Watch The Sims: FreePlay trailer and answer the following questions:
1) What elements of gameplay are shown?
Customisation, pets, relationships, exploring and stereotypical family values are all present in the gameplay trailer
2) What audience is the trailer targeting?
I would assume women, due to the nature of the content, but seeing that the game is so wildly popular, it would be safe to assume that the game attracts men too. When looking at age, I would assume the net is quite large and would estimate it to be around 12-30
3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer?
Personal Identity, relationship, diversion, and surveillance can all be debated.
Identity because the player can fashion a character to be of their likeness. Relationship because not only does the game allow for the player to make a literal family, but to also the player to form personal relationships with the characters they make.
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 be a life sim (simulation) with the main goal being to take care of your "sim" through an in-game currency that can also be bought with real money.
2) What audience is this game targeting?
The audience this game is attracting is the same audience that the trailer is attracting. aged 12-30 mainly women
3) What audience pleasures does the game provide?
The same that the trailer does, personal relationship, identity, diversion and, debatably surveillance
4) How does the game encourage in-app purchases?
It does so through allowing players to purchase in-game currency with real money
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?
All types, from 5-1 star reviews.
2) What do the reviews suggest regarding the audience pleasures of The Sims FreePlay?
Hard to make an assumption based on the reviews given, but it can be seen that most people play the game for the same reason.
3) How do the reviews reflect the strong element of participatory culture in The Sims?
The audience has an influence on the games future and current content through the sending of reviews.
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?
‘a train set or a doll’s house where each person comes to it with their own interest and picks their own goals’
2) Why was development company Maxis initially not interested in The Sims?
They said that the sims catered for a female audience and that women don't play games
3) What is ‘modding’?
Modding is, in essence, modifying the game with user-created content
4) How does ‘modding’ link to Henry Jenkins’ idea of ‘textual poaching’?
Textual Poaching is the idea of using already made content and editing it to make something different
5) Look specifically at p136. Note down key quotes from Jenkins, Pearce and Wright on this page.
Pearce ‘The original Sims
series has the most vibrant emergent fan culture of a
single-player game in history’
Jenkins notes, ‘there were
already more than fifty fan Web sites dedicated to
The Sims. Today, there are thousands’
Wright saying: ‘We were probably
responsible for the first million or so units sold but
it was the community which really brought it to the
6) What examples of intertextuality are discussed in relation to The Sims? (Look for “replicating works from popular culture”)
Players were literally recreating items from popular cultures such as star wars and X files.
7) What is ‘transmedia storytelling’ and how does The Sims allow players to create it?
Players could mix characters from different IP's and form their very own relationships, creating transmedia storytelling. e.g. Marvel characters forming relationships with DC ones etc
8) How have Sims online communities developed over the last 20 years?
They have become far larger and complex, instead of one or two, there is now a whole sub-culture of sims related gaming, talking, socialising, etc.
9) Why have conflicts sometimes developed within The Sims online communities?
the individual preferences and practices of players can cause divides within the community
10) What does the writer suggest The Sims will be remembered for?
Its ability to create a community
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?
"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?
James Paul Gee, see's the game as more than a game. The sims also acts as a form of expression.
3) What does the designer of The Sims, Will Wright, want players to do with the game?
Empower people to think like designers
4) Do you agree with the view that The Sims is not a game – but something else entirely?
The sims is a game that evolved into something bigger. Having only dabbled with the game in the past, I can't say that I personally have experienced this phenomenon, and so to try and say I understand why this game has been catapulted into the gaming hall of fame would be disingenuous. But I can say that it was inevitable. When there is a medium to create and freedom is given openly, creative individuals help to expand and fill the potential of that medium. The Sims act no differently as the tools of creation and relationship building are given to an unexpected extreme, acting as an almost tool for storytelling, allowing for an abundance of diversion.
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 we have gotten to that point already, and the flexibility and creativity are simply going to be improved rather than more widely implemented since it's implementation is already quite widespread. As AI gets better, the chance of storytelling and individually unique experiences increases significantly.
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