Players Unleashed!
Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming
Distributed for Amsterdam University Press
It has been ten years since video game giant Electronic Arts first released The Sims, the best-selling game that allows its players to create a household and then manage every aspect of daily life within it. And since its debut, gamers young and old have found ways to “mod” The Sims, a practice in which gamers manipulate the computer code of a game, and thereby alter it to add new content and scenarios.
In Players Unleashed!—the first study of its kind—Tanja Sihvonen provides a fascinating examination of modding, tracing its evolution and detailing its impact on The Sims and the game industry as a whole. Along the way, Sihvonen shares insights into specific modifications and the cultural contexts from which they emerge.
Preface
I. Unleashing Players
Game and its modifications
Product and process
Understanding gameplay
Reconfiguring textuality
II. Cultural and Commercial Appropriation
Modding and participatory culture
Game development in context
Histories of modding
Modding simulations
Serious game development or intense play?
III. Dynamics of Modding
Categorising modding practices
From interpretation to configuration
Sharing the idea of play
Private and public spaces
IV. Negotiating the Code
Playing with the Sims
Game space as canvas
Playing house, performing gender
V. Extending the Game
Pleasures and politics of simulation
From recycling to remediation
Kinky play: pornographic hacking and The Sims
Conclusion
References
Notes
Index
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