Sunday, January 27, 2013

Social with the Sims


The computer game The Sims was a big hit when it first released its first version back in the year 2000. This game allowed gamers to create a virtual person, build its house, and ultimately control what their Sim does in the virtual world.  Many years have passed since the originally game… well actually 13 years have passed where many new versions of the Sims game were created. And much more technology was researched and developed. Also, with so many years passing by, The Sims fan bases were created online and kept growing to where it led Sim gamers to share and talk about their love and passion for the game.

The online fan bases that were created online are a perfect example of McLuhan’s explanation of a cool medium. The reasoning behind this is that articles and posts are created constantly through the Internet where readers can easily comment back and forth by sharing their opinion and idea to the articles.

            EA Games the creator and developer of the Sims created a social page through Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/TheSims3) where gamers can collaborate ideas and be informed of new updates and new downloads that were released. This form of media is pretty fast and easy to be informed compared to a hot medium such as a newsletter being sent out to households about other gamer’s input/sharing’s and new updates for the game. This example of social media goes along with Paul Du Gay and colleagues (1997) especially when it is explained about when with this statement “users can engage with the technologies and identity concerns the way in which such consumption practices are intricately connected with the development of individual and collective subjectivities.” Technology is ultimately a way to share media in a user-friendly way where each reader has an ability to interact with it.

            In-conclusion, The Sims may have started off with just the game and no social media but has grown to a online medium of social interaction. In present day, the Sims and the advancement in technology allowed the Sims fans to an ease of interaction of sharing their Sims online and receiving most up to date releases instantly. This is a great advancement and ultimately a cool medium.


5 comments:

  1. Great post! I think that the Sims content is also greatly affected by peoples comments on the internet. The developers can clearly see if users are excited about certain content or upset about other instances and change content accordingly.

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  2. Interesting look at the cool medium Sims offers. The developers can improve the game in more user friendly manner having that forum/social website interaction.

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  4. I always found the Sims game a very interesting game because of the interactions you can have with the animated characters. It is just like a real life game, but just animated. From what i have seen over the years, the Sims has been a popular game being played by the public. Also EA Sports has made so many of those games for people that like the game to enjoy it and play it. Is it still a popular game being played in today's generation?

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  5. First of all, this was a well written and explained post! I remember loving the Sims back when I played a lot of video games. Your identity portion was also great.

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