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Haley Black

Professor Bob Bednar

COM 75-964-01

27 February 2021

Prospectus

Introduction

Since their popularization in the 1980s, video games have become a dominant force in popular culture. Despite their cultural relevance, the body of critical and cultural communication scholarship on video games is relatively slim. This gap in communication studies is important to address as video games continue to take on a central role in popular culture and the messages they communicate become widely disseminated and shared among players. Rather than a passive leisure activity, I argue that the act of playing video games is a communicative interaction between player and popular culture. Just as other cultural texts and artifacts communicate value- laden, ideological messages, so too do video games. Gamers and communication scholars alike can benefit from examining the value-laden, ideological messages inherent in gameplay so as to better understand how video games function as media of communication, as well as their impact on popular culture.

The historical success and continued popularity of 3 not only points to its uniqueness as a video game, but also posits as a productive site of analysis for communication scholars. The characteristics of The Sims 3 gameplay necessarily communicate a hierarchical value system within The Sims 3 since the ultimate goals of the game are achieving

Lifetime Wishes and obtaining Lifetime Happiness points, yet the means and likelihood of achieving those wishes and obtaining those points vary from Sim to Sim depending on their Black 2 unique personalities and circumstances. Through my research, I seek to answer the following questions: Which goals, aspirations, and wishes does The Sims 3 gameplay deem worthy of pursuit? How does intersectionality operate in The Sims 3 gameplay to shape and confine the objectives of the game, as well the likelihood of achieving those objectives? And lastly, how do the gameplay dynamics of The Sims 3, situated within the life-simulation genre, work to communicate and reinforce certain societal values at the expense of others?

Literature Review

Speaking Simlish: Life Simulation as Communication

Given the undeniable popularity of The Sims, some scholars have engaged directly with the game, seeking to understand the reasons for its popularity and intensely loyal fan-base.

Noticing the relatively large number of female players engaging with The Sims, video game scholar Sara Mosberg Iversen (2013) used a netnographic approach to investigate simmers’ experiences with The Sims gameplay. Iversen found that The Sims offers a sort of escapism from everyday life while also providing “a space of one’s own” which allows the player to “work with the self and its place in everyday life” (13). In this way, The Sims gameplay could be interpreted as a sort of equipment for living. Importantly, Iversen believes that The Sims gameplay does “not automatically enforce either acceptance of dominant values or subversion of the same” (13).

Rather, Iversen believes simmers engage in a self-directed meaning-making process through the act of playing. This will be an important perspective to address as my research unfolds.

Building upon her 2013 research with qualitative player interviews, Iversen (2014) suggests that simmers experience a “paradox of pleasure” in which The Sims offers players escapism from everyday life, despite being a game that is somewhat centered around managing Black 3 the mundane tasks of daily life. While The Sims, indeed, requires players to complete mundane tasks like scrubbing toilets and taking out the trash, Iversen found that simmers care much more about “relations and special moments in [the Sim’s] life,” than they do about completing such routine tasks (113). Iversen views this paradox from a perspective of duality in realism and fantasy, concluding that these “realistic elements in the games can be seen as a bridge to fantasy, dreaming of and imagining better worlds” (114). In other words, simmers engage in imaginative gameplay (“fantasy”) through the constraints of “realistic” elements such as interpersonal relationships, thereby allowing the player to use The Sims gameplay as a sort of channel for expressing and navigating their real-life wishes, goals, and values.

Both of Iversen’s studies point to a similar conclusion: the medium is the message.

Whether the simmer plays The Sims in an attempt to escape the drudgery of daily life or to explore and express their real-life wishes, goals, and values, the “content” that The Sims communicates is its gameplay experience. This assertion follows Iversen’s notion that simmers engage in a self-directed meaning-making process through the act of playing; however, The Sims gameplay is necessarily structured toward the achievement of certain tasks and goals. While individual players can certainly opt to ignore their Sim’s wishes and deviate from their goals,

Marshall McLuhan asserts that “any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary” (134). Indeed, a player who rejects their Sim’s wishes and ignores their goals will be reminded of these overriding, value-laden objectives and penalized for their incompletion.

The values upheld and reinforced through The Sims are thus always at play, regardless of how individual simmers engage with the game.

Understanding The Sims as a medium of communication has led some scholars to investigate certain aspects of identity as they are represented in The Sims. Several scholars have Black 4 examined how gender and sexuality operate within The Sims (Albrechtslund, 2007; Beavis &

Charles, 2005). Other scholars have investigated the phenomenon of “skinning,” or gameplay modification, and how these mods work to expand the game’s options for gender representation, a point that I will elaborate on later (Wirman, 2011; Sivohnen, 2011). Another branch of scholarship concerning The Sims focuses on the value-laden objectives that The Sims gameplay necessarily advocates. While some scholars have focused on the consumerist values prevalent in

The Sims (Montes & Campbell, 2013), others have examined familial values reinforced through

The Sims gameplay (Sicart, 2003). While the scholarly conversation surrounding The Sims gameplay has addressed important topics concerning identity construction and value reinforcement, there have been no attempts to address how identity characteristics such as gender, sexuality, race, status, and class converge in The Sims to reinforce particular societal values. Mia Consalvo’s 2003 publication is notable for its broad exploration of identity construction in The Sims, touching on gender, sexuality, and race, as well as certain values that are communicated through the operation of these characteristics within The Sims gameplay.

