Videogames: The Sims FreePlay part 1 - Language & Audience

 The Sims FreePlay - Language & Audience blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'The Sims FreePlay case study part 1 - Language & Audience' and complete the following in-depth tasks.

Language / Gameplay analysis

Watch The Sims: FreePlay trailer and answer the following questions:

1) What elements of gameplay are shown?

• Autonomy - the gamer has complete control over what they do and what happens in the game; they are able to choose and alter their sims' lives depending on what they want to happen

• Ability to form relationships and "find true love", grow a family, explore the local town that you've constructed.

• Active verbs - gives the audience an active involvement in the stories created in the game.

2) What audience is the trailer targeting?

A young audience

3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer?

• Personal Identity- The game reflects the lives of the gamers, this means that gamers will see themselves reflected in the game.
• Personal relationships- The fact that gamers can create their life on the game suggests that they will build relationships with characters.
• Diversion- Gamers can create a new life for themselves and essentially escape their current one.

Now watch this walk-through of the beginning of The Sims FreePlay and answer the following questions:

1) How is the game constructed?

• Cinematic aerial shots of the town - adds a visual appeal to the game
• 'Provides tutorials - makes the gameplay easier which targets and suits the more mainstream gamer.
• Six basic needs of the sims parallel to the fundamental needs of humans in real life (hunger, bladder, energy, hygiene social and fun) - however, some of the needs are excluded (e.g. sexual desires) which emphasises the sanitised nature of the game.
• Personalisation of the game - creates a strong character investment between the gamers and their characters.
• Promotes the idea of domesticity and the idea of having a perfect suburban lifestyle - suburban utopia is created.

2) What audience is this game targeting?

• Predominantly female audience - more clothing options and styles available for the female avatars which demonstrates how the game plays into the desires of the female gamers.

3) What audience pleasures does the game provide?

• Personal identity- gamers can see their own personalities reflected in the construction of sims
• Diversion- gamers are able to escape from reality through the way in which the gamer states: "the time is flying", suggesting that the game hooks players into playing for long periods of time to lead a more idealistic life.
• Rewards for completing tasks and unlocking new content

4) How does the game encourage in-app purchases?

• The tutorials show how the crystals can be used to speed up processes such as the construction of buildings like the fire station etc. Encourages the gamer to invest in these crystals later on in the game ti continue speeding up processes.
• Focus on the instantaneous (Postmodernism theory - Strinati) as younger audiences would not want to wait for things to happen.

Audience

Read this App Store description and the customer reviews for The Sims FreePlay and answer the following questions:  

1) What critics reviews are included in the game information section?

Ratings and reviews: 4.5/5

"I’ve been playing the sims since 2015 and I love it! It’s definitely one of my favorite games, if not my favorite!"

"First off, I love this game! Like set alarms for quests, etc."

2) What do the reviews suggest regarding the audience pleasures of The Sims FreePlay?

Personal Identity- Customers may see themselves reflected in the characters as they pretty much set up a simulacrum of real life on the game.

Personal Relationships- Customers have 'been playing The Sims since 2015'

Diversion- It is 'so addicting' and people 'love this game' and the 'set alarms for quests'- It can be seen as a source of escapism.

The reviews suggest that audiences alue sims for the realism of the gameplay. The gamers want their sims to be able to do just as much as people can do in real life, despite it being a virtual reality.

3) How do the reviews reflect the strong element of participatory culture in The Sims?

Participatory culture is reflected through the reviews as it highlights how the reviews can actually shape the content of the game. Shows the level of insight that the gamers can give into the game construction in hopes to see their desires reflected in the next updates etc. For example, the latest version has the ability to "throw the most fabulous party" which encourages interaction between the sims.

Participatory culture

Read this academic journal article - The Sims: A Participatory Culture 14 Years On. Answer the following questions:

1) What did The Sims designer Will Wright describe the game as?

Will Wright describes as akin to ‘a train set or a doll’s house where each person comes to it with their own interest and picks their own goals’ (Wright 1999).

2) Why was development company Maxis initially not interested in The Sims?

The board of directors thought that ‘doll houses were for girls, and girls didn’t play video games’ (Seabrook 2006).

