Overview

– The Sims FreePlay is a strategic life simulation game developed by EA Mobile and later with Firemonkeys Studios.

– In The Sims FreePlay, players “build” and design houses and customize and create (a maximum of 34) virtual people called Sims.

– Players can control their Sims to satisfy their wishes, and let them complete different kinds of actions to gain Simoleons, Lifestyle Points, and Social Points (all three currencies in the game).

– The game features four types of currency: Simoleons, Lifestyle Points, Social Points, and Simcash, the latter being obtainable by spending real currency

– The tasks within the Sims will be completed in real time

– The Sims FreePlay is a spin-off from the hugely successful Sims franchise first published by Electronic Arts (EA) in 2000.

– Sims Freeplay is marketed to predominantly youth audience.

Theorists:

– Tells you what a sim needs to live = Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs

– The Sims franchise is one of the best examples of Henry Jenkins’ concept of participatory culture.

– Open ended nature – Todorov only applied to micro-narratives rather than to larger meta narratives (i.e. completing each task)

– Propps Character Types:
Hero: The Sim avatar
Villain: Sim’s needs and desires
Princess: Experience for the player
Dispatcher: Task system that tells you what to do next
Helper: Jobs and money
Doner: Game’s items store

– Media Theorists to apply:

Van Zoonen – gender stereotypes

bell hooks – power structures in society

Gauntlett – fluidity of identity 

Gilroy – double consciousness 

Hall- approaches to representation /encoding and decoding 

Gramsci – marxism and hegemony

Strinati – post modernism (5 ways to identify : 1 and 4 apply to Sims)

Baudrillard – hyperreality theory blurring lines between fiction and reality 

–