Play Hard, Work Harder: A Gameplay Analysis of Goal- Oriented Narrative and Post-Narrative Play in The Sims 2 DS

The adaptation of a computer game for use with other platforms can require a redesign of the game itself - it changes the game. The Sims 2 DS, created for the Nintendo DS handheld game platform, is a single-player, goal-oriented narrative game based on The Sims single player open-ended virtual world. The Sims 2 DS narrative, based on the player’s performance as a hotel manager, exacerbates the already present but less literal hegemonies of labour and consumption found in the standard Sims virtual world, where play is spent building a life and home in a suburban neighbourhood. We discuss narrativity in video games, and the residue of labour and consumption intrinsic to post-industrial play. Operating as researcher who is a participant-in-play, one author conducts a qualitative gameplay analysis of the narrative introduced in The Sims 2 DS. The conversion of The Sims original virtual world into a truncated goal-oriented narrative play structure invokes extant hegemonies of labour and consumption. We argue, however, that when the narrative is played out and the player is left to her/his virtual life in the postnarrative virtual world, these notions of labour and consumption are amplified into the more powerful hegemonies of overwork and over consumption. It may be ‘only a game, ' but The Sims 2 DS eerily parallels the erosion of work/life balance present in everyday American work culture and provides yet another cultural site supporting the hegemonic voice of overwork and over consumption-couched within entertainment and ‘play.' In the Sims 2 DS, the player is thrust into a job s/he cannot leave. Play hard, work harder - even when the story is over.