Mafia Influence on The Sims Online
If I told you this, would you believe me? Try doing so, because
it's the truth. And also, in this strange and perverse world,
young men and women are busy killing each other at an alarming
rate. Do we really need something like a pseudo Mafia causing
the same sorts of problems? Gangsterism, in other words, on our
children's beloved video games?
According to Wikipedia, the Web's foremost online encyclopedia,
ever since 9/11 the FBI hasn't had much in time or resources to
handle organized crime, and there has been a sudden resurgence
in its activities.
Right now, the online game "The Sims Online"-- which is labeled
a "T for Teens" game -- has been overrun by several obviously
Mafia named "families." These people don't seem to have enough
imagination to be Mexican Mafia, Chinese Mafia or Japanese Mafia
(yet), which also exist in real life. They are very aggressive
and very obvious.
Whether or not they are the real Mafia is a question which I
cannot answer. They may be a bunch of "errant" teenage boys and
girls - but ones with some very eclectic adult tastes and also
many violent and weird high tech tendencies. You should see the
Playboy style icons they paste on top of their houses from
certain views of the TSO video game. I can't tell who's to blame
for that, adults or kids. And that sort of thing is not
something you can ordinarily get as a regular player of that
particular video game. Something is up with that, something way
too mysterious.
And one thing these kids, if they are kids, really do, even
though it is to virtual and not real houses: they trash people's
paid-for beautiful properties. The kind of properties that
people would like to build, taking a lifetime to achieve.
Beautiful, sprawling mansions you can't own in real life, the
kind that are totally out of reach for the vast majority of
people.
Some people have been playing The Sims Online for years. Maybe
you think they're weird, maybe you think they're no one to feel
sorry for. Maybe you're even rooting for the "pseudo Mafia." But
not me. I had real friends going on that game, and slowly but
surely "they" began destroying our Sims houses, and all of our
prized possessions on that game. To the point where no one could
tell if it was part of the game, or something far worse.
I happen to have another friend (an entirely different
situation) who was screwed over for $15,000 real life dollars
when he tried to sell some photographs and they were more or
less taken from him. Is that a good thing to do to someone? And
is it a good thing to interrupt some high tech "decent" game
involving minor adult activity and corrupt it still further? So
far as I can tell, some money is going out that way on TSO
too--in real life.
I am so tired, I don't know. Values are very hard to gauge in
life, anyway.
To "green up" on The Sims Online at all, or to keep your
simulated character going, it forces you to do interactions that
are rather similar to having sex with animals (wrestle with your
dog, but you should see what it looks like if you really see it)
and that's bad enough, but rather bearable. Sigmund Freud would
have told us that such behavior is relatively normal, that
having an "orgy session" involving "heavy petting" with your own
puppy where it loves you and licks your face and you are all
over each other, is fun. Also, there is sexy dancing, heavy
kissing and hugging, and so forth, which works for most people
-- including twelve year old kids. This is done with your fellow
"characters," real life people in the game whom you can become
acquainted with, work with, and even "marry." The marriages are
not legal of course, and tend to dissolve fairly quickly.
It is not fun, however, to come home one day to having your hard
won, worked for skills, games, store or money house trashed by
unknown people -- while your town is crawling with "De Corleoni
Territori," the "Italian Mafia Empire," "The Vito Family
Territory" and so forth. I am not talking Anti-Italian
Defamation. I had several Italian friends on the game, whom I
now am stuck missing in my daily life. I am talking about a
bunch of people either acting like the Mafia, or worse yet,
actually being connected with them somehow and taking over a
children's video game. Possibly, several children's video games.
Or were they involved in the first place, and is Maxis a Mafia
held game company? Look at the names.
Maxis, Mafia. Why doesn't Entertainment Arts do something about
the house trashing problem, for example, even though people have
repeatedly complained about it? What is it exactly that they are
trying to hide? Apparently not much; you can easily find "the
Mob" everywhere on that game. And their version of "the cops"
does absolutely nothing at all.
It is true the game is labeled "T for Teens" and is connected
with what looks like some harmless fake gambling. The money
being exchanged seems to be Simoleans at first. Fake money,
which you get by working at odd jobs on the game, and you may
also acquire skills so you can make more of the fake money. But
there are "payoffs," and you can also buy blocks of the money on
EBay, roughly $15-25 for 1 million Simoleans. And you can buy
"rares," which people barter and pay for, such as Mystic Trees,
tigers and cheetahs. Makes it looks like you're not spending
money, like the gambling is harmless.
But is this what you want your teenager to be doing? For 6-10
hours a day, five-seven days a week? Eventually, obviously,
after I spent about a month on the game, it was so that the
money was swiftly turning real.
Okay, video addiction is bad enough, but we're talking about
Organized Crime here as well. Remember a little place called
Columbine High School? What if there's some sort of eerie
connection to that sort of business? I had to join this game to
find out, kind of as a lark, but I did some real exploring too.
And the Mafia is in and roughly controlling every town that I've
visited on The Sims Online, and I've reasonably checked them all
over. Dan's Grove, Jolly Pines, Blazing Falls, Alphaville. The
Mafia is...everywhere.
