The Sims FreePlay CSP - Language & Representations
Language / Gameplay analysis
Video #1
1) What elements of gameplay are shown?
Character customisation, house living, customisation in general, interaction with other sims, wedding, pets, teens, night life (disco/club)
2) What audience is the trailer targeting?
targeting younger adults and teens due to the representation of work and adult living while also appealing to a younger teen audience due to the sandbox aspect of the sims.
3) What audience pleasures are suggested by the trailer?
Diversion
personal identification
personal identity
All because of character customisation. Allowing someone to create and control a character is enjoyable and by doing so you can create someone you identify with personally and care after them in the game covering 3 of the audience pleasures.
Video #2
1) How is the game constructed?
build a sim, town and complete tasks, you need a job
weekly quests - rewards for playing e.g. mystery box
money and xp rewards
element of accessorising sim and heir home
2) What audience is this game targeting?
attempt to target female audience - more costume choice for women
position characters to be the same age -deliberate?
sandbox game could appeal o younger teens aspirational values
3) What audience pleasures does the game provide?
Diversion
Personal Relationship
Personal identity
Intertextuality
Surveillance
4) How does the game encourage in-app purchases?
Adverts for free crystals
time: 'lets play' crystal speeds up time
product placemen to unlock further DLC (any paid expansion)
Representations
1) How do the expansion pack (DLC) trailers reinforce or challenge dominant ideologies?
Teens aspire to be Rockstar's
age is what to be expected
chic boutique female audience
element of choice
promotes education
2) What stereotypes have you identified in The Sims Free Play?
Girl doing ballet boy doing karate
2) What stereotypes have you identified in The Sims Free Play?
Girl doing ballet boy doing karate
females in store
lack of female celebs
doughnuts
quirky forensic lead
old white male chief
doting father
3) What media theories can you apply to representations in The Sims Free Play?
Van Zoonen - Gender Stereotypes
3) What media theories can you apply to representations in The Sims Free Play?
Van Zoonen - Gender Stereotypes
Bell Hooks - Power structure in society
Gauntlet - Fluidity of identity
Gilroy - Double consciousness
Hall - Approaches to representation
Gramsci - Marxism and Hegemony
Representation reading
Read this Forbes article on gender and racism in The Sims franchise:
1) How realistic does The Sims intend to be?
At a demo of the much-anticipated sequel, I asked Maxis ’s PR Manager, Charlie Sinhaseni, about how the studio determines what's appropriate for inclusion in the game. “We’re not really looking for realism, we’re looking more for believability,” he told me. “It’s kind of a model of life with things like death and aging, but we don’t do things like broken bones and bleeding. It’s just not the kind of thing our game demands.”
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?
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.”
5) How does The Sims reinforce the dominant capitalist ideologies of American culture?
Reality, postmodernism and The Sims
Read this Paste Magazine feature on reality and The Sims franchise:
1) What does the article suggest about the representation of real life in The Sims 4?
This premise, however, takes on a blurry and convoluted role when you consider The Sims. How do you escape “real life” when you’re playing a virtual version of it? In previous instalments, the answer to that was some of The Sims’ more imaginative expansions. Escapism, after all, is often about living the life you don’t lead, and that means removing certain barriers and limitations we experience in reality.
2) What audience pleasures did the writer previously find in The Sims franchise?
Escapism
3) Why the does the writer mention an example of a washer and dryer as additional DLC?
I was discussing The Sims 3 with some folks on Twitter once and I remember talking about one of the later additions to the game, the washer and dryer, which I never wound up using. At the time I had no interest in adding yet another maintenance ritual to my Sim’s daily routine, but also, as I told my fellow Sims fans, it was almost an act of defiance. I have no desire to do laundry in real life, why would I do it in a Sims game after so many years of not having to at all? Now I think of the little content packs on the storefront page, with names like Laundry Day, Toddler Stuff, Kids Room Stuff, Perfect Patio, and Cool Kitchen, and sigh under the sheer weight of feeling that same sense of obligation I’m already trying to escape.
4) In your opinion, has The Sims made an error in trying to make the franchise too realistic?
I think that to a certain extent, the sims has always been a sandbox game and so making it more realistic removes it from the satisfaction of building your own world without worry.
