Abitur 2012 Topic 1: „Can peo­p­le actual­ly learn for real life by play­ing simu­la­ti­on games? Choo­se an exam­p­le or a gen­re that you are fami­li­ar with and explain its merits and limi­ta­ti­ons.“ Von Cari­na Urban

The Bright Side Of Sims

If you belong to the peo­p­le who play simu­la­ti­on games becau­se you think you can actual­ly learn some­thing for real life by doing this, it’s time to brace yours­elf now: I have been play­ing the famous game “Sims” for seve­ral years now and still find it gre­at, but it pres­ents a com­ple­te­ly unrea­li­stic and ide­al world. This game is like a digi­tal doll­house in which it’s your job to direct humans cal­led “Sims” (like “sim-ula­ti­on”) through their life from todd­ler age to death.

One gre­at merit of this game is that you can almost do wha­te­ver you want. From chan­ging the hair­co­lor of your Sims to desig­ning the pat­tern of your seats in the living room, you can add, edit and chan­ge almost ever­y­thing. So within cer­tain limits the game helps to igni­te and expand your creativity.

But it does­n’t help you at all to learn some­thing useful. Ear­ning money in your job, for exam­p­le, is far too easy. You get pro­mo­ted pret­ty fast; one day, you work as a secre­ta­ry and the next day, you beco­me the lea­der of your busi­ness, which is com­ple­te­ly unrealistic.

The best way to beco­me best fri­ends with a stran­ger, is to talk seve­ral times to him or her. Then you pro­ceed with things like admi­ring your vic­tim until you start hug­ging him for three times – then your job here is done and the two Sims who at first did­n’t even know each other’s names are best fri­ends for life and pro­ba­b­ly on their way to get married.

All in all this gen­re of simu­la­ti­on games is more about fun than actual­ly tea­ching you about real life. Alt­hough it may arou­se your ima­gi­na­ti­on and crea­ti­vi­ty, the unrea­li­stic aspects are pre­do­mi­nant. (288 words)

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