I have talked to these "Mafia" gentlemen and ladies, and visited
their houses. They don't have very much to do at them but the
usual Sims stuff. I'm afraid they have discovered game "cheats"
and, being bored, are using them to destroy other game players'
properties. And yes, I have evidence, not hard unfortunately,
that they have watched people play the game from a distance. One
of them knew about something he shouldn't have known. And
another friend of mine who regularly plays video games has
noticed these tendencies toward having strange "game powers"
that other players don't have in yet other video games. He says
it's pretty common. Hackers, he calls it, but in the TSO case,
it's hitting a little too close to home.
For example, a gay bashing was set up right in front of me. I
rode it out, but I had to comfort the "gay" being bashed. Of
course, it was his simulated character, not "he" who was hurt.
TSO is real people playing games. I'm not gay, but it was
getting a little peculiar that such stuff is allowable on a "T
for Teens" video game. I was more than a little confused.
A "lady" in fun fired a game Civil War cannon at me, in private,
and this Mafia guy named "Riccardo" knew that it had happened. I
don't think she told him about it. How did he know? She did it
just for laughs, and it was a harmless game event (I peed my
pants as the game character, and it seemed okay), but it's not
very funny that he knew about it. I didn't exactly care, and it
was sort of humorous. He couldn't have known about it unless
he'd seen it happen, in all probability. And he wasn't anywhere
on the property or onscreen at the time. He had a private view
of it going on.
The same Mafia dude, who kept denying he was Mafia -- while
dressed in an obvious game-style Mafia suit and with the name
"Riccardo" -- also told me you can't trash houses unless you're
a roommate or the home owner. This should indeed be the case; it
involves "building permissions." But one of the house trashing
victims had no roommates whatsoever. And she wasn't motivated to
trash her house...no insurance money is involved.
Game players on this game can be quite friendly. I made a lot of
good friends doing things like making pizzas, opening up my own
skills house business, doing minor gambling (legal for adults
and I'm over 40) and in general -- partying. You can play high
tech, beautiful looking musical instruments and feel like you're
there. It's a great game. You should see some of the wild and
crazy characters on this game! Or should you?
Except that I can't play it anymore. I quit the game solely
because of the extremely heavy Mafia presence that was starting
to visit my house and breathe hotly down my neck. That, and the
game was cutting into my work routine as a full-time writer
quite a little bit, too.
First, "Riccardo" showed up. Out of nowhere, after I had used
the Maxis device to screen all apparent "Mafia" members out of
my "house." He showed up at my house. The same day my friend's
house was trashed. It was the second such trashing since I had
started playing there. Obvious Mafia guy, obviously scouting me.
Denied everything completely. This was after two of my friends'
houses had been trashed.
Want to know anything about terrorism? Now I know what it is. A
little too thoroughly for my tastes. The Mob was making it
obvious that I could be next. Why is that exactly? And what sort
of "next" would it be--real, or simulated game activity? These
people looked capable of tracking down my actual computer's IP
address, my ISP and finally my real life house.
"Yeah, they're just a bunch of teenagers who like to trash
houses..." "They're not the real Mafia, they're just kids." I
heard a lot of that from people both on and off the game, even
my fellow writers. Harmless kids.
Like the ones at Columbine?
Boredom with what the Sims had to offer, or a lack of desire to
wait for the further events? We had chat rooms going, and Eminem
(might be the real one from rap music, somebody on the game
claimed it actually is that very real rapper dude--who knows)
was there, helping to build a SimBall stadium. So people could
play SimBall on the game. Some guy called Eminem, and he wanted
to build us a ball stadium. What if the pseudo "Mafia" decides
to trash that, too? "Em" there might have been trying to do
something real and good for a change. Dunno. And I heard about a
man's house also being trashed, so it's obvious they don't do it
"just to women."
And all I could do was flee. I quit playing the game for good. I
don't feel much "like a man" after that. I feel rather like an
inebriated cipher.
Parents, watch the video games your teenagers are playing. You
might turn around and suddenly find you have a genuine Neo Mafia
member for a teenage daughter or son, in your Real Life. I know
that now. You might think I'm crazy, but I'm not. A man told me
recently he's been finding kids that stay all day on those
games. I'm not the only "nutty" parent here who's getting
worried. I think something like Columbine could swallow our kids
alive, alarmist as that may sound, through video games.
The Sims Online is conceivably the haven for a slinking beast
with no better name than the Neo Mafia: "My New Family." And for
the last time, if you're Italian, I am not picking on you. I'm
worried about you instead. And do you need to be affiliated with
these mysterious strangers, who maybe think all organized crime
is still from Italy? Are you, like me, a parent? Ma fia? Neo ma
fia? Oy gevaldt, as the Jews say, on such a New Family.
Yes, parents, that is what it means in Italian-American. My new
family.
Still feel comfortable with the concept?
News items like France and the recent riots belittle this pretty
much. But that's somebody else's problem. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation should be looking into at least our nation's video
games. You can buy money on EBay to sell on that TSO game, kids
are on that game, and they are being threatened into being
recruited into the, I would assume, mostly "swarthy white people
Mafia"...right now...since they keep mentioning the Italian one
so much...
...the real one or the virtual one?
Who knows?