Videogames: The Sims FreePlay - Audience and Industries
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.
Amazing game, some suggestions - First of all, this is a great game. I have been playing for years and I love creating stories in my Sims’ lives.
2) How does the game information on this page reflect the strong element of participatory culture in The Sims?
The games information gives players the chance to review and tell EA what they think and could do to make the game better.
3) Read a few of the user reviews. What do they suggest about the audience pleasures of the game?
Making more realistic aspects even more expanded upon, such as for youth in the game being given more options for tasks and hobbies.
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 so-called sandbox
2) Why was development company Maxis initially not interested in The Sims?
the game was descried as a doll house, which intially threw Maxis off
3) What is ‘modding’? How does ‘modding’ link to Henry Jenkins’ idea of ‘textual poaching’?
Modding gives players the opportunity to change the games coding to add something external to the game or even upgrade current internal aspects such as graphics, which links to Jenkins through the idea that players can alter the originality of the game into something they prefer or also like.
4) Look specifically at p136. Note down key quotes from Jenkins, Pearce and Wright on this page.
"held together through the mutual production and reciprocal exchange of knowledge" (Jenkins 2006a: 137).
"The original Sims series has the most vibrant emergent fan culture of a single-player game in history" (2009: 272).
"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" (ibid).
5) What examples of intertextuality are discussed in relation to The Sims? (Look for “replicating works from popular culture”)
Adding in costumes from popular pop culture such as Star Wars and Star Trek.
6) What is ‘transmedia storytelling’ and how does The Sims allow players to create it?
The game essentially offers a stage for players where they can create or do whatever they want such as creating stories.
7) How have Sims online communities developed over the last 20 years?
But this marriage of the social and the functional is effective only for as long as its participants
stick around, and sometimes the relations between fans of The Sims can be fraught with mistrust and in-fighting as Sihvonen notes: ‘Various internet spaces, also in the context of The Sims, can be regarded as repositories of collective cultural memory and important leisure places as well as areas in which power relations are put to the test [emphasis added]’ (2011: 115).
8) What does the writer suggest The Sims will be remembered for?
The overall cult following it created that lasted much longer than a typical videogame fanbase would.
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?
Its a game meant to take people beyond gaming, woman and play design is beyond mainstream.
2) What does the designer of The Sims, Will Wright, want players to do with the game?
To empower people to think like designers.
3) Do you agree with the view that The Sims is not a game – but something else entirely?
I do believe this statement due to the fact that it can be both seen as a game and also a form or representation on who you are as a person.
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?
With numerous updates improving the quality of life and just overall new additions to the game such as jobs and cosmetics.
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?
“We never thought that hundreds of millions of people would have played and continue to play five years later.”
4) How has EA kept the game fresh and maintained the active player base?
Constant updates to the game, performance based and content based.
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 which shows the extent of the popularity of not just this incredible franchise, but also the game itself.
Read this blog on how EA is ruining the franchise (or not) due to its downloadable content. Answer the following questions:
“The Sims” games centre on the players’ ability to create “Sims” — virtual humans with personalities and ambitions — and take complete control of their lives. Players can also use the game to experiment with architecture, decoration and landscaping.
2) What examples of downloadable content are presented?
Diversion, personal identification and identity
3) How did Electronic Arts enrage The Sims online communities with expansion packs and DLC?
EA made the prices of these DLC quite high which made the community very unhappy as they thought the ricing was very unreasonable for what actually came in the DLC pack.
4) What innovations have appeared in various versions of The Sims over the years?
Through adding constant changes to the original "life simulator" from being able to expand the family into multiple generations to being able to travel from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
5) In your opinion, do expansion packs like these exploit a loyal audience or is it simply EA responding to customer demand?
I think EA are exploiting their loyal customers. This is due to the fact that EA have quite the reputation for making things with a paywall or just unreasonably priced, sure it appears theyre responding to customer demand but when customers want something, they shouldnt be forced to spend an extortionate amount of money on it.
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.
freemium” games and their in-app purchases account for about 70-80% of the $10 billion or more in iOS revenue each year. While League of Legends is 100% free to play, it generated more than $1 billion last year in revenue as evidenced by this League of Legends subreddit — complain of spending more than $2,000 on the game over the course of several years. The singer of the Sex Pistols, John Lyndon, claimed last year that he spent over $15,000 on iPad apps.
2) Why does the freemium model incentivise game developers to create better and longer games?
Because the freemium model gives games with a live and free service a large amount of profitability encouraging them to continue creating and pumping out content, and when the content is actually liked it means the game will survive for longer.
3) What does the article suggest regarding the possibilities and risks to the freemium model in future?
Freemium could always be a massive flop for the game, especially if its brand new as people are less willing to spend money on something they dont know very well.
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?
We have clear guidelines stating which levels of violence, sex, bad language and other issues are allowed at each of the different age ratings. These guidelines were developed by experts in child welfare and protection, and by experts in media regulation.
2) What are the age ratings and what content guidance do they include?
3,7,12,16,18. As games get progressively higher in rating, its due to thing such as themes, amount of bad language used and overall violence and level of adult content.
3) What is the PEGI process for rating a game?
A game is put under constant review in the scenario that a game now includes something new that changes a rating.
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