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The new Sims “Play With Life” branding has big boomer energyI cannot even
I cannot even
I get that if the last instalment in your long running game series came out a whole six(!) years ago, you need to remind new potential consumers that it exists. Especially if it runs on a games-as-a-service sort of a model. Enter, then, a new ad campaign? Branding? Thought experiment? for the Sims (and, more specifically,The Sims 4) called Play With Life.
Basically, EA have got five different celebrities from around the world to pretend they’re well into the Sims, including Bilal Hassani, Joe Sugg, and Vanessa Hudgens (I do not for a moment believe that they’re actually well into the Sims; I watched Joe Sugg on Would I Lie To You the other day and he didn’t mentionThe Simseven once). I suppose the vibe is supposed to be that the Sims is so amazing and creative that even celebrities, already living better lives than us, can live even better ones inThe Sims 4.
There’s also a slide show of key moments in the Sims history (which is mostly packed with instances of the Sims becoming more inclusive but really just serves to highlight that e.g. it took them until 2018 to put a canonically gay couple in the game), links to download Sim versions of the aforementioned celebrities, and a “meme generator”. We will come back to the meme generator.
There are just so many baffling decisions that I can’t leave this one alone, I’m afraid. The celebs have been filmed dressed in white, lit in red, and are against a bright blue background, so the overall effect is one of the staircase leading down into a shitty basement club in Hackney that costs £15 on the door. It’s Cheesy Tuesday. They’re playing Cascada.
Meanwhile, although everyone else’s Sim design is pretty alright,the Sim version of Joe Sugglooks so little like Joe Sugg that it seems a bit like a sarcastic dig at Joe Sugg.
It all feels like the physical embodiment of a 50 year old ad executive yelling “What do the kids like these days?!” and snapping his fingers at a meeting room until a terrified, unpaid intern blurts out “Bilal Hassani!” and another 50 year old ad executive says “My kids and their friends are always talking about ‘memes’”.
I love The Sims 4. I even downloaded the TSR workshop tools the other day, to start trying to make my owncustom content. But based off this I don’t know who The Sims wants to love The Sims. Millenials? Gen Z? My mum? Like,just give us bunkbeds, I don’t see what the big deal is.
