A Look Into The Simlish World

The Sims 4 Virtual World: The Fandom 

     Since 2000, The Sims has been an evolving video game franchise that gives gamers entire control of their creations. According to Favis (2020), The Sims has 20 million players worldwide, with over 200 million copies sold on PC. The Sims give its users the ability to create and design characters, called Sims, while giving them certain traits that will be apparent throughout the game by moodlets. For example, moodlets show what kind of mood that sim is in; Happy, sad, angry, playful, confident, inspired, focused, flirty, and embarrassed. By the user selecting interactions in the game, such as making a sim cook, sleep, clean, sing, or swim, these actions will either boost or decrease a Sim's mood. Furthermore, gamers can build houses from scratch in any way they please and choose outfits for their sim to wear for certain events. Sims even has its own made-up language, called Simlish. Over the years, The Sims has evolved, coming out with expansion packs such as Pets, Get Famous, Island Living, and City Living. Furthermore, since then, The Sims 4 has sparked fans to create designs for clothes, interactions, and home items themselves.

 Community Inside the Game: The Gallery

               Built into the game in the latest version of The Sims, there is a place where players can upload their own families or houses, called the Gallery. The Gallery is the connection between all players where they can download each other's ideas or creations. There are over 40 million uploads, and these numbers continue to grow (Favis, 2020). Because of the fact this game is single-player and is unable to have two people maintaining a family at once, the Gallery is an addition that makes it so there are networks in the game being formed. Furthermore, because the game can only offer so many outfits and designs from the base game and expansion packs, fans continued to create their own reality or designs for the game. This video seen below demonstrates different houses that players have made and are all very different from one another, but this is what makes the Sims community so special.

As of 2022, there are 11 expansion packs, 12 game packs, 18 stuff packs, and 13 kit packs that are available to purchase (Jones, 2022). Although, the role of expansion packs is to add greater features or creations to the game, can only do so much. Fortunately, fans came up with new ideas for interactions, music to play from the stereos, food to cook, clothes or the appearance of the sims, furniture, and just about anything else that can be added to the game. Beyond just players being able to update their creations to the gallery, some artistic, technologically savvy gamers were able to put new interactions in the game, called Mods.

Easier Said Than Done: Mods

       In the fandom of the sims, there was discussion of how the game lacked real-world aspects, such as cuddling or deeper interactions between partners, more options for items to cook, and more availability in terms of scary, life tragedies. Because it is not the company itself creating mods, but loving fans doing so, they create accounts on websites such as Patreon or Tumblr to download for free. In Figure 3, it demonstrates an example of the game that is something fans found really lacking: more attention to the pets. Beyond just the idea of creating more interactions and possible life events, there are cheat codes to be used to get an infinite amount of money, disable death, and more. Important to note, the fans have created a community on platforms such as Tik Tok, Instagram, or Twitter, where they can discuss with one another what kind of things they would want to see in the sims. Popular mod creators, like Kawaii Stacie and Basemental, get to work to make the fan's desires a reality (Ashcroft, 2021).

Figure 2: This image shows the mod of playable pets. The mod enables players to play as their pets as well as monitor their emotions and needs, which is not possible in the base game (Rae Uy, 2021).

The Power of Custom Content 

        More artistically demanding is custom content. Custom content enhances the look of the sims, such as hair, eyebrows, nose, lip, skin overlay, clothing, and furniture. Custom content differs from mods in the sense that it focuses primarily on the looks of the game, but not so much on gameplay. Furthermore, there are fans that make money off of custom content, such as the popular creator below. Senate is a creator that mainly releases chic, modern styles. Being able to make money off of custom content is a big part in the business. Fans can subscribe monthly to their Patreon so that they have early access to their designs. Although, typically, the sooner they want access to a set, the more money they will have to pay monthly. Crucial to note, every custom content creator has a different style or idea in mind. For example, as seen in Figure 4, Senate did a collaboration with another custom content creator, Serenity, who is mainly known for more of a girly, preppy look. Combining looks, it serves as a way to promote their designs to more Sim users. Figure 5 demonstrates the effects of custom content, and just how different Sims can appear.

