The Sims - Video Case Study

The Sims is a strategic, life simulation video game series developed by Maxis and later by The Sims Studio, and published by Electronic Arts. It is one of the most successful video games series of all time. The games in The Sims series are more of a sandbox game in that they lack any defined goals. The player creates virtual people called "Sims" and places them in houses and helps direct their moods and satisfy their desires.
            
Hyper-reality/simulacrum - In the Sims you can create characters however you want to. This makes it postmodern as you can create different versions of yourself and play as them. You can recreate your image as something completely different and plan their life for them. This can be seen as hyper reality too as Baudrillard argued that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes a truth in its own right. This is the case in the Sim’s with the language that they use; Simlish. Its not a copy of any language but has its own meaning in the game. There is no proper translation for the language and to us sounds like random noises and sounds. This is the creators trying to imitate what its like when we hear an unknown language that we don’t speak or understand, as to us it then becomes a range of noises and sounds, which is what Simlish is made up of.
                 

Self- reflexivity - The Sims often look to the camera to you as their creator if they desperately need something such as food or interactions with other people. This shows self reflexivity as they know they are being controlled and that their lives are being planned out by someone else. They can also play the Sims on their own computers which is self reflective as they are playing a game within a game and seeing what its like to be the creator instead of the character.

                 

Intertextuality - The Sims uses intertextuality to make the game seem more realistic and therefore includes features from reality that we can associate with. They do this very subtly through the use of different television shows available for the Sims to watch and also the music they can listen to. They change the language to Simlish but they are still the same TV shows and songs we listen to and would recognise. They also have new expansion packs to add to the game where you can find well known celebrities such as Katy Perry, which shows how she is still recognised in the game for her talent.

 

Instantaneity - The Sims includes instantaneity as you are able to cheat in the game. There are numerous cheats to help make your Sims lives better, for example you can cheat to gain $50,000 or even slow down time so your Sim doesn’t grow old and die. All these enhance the Sims lives and make them better that are unrealistic and would not happen in real life.

GTA case study

Grand Theft Auto G325 Rock star Games Rockstar Games is a video game developer and publisher based in New York City, owned by Take-Two Interactive. The brand is mostly known for the Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, Midnight Club and Red Dead series and the use of open world, free roaming settings in their games. It comprises studios that have been acquired and renamed as well as others that have been created internally. While many of the studios Take-Two Interactive has acquired have been merged into the Rockstar brand, several other recent ones have retained their previous identities and have become part of the company's 2K Games division. The Rockstar Games label was founded in New York City in 1998 by the British video game producers Sam Houser, Dan Houser, Terry Donovan, Jamie King and Gary Foreman History Institution GTA Grand Theft Auto (commonly abbreviated GTA) is an award-winning video game series created in the United Kingdom by Dave Jones, then later by brothers Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke. It is primarily developed by Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design) and published by Rockstar Games. The name of the series and its games are derived from grand theft auto, a term referring to motor vehicle theft.

The series is set in fictional locales heavily modelled on American cities, while an expansion for the original was based in London. Gameplay focuses on an open world where the player can choose missions to progress an overall story, as well as engaging in side activities; all consisting of action, adventure, driving, occasional role-playing, stealth, and racing elements. The subject of the games is usually a comedic satire of American culture, but the series has gained controversy for its adult nature and violent themes. The series focuses around many different protagonists who attempt to rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld, although their motives for doing so vary in each game. The antagonists are commonly characters who have betrayed the protagonist or his organization, or characters who have the most impact impeding the protagonist's progress.
Why is GTA Postmodren? GTA Relationship to Audience Games and consoles have a
symbolic relationship Must game-play Tighten up the regulation, classification and censorship of videogames Social Interaction world wide audience GTA is postmodern due to the inspiration from Black noir films from the 1970's.
Each game in this series allows players to take on the role of a criminal or a wannabe in a big city, typically an individual who rises through the ranks of organized crime through the course of the game. The player is given various missions by kingpins and major idols in the city underworld which must be completed to progress through the storyline. Assassinations and other crimes feature regularly, but occasionally taxi driving, firefighting, street racing, bus driving, or learning to fly helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft are also involved. The Grand Theft Auto series belongs to a genre of free-roaming video games called sandbox games, and grants a large amount of freedom to the player in deciding what to do and how to do it through multiple methods of transport and weapons. Most traditional action games are structured as a single track series of levels with linear gameplay, but in GTA the player can determine the missions that he wants to undertake, and his relationships with various characters are changed based on these choices. The cities of the games can also be roamed freely at any point in the game, and are examples of open world video game environments which offer accessible buildings with minor missions in addition to the main storyline. There are exceptions: missions follow a linear, overarching plot, and some city areas must be unlocked over the course of the game.
Grand Theft Auto III and later subsequent games have more prevalent voice acting, and radio stations, which simulate driving to music with disc jockeys, radio personalities, commercials, talk radio, pop music, and American culture.

Case Study : Video Game So why do I find it postmodern? I find GTA postmodern as through my own research of this video game I found out that it took the 1970's era of gangsters and transported it into the modern world, with the use of technology. it took inspiration from movies like The Godfather, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas.
I also find it postmodern is a distubing way of how people find enjoyment of being transported into this interactive world, to which the main narrative is to steal cars, rob people and shoot peoples heads off.
I don't understand this sense of enjoyment, yes its non-reality but ACTUALLY watching someone shooting their own brain out on CCTV footage is NO laughing matter or in any sense enjoyable.


Stylistic elements:  
Nostalgia
Eclecticism  
Bricolage  
Acts against Modernism  
Narcissistic  
An Active Audience                  

Theoretical elements- - Real Virtuality –Castells
 IN GTA 5 you can roam the streets acting as a Hollywood version of yourself you can eat in restaurants, get drunk in bars, dance in night clubs, work out in a gym, allowing yourself to get fit or fat in the process- you can become wealthy and wear the designer clothes you have always dreamed of, drive luxury cars, live in a big house or date a supermodel, or you could be very much like the you, you are in real life- the lines and boundaries of life and virtuality can become blurred.
                 
Decline of Meta Narratives - Lyotard - You play a villain who is in fact the hero. There are many people to aid you but the is no clear definition as to whether they are good/bad polar opposites either. A narrative is constructed by your actions and interactions with the text itself as opposed to the text dictating the narrative- one persons playing of the game could very well be completely different to another persons.
                 
3rd wave- Infosphere- Toffler. We can only see the world through Postmodern eyes under the luxury of capitalism and the wealth within. The entire text is devoted to the endless and ruthless pursuit of money, wealth and power. 3 major forces for capitalism and postmodernism itself. Pastiche & intertextuality- Jameson Hyperreality- Baudrillard
                 

                 

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