Tag: Online gaming

by Kitty Chan

If you have not played The Sims Freeplay at all, you should have heard of The Sims before.  They are both life-stimulation games offered by the Electronic Arts.  Some people play videogames to escape from the real world.  Our world is full of neoliberalist values.  People consume in exchange of values.  Things are commodified and quantified.  We work and study hard to compete for social mobility.  Do you know you have been fed with these 3Cs through the game as well?

Comsumption

n the game, nearly all items are obtained by buying.  From the screenshot above, we can see that it is the first long instruction directing players to buy a toilet from the “Home Store”.  By applying register analysis, the field is to teach first-time player to obtained items from the store and inventory through the action of buying given the setting of misconstruction of the toilet plus a common sense of the need to visit the toilet after a long trip in transportation, creating an atmosphere of “moving in to the town permanently”.  The tenor is missing because it is a tutorial teaching the player how to play in written mode.  Given that the game developers are in a stronger position than the vulnerable player in the power wrestling process, sentences are constructed in second person imperatives and end in exclamation mark just to show excitement instead of ordering the player to obtain the toilet.

That is not enough.  The game also has a strong tendency to encourage players to spend money in exchange of time.  The mechanism of the game is to interact with different items or people in the environment by controlling a Sim each time to earn Experience Points or Simoleons.  Every action takes time, ranging from several seconds to a whole day.  Most actions can be skipped by using an in-game currency called Lifestyle Points, which can be obtained easily by purchasing with real money, but comparatively difficult if you wish to earn them by completing tasks and quests.  Look at the screenshot above, the game also established a hierarchy of VIP Perks to be achieved by accumulating points in purchasing with real money.  These VIP Perks can help earning Experience Points or Simoleons or even unlock special features of the game.  Although it is named and advertised as “freeplay”, it is never free in nature.  The more you pay, the more you can play.

All the in-game items are non-transferrable, meaning that players can only obtain them individually.  They can be obtained with by buying with Simoleons or Lifestyle Points or by completing tasks.  On surface, it is about whether players are willing to spend more time individually on the game.  But previously I have mentioned about how the game will be easier by purchasing with real money and accumulating VIP perks.  The truth is that life gets a lot easier with more money spent into the game.  Players consume both inside and outside the game.

Commodification

In the game, pets can hunt Simoleons.  They had been commodified as a money earning machine.  The same is also applied to hobbies and relationship in which players practice hobbies in exchange for Simoleons and other in-game items such as clothing or hairstyles.  Can you imagine that you can gain XP from making friends with another sim as shown in the picture?  Besides, players can visit their in-game friends’ town to complete some task or goals to obtain Social Points, which can never be purchased with money.  Therefore, players establish “friendship” for the purpose of completing game missions only.  Imagine in our real world where people establish friendship, practising hobbies and keeping pets for the sole purpose of profits only, there would not be love and affection.  This is the neoliberal world where everything can be monetized.

Competition

Competition strengthened the desire to pay and consume the game and paying becomes part of the game.  The SimChase Event offers a rival sim to complete with player’s sim of completing a list of designated tasks.  On Reddit, players reflected that they need to sacrifice their sleeping time in real world to complete the tasks while the rival sim virtually completes all the tasks and recognized it to encourage players to activate the paid functions in order to complete tasks easier.  This shows that the game is a neoliberalist by encouraging you to compete by offering a rival.

After reading this article, I hope that you won’t stop playing The Sims Freeplay if you’re already playing it, but to think about what ideology the game is trying to shape for you and avoid falling into the trap of the neoliberal reality especially under the current pandemic!