From Sweden, with Love: IKEA’s new Sims branch

There’s a new shop in Pleasantview creating quite a buzz. The Sims may have their own pets, and they discovered seasons (Winter…cold?), but something was missing. Thankfully, your Sims can rejoice and relax now that you can give them Swedish, new age furniture with the IKEA Home Stuff expansion pack. The good news: everything comes pre-assembled. The bad news is: there are no meatballs!

What better way to add more culture to your Sims than with these imported furniture pieces? They can now learn about cooking by pulling a book off of a LACK zigzag wall shelf. Is this really going to enhance the gaming experience? Probably not. It will, however, allow you to spend more time trying to figure out if the EKTORP sofa looks good next to your EXPEDIT TV Unit. That IKEA PS Rug really does pull the room together. What are all those Swedish words going to sound like when translated to “Simlish“?

Now, you may be saying, “My Sim’s aspiration is knowledge, not being a douche bag.” Well, slow down for a minute there! IKEA is a fine company that I have benefited from many times in the past. My walls contain very special collections of little tiny mirrors that, when put next to each other, create a series of much larger mirrors. I love my space-age, stackable chairs and those cool magnetic spice tins that stick to the fridge. Those who have not experienced an actual IKEA store, shame on you. To try to put it into words, I could only say that it’s a bit like Walt Disney World with modular furniture, combined with flashes of the 1964 World’s Fair. Oh, and they have hot dogs for fifty cents.

So why has our virtual world become so superficial that we now need to indulge our electronic counterparts with the “kitsch” that we lust for in real life? Perhaps it’s because we want the vanity of knowing that our avatars live a lush life, or that we should reflect the IKEA goal of socially responsible consumerism, even in our gaming lives. Or, maybe people will just want to know what their own living room might look like with that LEKSVIK Coffee Table, or see if that MALM Bed will fit in their room before they spend some “simolians” on it in real life.

This pack will definitely not have the impact of actually going to an IKEA (those lazy Sims don’t get out to the stores much, anyway), but it may have some of the same benefits: it is socially responsible, sweatshop-free furniture, and think of all the plastic bags you will save. What’s next for your Sim? Maybe they will soon get to stop in at an Abercrombie and Fitch for some virtual cargo shorts, or stop off at Aldi for some store brand baking supplies. It would be one step closer to the real world. Perhaps we will one day reach the point where your Sim life will be exactly the same as your real life. I can’t wait to sit down in the exact same IKEA chair that my Sim is sitting in, eating the same cereal that he is eating in the exact same cargo shorts that he has. Now, that’s a simulation.