'Theme song' released for popular PC game 'The Sims'

By Richard Stenger
CNN.com writer

(CNN) -- Can't get enough of The Sims, the virtual life experience game that has all but consumed the real lives of its most devoted players? Now you can sing along with the unofficial anthem, "Sim-Hilarities."

"I was shocked and appalled when I heard it," joked Will Wright, creator of "The Sims."

"That's usually a good thing coming from him," shot back David Langendoen, member of Electric Funstuff, a New York City band that released the single online this week.

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The tune, available as a free MP3 download from Beatz 4 Geekz (www.b4g.com), concerns a player of the hit PC game, who finds strange parallels between his life and those of his on-screen characters.

"The Sims," published by EA, is the top-selling PC game in North America this year, according to Reston, Virginia-based PC Data. The popular game allows players to create and control the lives of a neighborhood of Sims, or simulated people.

The musicians came up with the song after obsessively exploring every aspect of the game. They plotted to kidnap the pizza boy and began hallucinating game happy meters above real people's heads.

"It became obvious that we had to write a song," Langendoen said. "To us, 'Sim-Hilarities' is about that place where the world of The Sims intersects with reality."

"I can tell by their lyrics in the song that they play a lot," said Wright, adding that "just about everyone who plays the game starts overlaying the game into their lives."

The song "is a parody of a parody. The game itself is meant to be a parody of the American Way. And this song was a parody of that."

The song has caught on with Sims fans as well.

"One guy said he sang it at his sister's bat mitzvah and his grandfather's funeral," said Electric Funstuff member Spencer Grey.

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