The Allegorithm

A Sim in The Sims is a simple animated character, with few facial features or expressions. In The Sims 2 they seem a little more lifelike, but the improvement of the representation in some particular ways only raises the standards by which it appears to fall short in others. From the point of view of allegorithm, it all seems more the other way around. Everyday life in gamespace seems an imperfect version of the game. The gamespace of everyday life may be more complex and variegated, but it seems much less consistent, coherent and fair. Perhaps this was always the atopian promise of the digital — a real of absolute, impersonal equity and equanimity. The game opens a critical gap between what gamespace promises and what it delivers. What is true is not real; what is real is not true. This is what the double movement of allegorithm and allegory have to report. The game is true in that its algorithm is consistent, but this very consistency negates a world that is not.