The game allows players to live out the lives of randomly generated people on Earth. Players are allowed to choose their occupation, living conditions, social activities, and start families, but all of their decisions are affected by available statistical data. For example, if your character was born a girl in India, a database of Indian girl's names would be consulted as well as a database of Indian last names, Indian cities, Indian health statistics, etc. Throughout the game player's lives can be affected by random events such as floods, outbreaks of war, disease, car accidents and other major life changing events. Players get to play from the moment of birth until they die
Source: Wikipedia, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Lives," available under the CC-BY-SA License.