Videogames: The Sims FreePlay case study part 1 - Language & Audience

The Sims FreePlay - Language & Audience blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'The Sims FreePlay case study part 1 - Language & Audience' and complete the following in-depth tasks.

Language / Gameplay analysis

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

1) What elements of gameplay are shown?

The video has an uplifting soundtrack, a large variety of images, dramatic sound effects and accurate representations of everyday mundane aspects. These allow the audience to feel creative and offer them a sense of autonomy and control over certain aspects of the game, such as creating avatars and selecting different aspects of their built life.

2) What audience is the trailer targeting?

The Sims targets 13 + Females, especially mainstreamers / aspirants or working-class people who want diversion and gameplay aspiration. The lack of restrictions on race, gender and orientation makes the demographics very subjective.

3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer?

The viewer pleasures indicated by the trailer are autonomy, distraction, a false sense of personal identity, and the ability to develop the human ideal as well as catharsis and personal relationships, as you can create domestic utopias and become emotionally attached to the sim in which you live vicariously.

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

1) How is the game constructed?

Cinematic shots- adds to visual appeal to the game also provides tutorials- makes the game play easier 

2) What audience is this game targeting?

The game targets the teen with domestic ambitions and the female up. It enforces the philosophies of the Capitalist, Western' American Dream' and through the sense of autonomy it highlights the opportunity for headcanons and fan material.

3) What audience pleasures does the game provide?

The Sims maintains heteronormative, hegemonic values and still has a sense of individuality however the restricted options and limitations hinder most of the artistic licence. The game still has a sense of preparation and strategy as well as appealing to the relatively ordinary aspects of existence.

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

This allows free trials of premium content, and strongly appeals to digital era customers ' impatient nature.

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." (148Apps)

"10/10.. one of the most addictive and highly polished games available and there's no excuse for anyone to not download it; especially since it is free to play" (148Apps) 

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

The reviews say there is satisfaction in the game's streamlined yet high-quality construction as well as with the game's price-or lack of one-.

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

The reviews all suggest the game's addictive nature and the strong element of participatory culture that comes with creating your own fictional world at no cost.

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?

"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?

Initially, the company, Maxis, was not interested in the Sims because of the thought that the game idea of "doll house" appealed to younger girls and that "girls did not play video games."

3) What is ‘modding’?

Modding is where the games are being given modifications so that people can influence the game even more than what the official game play has to offer.

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

Textual poaching takes a text and re-edits it or manipulates it in order to create meanings which conform with the audiences ' own ideologies. Modding is similar to this, because they want to change and adjust elements of gameplay to suit their own audience.

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

• "Today, there are thousands" of fan websites dedicated to the sims -Jenkins
• 'The original Sims series has the most emergent fan culture of a single player game in history' - Pearce

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

The Sims allowed gamers to fandom their own fandoms within the sims. For eg, fans will create sims based on their favourite Star Trek characters etc.

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

Transmedia storytelling' is the method where the primary text is distributed through various media channels and The Sims helped pioneer this paradigm as it allowed players from different fandoms to build and develop parallel worlds with their favourite characters and build fictional scenarios where they control their favourite superheroes etc.

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

The ability to shape the game through the development and adaptation of various mods has created further divisions to grow within the Sims fandom.

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

Owing to' hierarchies,' conflict has grown. Based on the levels of social and cultural capital acquired by the creators, this particular hierarchy has formed.

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

The writer of Sims argues that it will be remembered for its collaborative community and fandom. 

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?

Both to develop technical skills professionally and for social communication and emotional intelligence.

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

He sees it as a' true game' taking gamers' over games'

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

James Paul views it as an essential game because it brings people beyond gaming and is not traditional but its' cutting edge' because women usually play games and design stuff.

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

I agree that while Sims is a game, because of the degree of participatory culture it empowers, it's transformed into something that's not gaming past. The shared concept of the sims network and its ability to suit and fulfil the desires of many specialties means that gamers have become increasingly diverse in their consumption of games.

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 you can already see the change from media designed to self-made gaming by popularising the sandbox genre in recent years as well as the growing versatility of creating your own avatars and making your own decisions in well-known smartphone and console franchises.

Videogames: Henry Jenkins - fandom blog tasks

1) What is the definition of a fan?

We are all ‘fans’ of a media text in the sense that we like them and consume them regularly, but is not the same as being a Fan (capitalisation intended) of a media text. Fans do more than just like or even love a particular media text, ‘true fans’ have a devotion that goes beyond simplyconsuming media texts, and is, as Matt Hills argues, part of a person’s identity in much the same way as gender, class and age define who we are.

2) What the different types of fan identified in the factsheet?

There are 3 types of fans identified in the factsheet. There are hardcore/ true fans, newbie fans and anti-fans. Hard core fans identify themselves as the ‘insiders’ within any given fandom andconsider themselves to be aficionados of their chosen media text. Newbies, as the name suggests, are new fans of any given text and do not have the longevity of devotion or depth of knowledge that hard core fans have and are initially viewed as the ‘outgroup’ within fandoms. ‘Anti-fans’ are those which identify themselves with media texts but negatively so; they loathe or hate the text but unlike ‘true’ fans they do not form their relationship with a text through close readings, they develop their emotional attachment ‘at a distance’ (Gray) through marketing publicity such as trailers.

3) What makes a ‘fandom’?

The word ‘fandom’ has been around since 1903 but fandoms have been around for much longer. One of the earliest examples is the fandomcreated around the literary detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fans of these books created some of the first fan fiction as early as 1887 and held public demonstrations of mourning after Holmes was “killed” off in 1893. Ironically, a new fandom surroundingSherlock Holmes has emerged in the 21st as a result of the popularity of the BBC series Sherlock.