3) What is ‘modding’?

When modifications are offered for the games so that people can shape the game even further beyond the standard gameplay offered. Range of modifications were available, from increasing coffee strength, enabling sexual content to Teen Pregnancy Mods and ghosts.

4) How does ‘modding’ link to Henry Jenkins’ idea of ‘textual poaching’?

Modding links to Henry Jenkins' idea of 'textual poaching' because the culture of appropriation and remediation has brought people together in creative projects that demand nothing more than cooperation and give no remuneration except for a sense of pride and satisfaction in ones achievements.

5) Look specifically at p136. Note down key quotes from Jenkins, Pearce and Wright on this page.

Jenkins- "Today, there are thousands" of fan websites dedicated to the Sims

Pearce- ‘The original Sims series has the most vibrant emergent fan culture of a single-player game in history’ (2009: 272).

Wright- ‘We were probably responsible for the first million or so units sold but it was the community which really brought it to the next level’

6) What examples of intertextuality are discussed in relation to The Sims? (Look for “replicating works from popular culture”)

The Sims ‘has been used to replicate and ‘rearrange’ scenes and character settings from famous works of popular culture in much the same way fans have traditionally been performing their fandom through recycling texts and images’ (Sihvonen 2011: 172).

7) What is ‘transmedia storytelling’ and how does The Sims allow players to create it?

Transmedia storytelling is a process wherein the primary text encoded in an official commercial

product could be dispersed over multiple media, both digital and analogue in form.

8) How have Sims online communities developed over the last 20 years?

the original Sims game maintains a small but dedicated following, centred mainly in online communities that continue to play the game and to engage in participatory cultures around it. Moreover, there are some fans of the original game that are attempting to preserve it in the face

of its growing obsolescence.

9) Why have conflicts sometimes developed within The Sims online communities?

Conflicts have developed due to the informal hierarchies that have come into play. This hierarchy has been developed based on the varying levels of social and cultural capital gained by the creators of mods. There is conflict between those who charge for their mods and those who provide them for free.

10) What does the writer suggest The Sims will be remembered for?

The Sims will be remembered for the cult following that it engendered well beyond the usual lifespan of a popular computer game; and also for the culture of digital production it helped to pioneer, one that remains such a staple of fan and game modding communities today.

Read this Henry Jenkins interview with James Paul Gee, writer of Woman as Gamers: The Sims and 21st Century Learning (2010).

1) How is ‘modding’ used in The Sims?

Modding in The Sims creates challenges and game play that is simultaneously in the game world, in the real world, and in writing things like graphic novels, and sustains a passionate affinity space that builds artistic, technical, social, and emotional skills

2) Why does James Paul Gee see The Sims as an important game?

He views it as an important game because it takes people beyond gaming, and how women typically play games and design things is not mainstream but it "cutting edge."

3) What does the designer of The Sims, Will Wright, want players to do with the game?

Wright wants to empower people to think like designers, to organize themselves around the game to become learn new skills that extend beyond the game, and to express their own creativity.

4) Do you agree with the view that The Sims is not a game – but something else entirely?

I do agree to an extent. The Sims is a virtual reality and in this sense, it feels like anything but a game, because audience members are able to fulfil everyday tasks and activities in the game such as driving and playing sports, and the collaborative nature of The Sims has allowed audiences to create a community and are more active in their gaming consumption. Furthermore, because of the level of participatory culture that the game has enabled, it has become something more than just a game. However, it is still a simulacrum of reality thus rendering it to be a false depiction of real life, and so this makes it feel more of a game as it's purpose is to entertain and push audience members to divert away from reality to create a new one. 

5) How do you see the future of gaming? Do you agree with James Paul Gee that all games in the future will have the flexibility and interactivity of The Sims?

I think that games will take more of an interactive approach by enabling gamers to shape the content. The success of the Sims franchise is likely to encourage gamers to take on a more creative approach when playing games. For example, having multiple strand narratives available within games rather than one set linear narrative for all gamers to follow. I think that if games encouraged their audiences to construct their own content (e.g. mods) then they would be more successful as audiences would enjoy the creative freedom that they are given and the opportunity to shape the game how they want to.