A funny thing happened on the internet over the weekend. On the 23rd of December (Friday), I received a notification that “The Sims” Twitch channel had come online. The Sims were having a livestream ofa character named Bob, who was locked in a room decorated for Christmas with a refrigerator and toilet just off screen. For three entire days, I checked on Bob.
If you do not know, first, Twitch is a live streaming websites where anyone can upload a live stream of themselves playing a video game. Sounds boring, to some I know, but on the slow day of Christmas 885,000 people checked into the site from around the world. The video game “The Sims” is “a life simulation video game series, developed by EA Maxis and published by Electronic Arts (and) is one of the best-selling video games series of all time.” (Wikipedia) I have enjoyed playing The Sims since I found the first edition of the game, now I have The Sims 4 playing on my computer.
What made this interesting was that the character and his butler were on the screen and interacting, but the true interaction was in the chat room where people from around the world were celebrating Christmas. The people would pop in and out and talk about Bob, their Christmas parties, and many other things. The chat would get very busy if Bob faced a computer glitch. Interestingly enough, it was a good diversion for my being relatively alone this year on Christmas. Because of the time zone difference and work concerns, it is difficult to communicate throughout the day with my family. Being able to chat throughout the weekend at any time of the day was a nice comfort, even if it centered around a guy locked in a living room with a fireplace.