However, Consalvo’s study nor any of the aforementioned studies address the ways in which these identity characteristics intersect to create a specific positionality for the Sim, which shapes and constrains their life-trajectory and necessarily communicates which goals, aspirations, and wishes are worthy of pursuit and thus laden with value.

Structuring Gameplay: Affordances and Constraints

In discussing the ways in which Sims’ identities are constructed and how their identity characteristics interact with one another to shape and confine their life-trajectories, it is useful to think of The Sims gameplay in terms of affordances and constraints. Majchrzak, Faraj, Kane, & Black 5

Azad (2013) define an affordance as the “mutuality of actor intentions and technology capabilities that provide the potential for a particular action” (39). As such, affordances “set limits,” called constraints, “on what it’s possible to do with, around, or via [an] artefact”

(Hutchby, 453). In the context of The Sims 3 gameplay structure, affordances represent the abilities, tools, and resources the player is able to use in navigating the game; for example, the information panels located at the bottom of the gameplay screen are a gameplay affordance because they allow the player to locate and monitor their Sim’s wishes, needs, and statistics.

Conversely, an oft-cited gameplay constraint of The Sims 3 is the rabbit-hole structure of certain lots; in these buildings, the player cannot see or actively direct their Sim’s activities.

In addition, Andrew Richard Schrock (2015) has noted that “affordances can be created by the designer or altered by a hacker” (1234). While The Sims 3 is not a network-based game and thus would be difficult to “hack” per se, the aforementioned community of “skinners” or

“modders” has significantly expanded The Sims 3 gameplay affordances and eliminated gameplay constraints. With a few downloads from modthesims or The Sims Resource, simmers can virtually reconfigure the gameplay structure of The Sims 3, making it truly unique to their gameplay preferences.

Create-a-Positionality: Identity and Intersectionality in The Sims 3

Pertinent to my project are existing theories surrounding gender and sexuality. I limit my discussion to these two characteristics of identity for the primary reason that these identity categories are unfixed and malleable in both The Sims 3 and the real world. To be clear, sex refers to “the biological, genetic, or phenotypical markers that are used to categorize us into female and male bodies,” whereas gender refers to “the roles, behaviors, and expectations our Black 6 culture assigns to those markers” (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 38). In this sense, gender can be seen as a performative act rather than a fixed and stable identity category. In her theory of gender performativity, Judith Butler explains that actions which appear to be manifestations of an inner quality called “gender” are in fact the only force that constitutes the concept of personal gender in the first place; the concept of gender is socially constructed and reinforced through the continuous performance of gendered roles. This concept of performativity can also be applied to identity characteristics such as class and race, and will be useful in analyzing how identities are quite literally constructed and performed in The Sims 3.

In addressing how sexuality operates within The Sims 3, it is important to note that just as binary “female” and “male” gender categories do not account for all gender identities, the binary categories of “homosexual” and “heterosexual” do not fully encapsulate the wide spectrum of sexuality that individuals experience. Interestingly, The Sims 3 does not require the player to

“choose” from a binary of sexual identities (as is with the case in selecting a Sim’s “gender”).

Although The Sims 3 is programmed to default to heterosexual interactions, this programming will change as the player uses “Romantic” interactions on same-sex characters. Thus, while sexuality operates as a fluid, dynamic experience in The Sims 3, the gameplay structure inherently favors heteronormativity, a worldview that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation.

While gender and sexuality operate in The Sims 3 in rhetorically significant ways, a

Sim’s race does not have much impact on their personality or circumstances. In fact, the only real markers of race in the game are the various skin-tones made available to the player in the

Create-a-Sim game mode. However, a Sim’s class has a strong influence on their wishes, goals, aspirations, and the likelihood of achieving them. The bitter reality is that poor Sims are unhappy Black 7

Sims; they are less able to take care of themselves, provide security for their families, and develop their skills (and thus attain Opportunities and promotions at work). These gameplay dynamics become even stronger when the Sim is a mother or part of a homosexual relationship.

Here, intersectionality, or “the examination of race, sex, class, national origin, and sexual orientation, and how their combination plays out in various settings” (Delgado et al., 51) is useful in understanding how a Sim’s various identity characteristics interact with one another, shaping the Sim’s life-chances and opportunities for achievement in distinct ways. While communication scholars have investigated how gender, sexuality, and gender/sexuality intersections operate within The Sims, I argue that these dynamics are inextricably linked to the operation of other identity categories within the game, especially class. If we are to view The

Sims as a representation of life and society, it is imperative that we address Sims’ intersectional identities; the intersection of various identity categories has profound implications on the life- trajectories of Sims and humans alike.

