The Sims Spark'd

The Sims is obviously an amazing game series and we wish we could play more of it. From the outside, the Sims community seems like an inclusive and welcoming space where people can be creative and have fun.

And then we have the Sims Spark'd, the product of an ill-advised partnership between EA, TBS, and Buzzfeed Multiplayer.

They gather 12 Sims content creators, put them in teams of three, and subject them to baffling challenges, for which they are judged arbitrarily by some people who just happened to be around the studio. You feel for the contestants trying to meet unspoken demands under increasingly brutal time constraints. But that's what happens when you try to make an expressive game into a competition.

You can watch the whole series here, though we only discuss the first episode.