Videogames: The Sims FreePlay - Audience and Industry
Audience
Read this App Store description and the customer reviews for The Sims FreePlay and answer the following questions:
1) What game information is provided on this page? Pick out three elements you think are important in terms of making the game appeal to an audience.
- The 'free' sign next to the game will appeal to audiences because they do not have to pay to download/play the game
- The screenshots of the game so an audience can see what the gameplay looks like
- The events section with live events occurring in the game (The SimTown Bake Off)
2) How does the game information on this page reflect the strong element of participatory culture in The Sims?
It offers players the opportunity to create their own versions of the game and to 'show off your interior design skills and personal style.'
3) Read a few of the user reviews. What do they suggest about the audience pleasures of the game?
User's suggest that the game is addictive and allows them to be creative.
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?
similar to ‘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?
The board of directors thought that ‘doll houses were for girls, and girls didn’t play video games’
3) What is ‘modding’? How does ‘modding’ link to Henry Jenkins’ idea of ‘textual poaching’?
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 for a – or even on the official Sims page, where an exchange centre was set up. This relates to textual poaching as both consumers and audiences contribute to a product or a franchise, through activities ranging from writing fanfiction to drawing fanart, from cosplaying to even penning simple gaming reviews.
4) Look specifically at p136. Note down key quotes from Jenkins, Pearce and Wright on this page.
- As Pearce has noted, ‘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 next level’
5) What examples of intertextuality are discussed in relation to The Sims? (Look for “replicating works from popular culture”)
From the early days of 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.
6) What is ‘transmedia storytelling’ and how does The Sims allow players to create it?
A process wherein the primary text encoded in an official commercial product could be dispersed over multiple media, both digital and analogue in form.
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.
7) How have Sims online communities developed over the last 20 years?
In fact, The Sims helped to pioneer other transmedia, narrative practices such as gamics
(comics made from game screenshots) and machinima (films made from captured game animations) forms of fannish productivity, which also served to strengthen fan communities.
8) What does the writer suggest The Sims will be remembered for?
But what it will be remembered for, I think, is for the cult following that it engendered
well beyond the usual lifespan of a popular computer game.
Read this Henry Jenkins interview with James Paul Gee, writer of Woman as Gamers: The Sims and 21st Century Learning (2010).
1) Why does James Paul Gee see The Sims as an important game?
It is a game that is meant to take people beyond gaming
2) What does the designer of The Sims, Will Wright, want players to do with the game?
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
3) Do you agree with the view that The Sims is not a game – but something else entirely?
I believe the space it offers for the engagement in participatory culture has made the sims games different to just any other videogame
Industries
Electronic Arts & Sims FreePlay industries focus
Read this Pocket Gamer interview with EA’s Amanda Schofield, Senior Producer on The Sims FreePlay at EA's Melbourne-based Firemonkeys studio. Answer the following questions:
1) How has The Sims FreePlay evolved since launch?
The updates they introduce have now made the Sim's lifestyle more immersive
2) Why does Amanda Schofield suggest ‘games aren’t products any more’?
These are games-as-a-service that require constant operation and updating, often over a period of several years.
3) What does she say about The Sims gaming community?
The community is very active and always hungry to see more features and content in the game.
4) How has EA kept the game fresh and maintained the active player base?
Do not do much more than listen and build to keep the players engaged. We’ve been working to give them more tools and freedom to make the houses of their dreams by adding balconies, pools, a second story and all manner of furniture styles over the years.
5) How many times has the game been installed and how much game time in years have players spent playing the game? These could be great introductory statistics in an exam essay on this topic.
The first is that we’ve seen well over 200 million installs of The Sims FreePlay to date. 78,000, which is the amount of game time in years our players have spent in the game
Read this blog on how EA is ruining the franchise (or not) due to its downloadable content. Answer the following questions:
Personal identity- create virtual humans with personalities
2) What examples of downloadable content are presented?
Fashion and lifestyles like accessories, and exclusive clothing
3) How did Electronic Arts enrage The Sims online communities with expansion packs and DLC?
Overpriced basic features like pets
4) What innovations have appeared in various versions of The Sims over the years?
Progressions of life- babies, pregnancies, teens and adults.
5) In your opinion, do expansion packs like these exploit a loyal audience or is it simply EA responding to customer demand?
I believe that EA are resonding to their communities with the expansion packs howver it is exploitiative as updates that were once free are now behind paywalls like clolour customisations.
The ‘Freemium’ gaming model
Read this Business Insider feature on freemium gaming and multiplayer games. Answer the following questions:
1) Note the key statistics in the first paragraph.
From Candy Crush Saga to Clash of Clans, “freemium” games and their in-app purchases account for about 70-80% of the $10 billion or more in iOS revenue each year.
2) Why does the freemium model incentivise game developers to create better and longer games?
With freemium games, players are continuously spending money on the game, as opposed to paying once and forgetting about it. Developers are then incentivized to put that stream of revenue directly back into the game to improve it.
3) What does the article suggest regarding the possibilities and risks to the freemium model in future?
some players — as evidenced by this League of Legends subreddit — complain of spending more than $2,000 on the game over the course of several years.
Regulation – PEGI
Research the following using the Games Rating Authority website - look at the videos and FAQ section.
1) How does the PEGI ratings system work and how does it link to UK law?
The criteria under which we rate games have been developed using input from experts in child development and protection. The criteria evolve and change with time as we listen to the concerns of parents and young people.
2) What are the age ratings and what content guidance do they include?
In the UK, PEGI 12, 16 and 18 rated games supplied in physical form, such as on discs and cartridges, are legally enforceable and cannot be sold or rented to anyone under those ages.
3) What is the PEGI process for rating a game?
Every PEGI 12, 16 and 18 game is assessed by an examiner who also writes detailed information for parents about what the game contains.
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