The Sims Blog Tasks 2

Language / Gameplay analysis

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

1) What elements of gameplay are shown?

Creating your character, building your house, relationships.

2) What audience is the trailer targeting?

Younger kids to Early teens (new audiences). As well as new audiences, it's also targeted for fans of the "The Sims" franchise.

3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer?

Participation, you are actively controlling this Sims' life.;

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

1) How is the game constructed?

2) What audience is this game targeting?

3) What audience pleasures does the game provide?

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

Representations

Re-watch some of the expansion pack trailers and answer the following questions:

1) How do the expansion pack (DLC) trailers reinforce or challenge dominant ideologies?

They show things most typically associated with whats included in the expansion.

2) What stereotypes have you identified in The Sims FreePlay?

Police, and rich white women in high-rise appartments.

3) What media theories can you apply to representations in The Sims FreePlay?

Representation reading


Read this Forbes article on gender and racism in The Sims franchise and answer the following questions:

1) How realistic does The Sims intend to be?

Few games try to simulate more than The Sims games, which recreate every progressive euphemism we have about love, work, and family. And few games feel as self-consciously fake either. The Sims 4 is an extension of the beloved fantasy about life in America, a fandango of shopping, working, defecating, and making woohoo in a suburban utopia where Simolians and skill points make the block go round.

2) How has The Sims tried to create more realistic representations of ethnicity?

One of the special areas of focus in The Sims 4 is improving the Create-A-Sim feature, adding more details to alter the appearance of a Sim with a less stereotypical ways of representing different ethnicities. As he showed me the tool, creating an Asian character that does indeed appear less cartoonish, I wondered if there’d ever been discussions on coding racial awareness into the game systems themselves.

3) How has The Sims responded to racism and sexism in society?

“Our game is kind of a caricature of life. We don’t really have a message—there’s no racism message, there’s no tolerance message. We have same-sex marriage in our game. Our Sims will not discriminate based on gender preference whatsoever. But there’s a line where it becomes too real. The only manner of hatred we have in the game is between incompatible Sims, something that’s driven by the traits of the Sim—a hotheaded Sim, or a Sim who hates children.“

4) What is The Sims perspective on gender fluidity and identity?

One element that The Sims 4 seems inflexible on is gender identity. As with earlier games,when players go to the Create-A-Sims mode the first choice they will be asked to make is between male and female. I asked Sinhaseni if there had been any thought toward including other gender identities, or at least making it possible to create a Sim with neither gender option selected. “That’s an interesting topic,” he said, “but I have no good response to that. We would need to take more time and consideration to really arrive at that destination.”

“We strive for inclusion whenever possible. We look at our own diversity as a studio in terms of understanding what it is we want to achieve with the game."

5) How does The Sims reinforce the dominant capitalist ideologies of American culture?

While the studio strives to render identity politics invisible, the game’s systems do embody a particular, largely American attitude of life as a goal-oriented, currency-driven quest toward fullfilling the handful of personality traits one’s given from birth. It’s the constant and often insupportable stress of upholding this model for society and personhood for which The Sims wants to create an escapist catharsis.

“We understand what the basic rules of life are,” Sinhaseni said. “At the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there are the things we need every day—to eat, use the restroom, have fun, socialize, take care of our hygiene. What we’re trying to do is move players to the top of the pyramid. What are your career aspirations? Maybe you want to be a best-selling author. You can kind of parse bits of that in your own reality too. The game doesn’t judge you, it doesn’t tell you what’s right or what’s wrong, it just gives you freedom and says you choose what to do with it. I think that’s the beauty of a game that has no true win state--you get to choose who wins.”

Read this New Normative feature on LGBTQ representation in The Sims franchise (the website link no longer works but that will take you to the text of the article - you'll need your Greenford Google login to access). Answer the following questions:

1) How did same-sex relationships unexpectedly help the original Sims game to be a success?

2) How is sexuality now represented in The Sims?

3) Why have fans praised the inclusion of LGBTQ relationships in The Sims franchise?

4) Why did the Sims run into regulatory difficulties with American regulator the ESRB? How did EA respond?

5) How is sexuality represented in the wider videogames industry today?

Reality, postmodernism and The Sims


Read this Paste Magazine feature on reality and The Sims franchise. Answer the following questions:

1) What does the article suggest about the representation of real life in The Sims 4?

2) What audience pleasures did the writer previously find in The Sims franchise?

3) Why the does the writer mention an example of a washer and dryer as additional DLC?

4) In your opinion, has The Sims made an error in trying to make the franchise too realistic?

5) How does this representation of reality link to Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality - the increasingly blurred line between real and constructed?

The Sims FreePlay social media analysis


Analyse The Sims FreePlay Facebook page and Twitter feed and answer the following questions:

1) What is the purpose of The Sims FreePlay social media channels?

2) Choose three posts (from either Twitter or Facebook) and make a note of what they are and how they encourage audience interaction or response.

3) Scroll down the Facebook feed briefly. How many requests for new content can you find from players? Why is this such as an important part of the appeal for The Sims FreePlay?

4) What tweets can you find in the Twitter feed that refer to additional content or other revenue streams for EA?