Methodology

In order to examine how Sims’ various identity categories are constructed, and how their intersection inevitably shapes The Sims 3 gameplay experience, I will be conducting a gameplay analysis of The Sims 3. Suely Fragoso (2018), Albrechtslund (2007), and Consalvo (2003) have all conducted the kind of gameplay analysis that I seek to employ in my own research. This method of analysis requires direct and extensive interaction with gameplay, facilitating the understanding of a game’s structure. In understanding the gameplay structure of The Sims 3, I will be drawing upon the theory of affordances and constraints. In order to examine the ways in which identities are constructed in The Sims 3, I will refer to various queer theories such as Black 8 gender vs. sex, (gender) performativity, and heteronormativity. In examining how identity categories intersect within The Sims 3 gameplay to drastically shape and confine one’s gameplay experience, I will frame my analysis through the lens of intersectionality. Lastly, in addressing how the gameplay structure of The Sims 3 necessarily gives preference to certain societal values at the expense of others, it will be important to keep McLuhan’s assertion in mind: the medium is the message.

While communication scholars have investigated video games, and even The Sims, through gameplay analyses, I have not yet come across any gameplay analyses that address the issue of intersectionality. I believe that The Sims 3 is a particularly productive site for examining how intersectional identities operate within gameplay structures, since it is a “life simulation” game and as such, identity and how it affects one’s movements throughout the world are at the forefront of the game. The Sims 3 makes important claims about how aspects of one’s identity and their intersection affect one’s life-trajectory in a society that values consumerism, family ideals, and achievement. Just as focusing on broad identity categories, such as gender and sex, work to disprivilege real individuals in society, limiting our discussion of identity and how it operates within The Sims to these categories inhibits productive conversations about cultural representations of intersectional identities.

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Works Cited

Albrechtslund, Anne-Mette Bech. “Gender Values in Simulation Games: Sex and The Sims.” CEPE 2007: The 7th International Conference of Computer Ethics; Philosophical Enquiry, 2007. Center for Telematics and Information Technology.

Beavis, Catherine, & Claire Charles. “Challenging Notions of Gendered Game Play: Teenagers Playing .” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, vol. 26, no. 3, 2005, pp. 355 –367.

Consalvo, Mia. It's a Queer World After All: Studying the Sims and Sexuality. GLAAD, 2003. Print.

Delgado, Richard, et al. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, Second Edition. NYU Press, 2012. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qg9h2.

Fragoso, Suely. “The Modes of Existence of Gameplay: An Applied Exercise with Cities: Skylines.” MATRIZes, vol. 12, no. 2, May 2018, pp. 33–51. EBSCOhost, doi:10.11606/issn.1982-8160.v12i2p33-51.

Hutchby, Ian. “Technologies, Texts and Affordances.” Sociology, vol. 35, no. 2, 2001, pp. 441–456.

Iversen, Sara Mosberg. “Paradox and Pleasure: Play with Everyday Life in a Ludic Simulation.” MedieKultur: Journal of Media & Communication Research, vol. 30, no. 56, Jan. 2014, pp. 100–116. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=97262454&site=ehost- live&scope=site.

Iversen, Sara Mosberg. “Playing with Sims as a Space of One’s Own.” Feminist Media Studies, vol. 14, no. 5, Sept. 2014, pp. 727–742. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/14680777.2013.816332.

Majchrzak, A., Faraj, S., Kane, G. C., & Azad, B. “The contradictory influence of social media affordances on online communal knowledge sharing.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 19, no. 1, 2013, pp. 38–55.

McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium is the Message.” in Media & Cultural Studies: Keyworks, Black 10

edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, 129-138. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.

Montes, Rafael Miguel, & Andrea Ann Campbell. “Dismantling the Digital Dollhouse: Will Wright’s The Sims and Virtual Consumption.” Quarterly Review of Film & Video, vol. 30, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 41–49. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10509208.2010.544980.

Schrock, Andrew Richard. “Communicative Affordances of Mobile Media: Portability, Availability, Locatability, and Multimediality.” International Journal of Communication, vol. 9, 2015, pp. 1229-1246.

Sensoy, Ozlem, & Robin DiAngelo. Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education. New York, 2017. Teachers College Press. Print.

Sicart, Miguel. “Family Values: Ideology, Computer Games and The Sims.” Level up Conference. Utrecht, 2003. Utrecht University.

Sivohnen, Tanja. Players Unleashed! Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming. Amsterdam, 2011. Amsterdam University Press.

Wirman, Hanna. Playing The Sims 2: Constructing and Negotiating Woman Game Player Identities through the Practice of ‘Skinning’. England, 2011. University of the West of England.