The Sims FreePlay case study part 2 - Industries

Regulation – PEGI

Research the following using the PEGI website.

1) What is the VSC and how does it link to UK law?
The VSC Rating Board is an administrator of the PEGI age rating system, used in over 30 countries across Europe. It links to UK law as in 2012 the PEGI system was incorporated into UK law and the VSC was appointed as the statutory body responsibile for the age rating of video games in the UK using the PEGI system.

2) Note down the key statistics on the homepage.
  • 13938+ Games Rated
  • 15141+Apps Rated
  • 1702 Number of Member Outlets
  • 30 Years in Operation
3) What is the purpose of PEGI?
PEGI (Pan European Game Information) is the age rating system for video-games in Europe. The objective is to inform consumers about the content and age suitability of games prior to purchase, to protect minors from unsuitable content.

4) Click on the PEGI Rating tab in the top menu. What are the age ratings and what do they include?
PEGI 3
-Majority of games within this category don't contain anything that requires a rating or warrants a content warning

PEGI 7
-Any game that would normally be rated a 3 but contains some possibly frightening scenes or sounds may be considered suitable in this category

PEGI 12
-More detailed and realistic looking violence towards fantasy characters is allowed. Any violence towards human characters is must look unrealistic. Mild swearing. Sexual posturing.

PEGI 16
-Mature and realistic violence against humans, heavily deal with death and injury. Sexual activity but no visible genitals. Bad language with sexual expletives as well as prominent use of tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs. 

PEGI 18
-Heavily realistic severe violence, graphic with blood and gore. Glamorise use of drugs and descriptions of criminal techniques. Sexual activity with visible genitals.

5) Scroll down to look at the ‘How games are examined’ infographic. What is the PEGI process for rating a game?
#1 Content Declaration Assessment 
PEGI assessment where the game developer declares in detail what the game contains. Covering elements such as violence, bad language, sex and drug use. After assessment completion the developer is provided with a provisional rating

#2 Submission Materials
The developer provides evidence for their assessment answers which includes video footage and a copy of the game

#3 Video Footage Examination
The video footage is then assessed and analysed to see if there was anything missed or misinterpreted from the questionnaire before examining the game itself

#4 Game Examination
Testing the game itself is to try out things that may not have been shown in the video. For instance investigating the physical effects of different weapons or exploring the ways your character can be harmed

#5 Receiving The PEGI Licence
Complete examination takes between 4-10 working days, after which the developer is sent their formal license containing the rating symbols they must use. Also, the are content labels explaining to the consumer why the game attained the rating.

The ‘Freemium’ gaming model

Read this Lifewire feature on freemium gaming and answer the following questions:

1) How does the freemium model work?
A freemium app, otherwise known as free to play is an app you can download completely free but it includes in-app purchases in order to produce revenue.

2) Why do some gamers believe freemium is ruining games?
Some games enable players to 'pay to win' meaning, paying money to quickly become more powerful than other players. There is also the 'pay to play' model in which players encounter a time limit unless they pay to extend their time.

3) What are the positives of the freemium model for gaming?
Players can earn the premium content by working through the game and earning in game currency. Because of this players don't feel as forced to use their own money to advance past a certain point in the game which would see a bit unfair.


1) Note the key statistics in the first paragraph.
Freemium games and their in-app purchases account for about 70-80% of the $10 billion or more in iOS revenue each year.

2) Why does the freemium model incentivise game developers to create better and longer games?
With freemium games, players are continuously spending money on the game, as opposed to paying once and forgetting about it. Developers are then incentivized to put that stream of revenue directly back into the game to improve it.

3) What does the article suggest regarding the possibilities and risks to the freemium model in future?
We could see traditional console games splitting their products between single-player games, which would cost a flat fee, and multiplayer games, which are free-to-play.
Freemium games have generated most of their criticism over the mobile gaming experience. Last year, South Park famously skewered the concept as a money grab that preys on addicts and leads to boring games. The singer of the Sex Pistols, John Lyndon, claimed last year that he spent over $15,000 on iPad apps. In addition, in 2013, Apple settled a class-action lawsuit for parents who alleged that Apple didn’t make it clear that free apps could charge money.

