The Sims Free Play - Language & Audience blog tasks: Part 1

Language / Gameplay analysis

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

1) What elements of gameplay are shown?

The elements of the gameplay include providing a virtual life for audiences and their own identity is allowed to be constructed. it allows the audience to, care, grow, design, play and live suggesting that the game player has an active role in the gameplay and there are 'limitless possibilities' providing a platform for greater opportunities. There is a hyperreal platform provided as the colours used to give a sense of this idealised life which is full of perfection. 

2) What audience is the trailer targeting?

The audience is most likely to be a younger demographic as it is more like a happy family game with no explicit references. This can also be because youth culture is mostly represented.

3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer?

Audience pleasures include autonomy as you can 'create your own sim' audiences are given the complete freedom and opportunities for their virtual identity. There is also a sense of escapism as it allows the audience to divert their minds off reality.

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

1) How is the game constructed?

The game is constructed to enable audiences to have complete control over their sim and virtual life as the sims needs are also made explicit like their need, hunger, hygiene, bladder. social, fun and energy. This is suburban and provides a sort of domestic space for the audiences promoting middle-class values.

2) What audience is this game targeting?

The audience is a younger demographic from 12 years and no sexual content is explicit and seems like an appropriate game for the young. There is a range of options for the females whilst they create their character again giving the impression that it is targetted at them. It was also described as a dollhouse by the creator will wright suggesting that it is aimed at a female based audience.

3) What audience pleasures does the game provide?

The audience pleasures include psychologically rewarding as the character gets something each time they do something. This is providing a diversion for them and also gives them a sense of personalisation through the eyes, hair and clothes.

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

This is encouraged through adds watched to gain extra crystals and experience which generates more revenue which is encouraging spending and revenue.

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?

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

It allows them to have a virtual life as one said that it resembles actual life which means that it allows them to identify themselves with the game. For example, growing babies, designing houses, having their own virtual pet. There is diversity within the game which people like as it allows your sim to have many interactions and some think that it is restrictive because not many things can actually be done, lack of freedom, style and self-creativity.

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

This reflects the element of participatory culture as audiences are able to have a say about the media they consume and are being subjective of it as a result. This means that culture has revolutionised fan communities with the opportunity to create and share content. This links to Clay Shirky’s work on ‘mass amateurisation’.

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?

Sims is described as a dollhouse by Will Wright. 

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

They claimed that dollhouses were for girls and that girl didn't really play video games.

3) What is ‘modding’?

This is the term for modification which the part of the appeal of the game.

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

Jenkins discusses ‘textual poaching’ – when fans take texts and re-edit or develop their meanings, a process called semiotic productivity. Fan communities are also quick to criticise if they feel a text or character is developing in a way they don’t support. This links to the idea of modding as it changes aspects of the game to benefit the audience.

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

Wright:

• "A culture wherein players were able to modify game assets by manipulating the game code (a practice called ‘modding’) with the sanction of the rights owners and to share their new creations via personal websites and online.

Jenkins:

• "held together through the mutual production and reciprocal exchange of knowledge"

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

The game’s release, skins depicting characters from cult media such as Star Trek, Star Wars, The X-Files and Japanese anime and manga were extremely popular. Players seemed to display a gleeful desire to recreate the worlds of their favourite fandoms within The Sims.

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

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

product could be dispersed over multiple media, both digital and analogue in form (Jenkins 2007).
The Sims space provided a playground for cult media fans, a stage for enacting fannish stories which
could later be shared (via the game’s in-built camera and photo album) with other game players who had similar interests.

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

The Sims – a comprehensive list can be found at the SWARM1 fansite – but a few sites have taken on the gargantuan task of preserving The Sims, becoming in effect digital libraries or archives. Sites such as CTO Sims2, and  Yahoo Groups such as Saving the Sims3 are continuing to ‘rescue’ game assets from dead sites in a collaborative effort between creators and players who ‘donate’ game mods, which are then uploaded to the site or group and shared with other members.

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

In the past there have been conflicts between creators and non-creators; between creators who wish to charge money for their mods and those who wish to share them for free; even between players and Maxis/EA itself. Fans of The Sims are not homogeneous. Some fans have complained of fellow community members receiving more recognition and power because they can create things that others can’t – opportunities for participation do not necessarily imply an attendant equality

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

what it will be remembered for, is 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 the Sims to create challenges and game play that is simultaneously in the game world, in the real world, and in writing things like graphic novels.
Such modding is the force that sustains a passionate affinity space that builds artistic, technical, social, and emotional skills. We wrote the book because these woman and girls rock, not because they are women and girls.

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

He claims that The Sims is a real game and a very important one because it is a game that is meant to take people beyond gaming. She helped me see that how women play and design is not "mainstream" (see comments above) but cutting edge, the edge of the future.

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

empower people to think like designers, to organise 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 agree with to some extent as people have began to see themselves virtually in this game and being a genuine true representation of themselves. This is enabling audiences to have autonomy and identify themselves with it. 

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 believe that as sims made a remarkable impression in the industry that other games may follow upon this as it increases the idea of participatory culture as Jenkins says we are prosumers and what clay Shirky refers to as 'mass amateurisation' because now the way audience interacts with the media actually impacts on what is created. They have the ability to choose what is right for them and this sense of freedom is felt by them enabling consumers to pick and choose what they like highlighting the idea of pluralism. This means that it can result in games having the flexibility and interactivity in future games as gamers feel more pride and are able to express their feelings more publicly.