5) How does this representation of reality link to Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality - the increasingly blurred line between real and constructed?
Representation reading
Read this Forbes article on gender and racism in The Sims franchise:
1) How realistic does The Sims intend to be?
At a demo of the much-anticipated sequel, I asked Maxis ’s PR Manager, Charlie Sinhaseni, about how the studio determines what's appropriate for inclusion in the game. “We’re not really looking for realism, we’re looking more for believability,” he told me. “It’s kind of a model of life with things like death and aging, but we don’t do things like broken bones and bleeding. It’s just not the kind of thing our game demands.”
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?
“It gets to the point where it crosses a line,” Sinhaseni told me. “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 hot headed Sim, or a Sim who hates children.“ Given that fact, it's hard to believe sensitivity to real world suffering keeps depictions of racism, or at least racial awareness out of the game's simulations. It feels like the game has a blind spot about race, creatively paralyzed by conceiving of it as anything other than a superficial customization.
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.”
5) How does The Sims reinforce the dominant capitalist ideologies of American culture?
It’s a fair and familiar point, but it’s still strange that we're made so uncomfortable by simulations of racist thought given how omnipresent it is in American culture and politics. It's not that hatred and real, damaging social phenomena have been written out of the game. 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 fulfilling 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.
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:
1) What does the article suggest about the representation of real life in The Sims 4?
This premise, however, takes on a blurry and convoluted role when you consider The Sims. How do you escape “real life” when you’re playing a virtual version of it? In previous instalments, the answer to that was some of The Sims’ more imaginative expansions. Escapism, after all, is often about living the life you don’t lead, and that means removing certain barriers and limitations we experience in reality.
2) What audience pleasures did the writer previously find in The Sims franchise?
Escapism
3) Why the does the writer mention an example of a washer and dryer as additional DLC?
I was discussing The Sims 3 with some folks on Twitter once and I remember talking about one of the later additions to the game, the washer and dryer, which I never wound up using. At the time I had no interest in adding yet another maintenance ritual to my Sim’s daily routine, but also, as I told my fellow Sims fans, it was almost an act of defiance. I have no desire to do laundry in real life, why would I do it in a Sims game after so many years of not having to at all? Now I think of the little content packs on the storefront page, with names like Laundry Day, Toddler Stuff, Kids Room Stuff, Perfect Patio, and Cool Kitchen, and sigh under the sheer weight of feeling that same sense of obligation I’m already trying to escape.
4) In your opinion, has The Sims made an error in trying to make the franchise too realistic?
I think that to a certain extent, the sims has always been a sandbox game and so making it more realistic removes it from the satisfaction of building your own world without worry.
5) How does this representation of reality link to Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality - the increasingly blurred line between real and constructed?
By representing these characters in an ever increasingly realistic way it creates a blur between what is real within he game and what might actually be happing in the world itself.
The Sims Free Play social media analysis
Analyse The Sims Free Play Facebook page and Twitter feed:
1) What is the purpose of The Sims Free Play social media channels?
To promote updates and DLC and any other changes made to the game. Promotes the game itself as well through videos.
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 Free Play?
N/A Facebook access
4) What tweets can you find in the Twitter feed that refer to additional content or other revenue streams for EA?
Analyse The Sims Free Play Facebook page and Twitter feed:
1) What is the purpose of The Sims Free Play social media channels?
To promote updates and DLC and any other changes made to the game. Promotes the game itself as well through videos.
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.
- Hijabs are now available for child, tween, teenager and adult female Sims! They can be found in the newly refreshed ‘hats’ category in CAS which has now been renamed to ‘headwear’.
- We’re celebrating Pride all year long with the help of artists Jupiter Stevens-Hill, Ashley Lukashevsky, & Mohammed Iman Fayaz! The pack is full of paintings in multiple frame colours & styles created by LGBTQ+ Simmers
- Happy International Nurses Day! Thank you to the nurses and the health care workers for your compassion, professionalism and round-the-clock commitment to your patients during Covid-19 and in your everyday work. Tag a nurse to say thank you.
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 Free Play?
N/A Facebook access
4) What tweets can you find in the Twitter feed that refer to additional content or other revenue streams for EA?
Includes optional in-game purchases.
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