Download Yvonne Fulmore: Urbz in the City

Yvonne Fulmore
Beneath the Skyline
An Overview and Analysis of
The Urbz: Sims in the City
(PS2, 2004)
Yvonne Fulmore
The Sims
Series
• Created by Will Wright in 2000.
• “Virtual dollhouse” of everyday life (Pearce 150.)
• Some Sims series: SimCity, The Sims 2, The Sims
Stories, MySims, The Sims 2 Castaway, The Urbz.
Yvonne Fulmore
Welcome to the City
• "The Urbz: Sims in the City is all
about three things: cool city style,
building your reputation, and living
the dream in a 24/7 city that never
sleeps. It gives players the
opportunity to create and control
their sims in a completely unique
way and in a very different
environment.”
~ Sinjin Bain, EA Executive
Producer & Vice President
(as quoted in Thorsen 2.)
Yvonne Fulmore
The Basics
• You must choose:
– A starting district (or “style”)
– A gender, skin tone, and body type.
• At the start of the game, you have:
– An apartment
– 300 simoleons (sim currency)
• Your main in-game contact:
– Darius (unofficial “city king”)
• Your main goals: to gain social status
(“rep”) and recover the parts to Darius’
Secret Machine.
Yvonne Fulmore
“Rep”:
Characters and Interactions
• Five pre-made characters
live in each district.
– Socialize with them to gain
“rep,” or reputation points.
• Socializing: Better-received
interactions allow you to
receive higher “rep.”
Yvonne Fulmore
Ultimate Recipe for In-game Success
– Appropriate friendliness
– Buy and wear the right clothes
– Make friends with everyone + work different jobs =
learn even more social interactions
– Defeat all “villains” so you can put together the
pieces to the Secret Machine and acquire
Darius’ apartment
Yvonne Fulmore
Urbz as Social Commentary:
No Personality Points
and The Chameleon Effect
• Urbz: Personality points
are non-existent
– Chameleon effect: “the
natural tendency to imitate
another person’s speech
inflections and physical
expressions” (Barco 2.)
• Study by Chartrand and
Bargh (1999)
– No personality options =
empty sim/urb
Yvonne Fulmore
Commentary on Society’s Ideals:
Avatar/Body Design
• Exaggerated physical design: over-glamorized
women and men
– limited body types and skin shades
– dress code for women
• Question: why?
Yvonne Fulmore
Urbz as Culturally Offensive
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Both African-American culture and Japanese culture are
singled out to be caricatured in Urbz, being largely defined
by stereotyping.
Black culture: defined in-game by “Sim-ish” (Pearce term)
hip-hop music and gangster culture.
– Example: Skyline Beach district
Japanese culture: defined in-game by “Sim-ish” J-pop music
and a sushi shop.
– Example: Neon East district
The truth: they are mutually exclusive.
1. Black culture ≠ Hip-hop music ≠ Gangster culture
2. Japanese culture ≠ J-pop music ≠ Sushi shops
– Urbz is offensive when people come into (and leave)
the game believing that these are all the same by
definition and are not mutually exclusive.
Yvonne Fulmore
Gangster Stereotyping and History
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Truth: Gangster culture exists worldwide, and in America is not
exclusive to only one or two cultures.
In America, the concept of the stereotypical gangster developed
during Prohibition.
– Prohibition (1920s): Gangsters were “invented” by “journalists, fiction
writers, and filmmakers” (i.e. the media) to be a representation of
“human behavior in a new urban environment.” ~Ruth as quoted by
Sklar, p. 275
Pre-Prohibition Gangster Stereotype: physically powerful,
supposedly unintelligent, from a lower economic class
background (Pauly 777.)
– “The born criminal validated existing ethnic and racial categories. The
rhetoric of class was often coupled with nativism and buttressed by
science.” ~Ruth as quoted by Thomas H. Pauly, p. 777-78
Post-Prohibition Gangster Stereotype: sharply-dressed, from an
upper-class background (Pauly 777.)
– Developed as “an important cultural ferment in its ability to elicit
sympathy from a mass public troubled by disruptive urban change and
escalating lawlessness” (777.)
Yvonne Fulmore
The Gangster Stereotype
and Consumerism
• Appealed to the consumer
– The Post-Prohibition Gangster:“a growing menace
and natural by-product of the consumer-driven
economy” (Pauly 779.)
• What about now?
– Gangster stereotypes are used to sell media
(movies, music, video games, books, etc.)
• Game examples: NBA Ballers—which has an E rating,
and on a higher scale, Grand Theft Auto (Marriott 1-2.)
• In closing: Supposed acts of crime from ethnic
groups did not create the stereotyped “gangster.”
The media did.