 

Figure 3: Popular creators Senate X Serenity collab. This is typically what it looks like when viewing custom content on Patreon.

There are so many other creators out there that have different ideas or different focuses than just outfits, this creator reveals to their fans just how much appearance can make a difference in the game. 

Figure 4: Created by artistic fans, custom content adds greater detail to the game, such as lashes, better eyebrows, more earrings, makeup, freckles, more inclusive hair textures, and more skin tones. 

TikTok Trends 

    For Sims fans, TikTok has been a way to connect to a similar community who enjoys playing The Sims just as much of them. As seen in the video below, there has been a trend of using the audio, "This is a work of art" to describe things they may have decorated in the game. For example, someone can rate a dress that is already in the game or rate a dress that has been made my custom content. Fans have been able to share their ideas with others by following trends of the Sims on TikTok. Another example of a common trend is doing a "Day in the life" of a Sims family. This would entail the player focusing on what that sim would do throughout the entire day, such as brush teeth, go swimming, go to the gym, etc. These trends attract more fans to join the game, especially being that the Sims became free in October 2022, around the time of some of these trends (Leston, 2022). The last trend that has become really popular is with the audio "You will always be a dumb blonde" which entails a player's sim growing up from a toddler to an adult. These trends leave a major impact on the fanbase becuase it allows the fans to become inspired from other creator's ideas.

The first clip shows the first trend "You'll always be a dumb blonde" and the second showing "This is a working of art," two popular trends that still continue to linger today.

The Spirit of a Sims Fan

                    In my time playing, I first started out with The Sims 2 with the pets expansion pack. During this time, I realized why my older sisters loved the game so much. For myself personally, just a few months ago I downloaded custom content to add new features of building the sims, furniture, and new interactions. Although I love all aspects of the game, I enjoy it the most for the ability to build and design homes. I love adding new homes and making each neighborhood have a theme. Furthermore, I like to create my own stories within each family, such as a single mom with a rebellious son or a rich family living in the city of San Myshuno. In terms of the development of the game, I noticed a pattern between the games and how they focus on changing or taking things out. For example, in the second game, there were robbers that could come into your house, which is a feature that is no longer in the game. Although Sims 3, it was an open-concept game, meaning that players could freely travel all over the large map without a loading screen or disruptions. As a fan, I love the fact that in each game, there are new additions and things being taken out. Therefore, this franchise successfully makes each game different from the one before it, making users like myself still interested. In my most recent family, I made a single mom, and two kids were living in a one-bedroom apartment in the city. Although, I built up her career as an actor, which allowed her to meet Thorne Bailey, a 4-star celebrity that is already been made into the game. Using my own creation and the base game's creation, I made a family with a lot of fortune with two kids. This proves the point that really, in the Sims, anyone can create whatever comes to their mind, which is a reason so many people love the game.

References 

Ashcroft, H. "The Sims 4: Best Mod Creators." The Gamer. 12 January 2021. https://www.thegamer.com/the-sims-4-mods

Favis, E. "How The Sims navigated 20 years of change to become one of the most successful franchises ever." The Washington Post. 4 February 2020.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games

Jones, R. "Sims 4 Full Expansion Packs List: All Expansion Packs in Order." Touch Tap Play. 19 June 2022.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/sims-4-full-expansion-packs-list

Leston, R. "The Sims 4: Base Game Will Soon Become Totally Free." IGN. 14 September        2022. https://www.ign.com/articles/the-sims-4-base-game-will-soon-become-totally-free.

Rae Uy, M. "Best Sims 4 Mods: Wonderful Whims, MC Command, and More Sims 4 Mods." IGN. 17 June 2021. https://www.ign.com/articles/best-sims-4-mods