Read this New York Times feature on freemium gaming and answer the following questions:

1) Why did Temple Run use the freemium model?
The game was released for 99 cents and at first it had a lot of initial success nut it soon started losing traction therefore in September the couple began offering Temple Run free.

2) The bigger gaming studios like Electronic Arts used to avoid the freemium model. Why are they now embracing it?
Nick Earl said the company had made the decision based on the success of Sims FreePlay, a freemium game, during the holiday season. “Generally speaking, there’s been a critical mass of quality products at freemium,” he said. “The audience has responded in a way which has become incredibly obvious to game makers like Electronic Arts.”

3) Why does Peter Farago suggest independent game makers benefit more from the freemium model than the major publishers like EA?
When creating a free game with an online store associated with it, Mr. Farago added, game companies must devote staff and resources to maintaining it because it is a live service. Smaller companies are in a better position than the major ones to start from zero and focus on releasing and maintaining freemium products, he said.

Electronic Arts

Read this Pocket Gamer interview with EA’s Amanda Schofield, Senior Producer on The Sims FreePlay at EA's Melbourne-based Firemonkeys studio. Answer the following questions:

1) How has The Sims FreePlay evolved since launch?
When the game started out you could control 16 Sims, have a pet dog and a career and that was most of the game. There was no getting married, much less having children, and now it’s this rich world which covers every aspect of the Sims’ lives. Pets range from puppies and kittens to dragons and fairies and the world is full of interesting places for Sims to go, mountains of fashion and near infinite ways to design and decorate homes. "When we started out, we never thought we could achieve so much, and that hundreds of millions of people would have played and continue to play five years later."

2) Why does Amanda Schofield suggest ‘games aren’t products any more’?
"Games aren’t products anymore, they’re services built in a partnership with our players. This means that functions like customer support and community management are a critical part of the game development process and must be embedded with our game teams so we not only know what our players are saying about the newest update, but we also can quickly respond to any problems that arise."

3) What does she say about The Sims gaming community?
One of the most rewarding parts of working on this game is that our community is very active and always hungry to see more features and content in the game. We’ve not had to do much more than listen and build to keep the players engaged.

4) How has EA kept the game fresh and maintained the active player base?
When we find systems that are particularly exciting to our players, we focus our efforts to build that section out a little more. There are so many more ways that each of our players have unique needs and requests when it comes to playing The Sims FreePlay, so it’s super important that we’re always finding ways to reach all of these individuals by varying the content and features we focus on.

5) How many times has the game been installed and how much game time in years have players spent playing the game? These could be great introductory statistics in an exam essay on this topic.
There have been over 200 million installs of The Sims Freeplay and the amount of game time in years players have spent in the game is 78,000.

Finally, read this blog on how EA is ruining the franchise (or not) due to its downloadable content. Answer the following questions:

1) What audience pleasures for The Sims are discussed at the beginning of the blog?
  • 'real life stimulation' - diversion
  • 'classic tale of love and heartbreak' - investing into the characters, personal relationships.
2) What examples of downloadable content are presented?
'The Sims 4: My First Pet Stuff'
'The Sims 4: Cats and Dogs'

3) How did Electronic Arts enrage The Sims online communities with expansion packs and DLC?
EA made content that should just originally come with the game into paid dlc because of this fans made online petitions for the pack to be free DLC, called for others' refusal to purchase it and requested that the $9.99 DLC fee be donated to a local animal shelter. Many popular Sims video creators on YouTube expressed their disappointment in the pack and the development team

4) What innovations have appeared in various versions of The Sims over the years?
The original carved out the niche for "life stimulation" gaming. In the next cycle, "The Sims 2" refined the virtual families, allowing players to create multi-generational legacies. Following this feat, the developers gave players full access to every inch of a hyper-realistic world in "The Sims 4".

5) In your opinion, do expansion packs like these exploit a loyal audience or is it simply EA responding to customer demand?
I believe that this is EA exploiting a loyal audience as they know whatever content they put out, their audience will invest into straight away because of the love they have for the franchise, in addition these expansion packs improve the game as without them it can become dull so audiences have no other choice but to give in to these outrageous prices just for something that in reality should already come with the game

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