Yvonne Fulmore
Dangers of Stereotyping
• Reinforcement of misconceptions
– Learning from media: “Passive observation may
be shown to have some effect on the beliefs or
even the actions of an observer” (Penny 80.)
• Presence of caricature = disproportionately high
when contrasted with more neutral
representations of ethnic groups.
– Question: Is it really poking fun at people
who make misconceptions about the
groups—or at the groups themselves as
often embodied in society through
negative stereotyping?
Yvonne Fulmore
The Urbanite as a Spectacle
• Urban culture: missions encourage deviant behavior
stereotypically viewed as “urban crime.”
– Examples: graffiti on walls, mug people, break equipment, swear,
etc.
Yvonne Fulmore
Names with Meaning:
Examples of Caricature in Limbo
• Portrayal of hip-hop music (when commonly
but wrongly used to define Black culture) as
absurd.
– Example: Ridiculous D.O.G., Lil’ Bit
• Quiet misuse of language
– Example: Sushi shop owner Mazuiko (lit.
“child of awful-tasting food.”)
• In closing: Within the wrong context, these
could be considered offensive.
– Concerning context:
•
•
•
•
Representation
Purpose
Disbursement of misinformation
Creator’s intentions
Yvonne Fulmore
Target Audience:
The Irony of Urbz’ Marketing
• Although Urbz has more racially diverse characters than
any other Sims game, ethnic characters are
underrepresented in game screenshots and promotional
images in stores and on the Internet.
Yvonne Fulmore
Urbz as Mockery
of the Console Player
• Designed to appeal to the visual demands of
(younger) console gamers while also
maintaining the typical Sims series appeal
(Castro 1.)
– Original Sims: “a domestic drama, or sitcom,
depending on how you play” and “a shift in the
definition of the author” (Pearce 150-51.)
– Urbz: loss of this freedom
• Urbz caricatures as being so over the top, it
suggests that anyone who believes that what
they see is “cool” is silly.
• Material/shallow nature of entire gaming
experience
Yvonne Fulmore
Non-Committal
Gaming
Commitment
• Compared to other Sims series games (even on consoles)
Urbz is a fairly non-committal gaming commitment.
• Verdict: Ease of relationship-building encourages gamers to
look at characters as pawns to climb the “rep” ladder.
Yvonne Fulmore
Urbz: The Uninspiring
• Emphasis on physical
appearance/material things
• Cliques and cultural
stereotyping
• Constant unhealthy messages
concerning standards of
beauty
– Not enough customizing ability
in character size or skin tone
(much like original Sims)
Yvonne Fulmore
Urbz: What’s More Inspiring
• Game play that is
not too challenging
• Higher than usual
presence of ethnic
characters
• Questioning of your
mission—was it
worth it?
Yvonne Fulmore
Works Cited
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“Caricature,” Riverside II Webster’s Dictionary. Berkley Books, New York: 1996.
“The URBZ: Sims in the City,” Official Website. Accessed on October 20, 2007. http://urbzsims.ea.com
“Will Wright talks Sim City and The Sims,” Computer and Video Games, PC News. England: Future Publishing
Limited, 2001. Accessed on October 24, 2007. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=11179
Barco, Torri. “We’re All Copycats.” Psychology Today Magazine, Nov/Dec 1999. Accessed on November 3, 2007.
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19991101-000004.html
Castro, Juan. “The Urbz: Sims in the City,” November 9, 2004. Accessed on October 21, 2007.
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/564/564962p1.html
Marriott, Michel. “The Color of Mayhem, in a Wave of Urban Games,” The New York Times. New York: The New
York Times, 2004.
Pauly, Thomas H. “The Criminal as Culture.” American Literary History, Vol. 9 No. 4 (Winter 1997) pp. 776-778.
Sklar, Robert. Review of Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangster in American Culture, 1918-1934 by David E.
Ruth. The Journal of American History, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Jun 1997), pp. 275-276.
Thorsen, Tor. “The Urbz Rollz Out,” Yahoo Entertainment. Created November 10, 2004. Accessed on October 20,
2007. http://videogames.yahoo.com/news-366497
Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan, Pat, ed. “Representation, Enaction, and the Ethics of Simulation,”
Simon Penny. First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge: 2004. p. 80.
Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan, Pat, ed. “Towards a Game Theory of Game,” Celia Pearce. First Person: New Media as
Story, Performance, and Game. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge: 2004. p. 150-51.
Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan, Pat, ed. “Videogames of the Oppressed,” Gonzalo Frasca. First Person: New Media as
Story, Performance, and Game. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge: 2004. p. 91.
IGN: The Urbz: Sims in the City Images. Accessed on October 20, 2007.
http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/677/677567/imgs_4.html