Tiny houses are thriving in the Sims 4 video game

The glory of playing the Sims, a computer game simulation modeled after sort-of real life, is that you can pretty much do whatever you want. That includes building the house of your pixelated avatar’s dreams.

And for a growing number of players of Sims 4, a dream home means a modest micro dwelling plopped onto a small plot of land. Sims players, it turns out, love a tiny house.

The IRL trend is well documented, and it’s beginning to accrue prominence in the game space, where hundreds of thousands of people tune into Youtube to watch how these simulated tiny homes get built. Players, adopting the tricks of the tiny home trade, design homes with open bathrooms, Murphy beds, and compact kitchens. Their two-room houses look like they’re built from shipping containers and forego marble and glitz for eco-materials, green roof decks, and skylights.

The whole things is perplexing and heartening at the same time. If art imitates life then the Sims is clearly a prism through which our collective anxiety around affordable housing and sustainability is filtered. Or then again, maybe it’s as simple as admitting that digital tiny homes are just really cute to look at.

Via: Kotaku, Designboom