely put on webcams, so it’s not necessary for success, it’s just apparently desired by the mainstream folks. I feel it also takes a certain charisma that I lack.
So, how would a Sims reality show ideally work? It would just be the Sims, forget the whole reality show angle. Just film the Sims doing weird stuff on a “normal” playthrough. And that’s why I watch the Meme House streams, because it’s just absurdity that just keeps coming, in the structure of a show complete with things like retcons and dream sequences and technical difficulties filming and cliffhangers being postponed with bizarre filler, as in things that happen in actual shows. My interest in this real-life Sims reality show they’re making is more of a morbid fascination. It’s only four episodes long, of however long the episodes are, so I don’t think they have a lot of confidence in this, especially if the episodes end up being under half an hour so it’d just get compressed as hell. However, how those apparent audience tie-in challenges work in the actual Sims 4 game, and how I can royally screw those up at least, that just begs to be seen.