4) What is Bordieu’s argument regarding the ‘cultural capital’ of fandom?

Clearly this level of display is not simply about preferring one team over another, it is, as Bordieu argues a kind of ‘cultural capital’ which confers a symbolic power and status for the fan, especially within the realm of their fandom.

5) What examples of fandom are provided on pages 2 and 3 of the factsheet?

Fandoms elicit powerful emotions within their followers, something which Fiske refers to as ‘power blocs’ which enable audiences to ‘escape’ from ‘the mundane into the marvellous’. So why do fans become so fanatical about the media texts they consume? This is not easily explained, but Hills argues that in order to understand what motivates fans to construct fandoms we have to move away from thinking about the opinion of the fan, which would obviously take on their own bias and understanding and move toward an approach that incorporates ‘tastes, values, attachments and investments.’ For example, in the image below we see a Liverpool fan’s room with duvet cover, wallpaper, memorabilia etc.

6) Why is imaginative extension and text creation a vital part of digital fandom?

Clearly this level of display is not simply about preferring one team over another, it is, as Bordieu argues a kind of ‘cultural capital’ which confers a symbolic power and status for the fan, especially within the realm of their fandom.

Tomb Raider and Metroid fandom research

Look at this Tomb Raider fansite and answer the following questions: 

1) What types of content are on offer in this fansite?
The website provides links to all other Tomb Raider and Lara Croft sites (directory) with a rundown of what each site has to offer (e.g. fanfiction, fanart, chatrooms, etc.). The website also contains numerous blog posts and videos about games walkthroughs, Lara's past, news page, game downloads and much more.

2) What does the number of links and content suggest about the size of the online fan community for Tomb Raider and Lara Croft? Pick out some examples from this page.

There are so many links and information on the website that show the video games online fan base is massive and will continue to grow as more and more people are clicking on those links. Some examples are of the same genre and video game for their social media pages, and other fan sites.

3) Scroll to the bottom of the page and look at the short ‘About me’ bio and social media updates. Is this a typical example of ‘fandom’ in the digital age? Why?

I think it's a typical example of a ' fandom ' in the digital age-the writer is a ' junkie' and ' optimist ' and I think these are quite stereotypical characteristics we might expect from fans.

Now look at this Metroid fansite and answer the following: 

1) What does the site offer?

Shinesparkers is a group of Metroid fans dedicated to bringing up-to-date Metroid news and exclusive content to its fans, such as Harmony of a Hunter. It highlights the ingenuity of Metroid fans from around the world by showing our audience their work. We also work with the broader Metroid community and support their efforts to ensure the best possible Metroid fan community.

2) Look at the Community Spotlight page. What does this suggest about the types of people who enjoy and participate in fan culture?

Artists, cosplayers and musicians are among the types of people featured on the Group Spotlight list. This suggests that the people who enjoy and participate actively in fan culture are usually very creative and interested in the videogame industry, as it serves as a way to fuel their imagination.

3) There is a specific feature on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. What do the questions from fans tell you about the level of engagement and interest in the game and franchise from the fan community?

It shows me that the fans are incredibly dedicated, and that they care about very precise game info.

Henry Jenkins: degree-level reading

Read the final chapter of ‘Fandom’ – written by Henry Jenkins. This will give you an excellent introduction to the level of reading required for seminars and essays at university as well as degree-level insight into our current work on fandom and participatory culture. Answer the following questions:

1) There is an important quote on the first page: “It’s not an audience, it’s a community”. What does this mean?

The quote refers to the fact that the notion of social media and fandoms is a way of communicating with people-it's not one-sided, but an opportunity for interconnectivity and multiple contact rates.

2) Jenkins quotes Clay Shirky in the second page of the chapter. Pick out a single sentence of the extended quote that you think is particularly relevant to our work on participatory culture and the ‘end of audience’ (clue – look towards the end!)

"In the age of the internet, no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet."

3) What are the different names Jenkins discusses for these active consumers that are replacing the traditional audience?
Prosumers, Inspirational consumers, Connectors, Influencers

4) On the third page of the chapter, what does Wired editor Chris Anderson suggest regarding the economic argument in favour of fan communities?

Anderson suggests that it will produce the real economic gain from being able to reduce the cost of output.

5) What examples does Jenkins provide to argue that fan culture has gone mainstream?

The primary example given is that fan culture is no longer synonymous exclusively with the traditional' nerdy' fan-and that fan culture now essentially dominates the media. For example, fans are always developing new approaches and ideas which the producer may want to include in their game.

6) Look at the quote from Andrew Blau in which he discusses the importance of grassroots creativity. Pick out a sentence from the longer quote and decide whether you agree that audiences will ‘reshape the media landscape from the bottom up’.

 "bottom up energy will generate enormous creativity, but it will also tear apart some of the categories that organise the lives and work of media makers".

7) What does Jenkins suggest the new ideal consumer is?

Jenkins suggests that the' new ideal customer' is a person who's thinking about the show and spreading news about the brand, whereas the ideal customer has just watched TV before and has not interacted with the media text.

8) Why is fandom 'the future'?

Fandom is called the' future' because fans are essentially the people who spread word of mouth about the media text and help create a wider and better forum for viewers.

9) What does it mean when Jenkins says we shouldn’t celebrate ‘a process that commodifies fan cultural production’?

This quote means that we should not encourage this method as bigger media corporations abuse the goods created by the fans-their efforts are not credited to the fans.

10) Read through to the end of the chapter. What do you think the future of fandom is? Are we all fans now? Is fandom mainstream or are real fan communities still an example of a niche media audience?

I definitely think that the fandom and the notion of becoming a fan has become much more popular than ever. For example, becoming a fan of something is like a' trend,' if a media text is famous or accepted in the media industry then more people may want to become a fan.