The Sims FreePlay Language & Audience blog tasks

Language / Gameplay analysis

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

1) What elements of gameplay are shown?

The main elements of the gameplay shown are the ability to build and personalise your own sim and home, to communicate with animals and others, to advance your characters to parenthood and to personalise your sims through hobbies and professions etc. This gameplay idealises the somewhat tedious aspects of life, since the player has full control over the outcome and independence.

2) What audience is the trailer targeting?

The trailer mainly targets a teen audience, since the desire to grow up and be in control of a life is much more common among those who haven't done it yet

3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer?

The pleasures for the trailer's viewers are diversion due to the development of a completely separate universe

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 built by creating individual sims, giving them particular traits and hobbies and then increasing them in the world. Then there are subsequent tasks that can be done, to take care of your sims basically.

2) What audience is this game targeting?

The game targets a young, predominantly female audience with desires of a lifestyle that is somewhat ' American dream ' or at least some imitation of it, designing your own home, having different relationships and becoming parent.

3) What audience pleasures does the game provide?

diversion by creating a virtual environment, and personal identity and relationships (blumler and katz) by developing and communicating with your sims directly.

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

1.  limited play
2. in-app purchases are seen as a way to accelerate the time to complete tasks, or the time to make certain things available, etc; this allows for instant gratification, a major appeal to its potential fighting audience.

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?

“...plenty of hours of fun... at an excellent, non-existent, price.” 

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

This game's main market draw is the fact that its most basic version is completely free, and that it's still a lot of fun to play without the expansion packs.

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

Speak of the game's addictive nature and suggest the ability to create your own personal world whatever you want.

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 house for a doll where each person comes to it with their own interest and picks out their own goals. '

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

The game was described as a ' doll house ' and Maxis believed that "doll houses were for girls, and girls were not playing video games."

3) What is ‘modding’?

A mod is an alteration by players or fans of a video game that changes one or more aspects of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves. -- i got from wikipedia

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

' Textual Poaching is the taking a text which has already been created and changing certain aspects of it to appeal to a group of audiences who wanted a different result.

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

Pearce noted that' the original Sims series has the most vibrant emerging fan culture in the history of a single-player game ' (2009: 272).

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

' Players seemed to show a positive urge to recreate within The Sims the worlds of their favourite fandoms. If one decided to recreate Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, all one had to do was look for the appropriate website on the internet.

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

A process in which the primary text of an official commercial product is encoded

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

It has evolved from a very small group of investing players to a large, mainstream audience, all using sims to support their own fandoms, and openly singing their praises.

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

Some fans complained that fellow community members were given more respect and control because they could create things others couldn't do

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

' It will be remembered for the cults that followed that it generated well beyond the usual lifespan of a popular computer game; and also for the digital production culture it helped the pioneer, one that remains such a staple of today's fan and game modding communities.

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 is used to ' improve technical skills and emotional intelligence and social interactions. '

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

He treats it as a ' real game ' taking players ' beyond traditional gaming itself '

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

' Empower people to think and organise around the game like designers to learn new skills and think creatively '

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

Yes; I see the game as a place for users to express themselves in a multitude of ways that they may not be able to do in the real world.

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 assume that games will grow to include the same versatility and interactivity of sims, with sandbox genre games becoming increasingly popular in recent years and becoming some of the most successful franchises