Players Unleashed! Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming (review)

Taking as its central example the computer game The Sims (2000), Sihvonen’s book analyzes the practice of game modification, or “modding.” Modding is the reconfiguration and reworking of commercially released computer games by players through the production or alteration of game content, characters, sounds, graphics, new maps and levels. The game’s creator, Will Wright, is well known for creating computer games that offer players “possibility spaces” that make it possible for them to build and control a range of simulated scenarios (Sim City, 1989; Spore, 2008). In these games players are not required to complete a particular quest or arrive at a pre-specified outcome; instead, game-play is led by the player’s own concerns. Because of this, The Sims makes a useful example in a discussion of modding because the game is explicitly intended as a platform for user creativity; Sihvonen’s book provides an exploration of the way in which The Sims enables players’ creativity. Sims players are preeminent modders, and creative expression and interventions by players are central to the dynamic of Sims game-play, which is centered on activities of interpreting game content, configuring it and modifying it—practices that not only are carried out by a small subset of hardcore players but also are a highly popular and common activity.

In an introductory anecdote, Sihvonen describes her early experiments with the game, some of which involved killing her Sims; for example, by encouraging them to go swimming and then deleting the ladder that would allow them to climb out of the pool—the result being that, exhausted, they drowned. While Players Unleashed is based on a broad survey of player activities using The Sims and the communities and platforms that support and serve these modding practices, this example is exemplary of the way users of any technological platform, including games, often seek to use that platform to achieve not only a range of forms of self-expression but also to test the limits of their own imagination and agency within the space of the technology. Citing David Serlin—“modders do not play games, they play with games” (p. 105), Sihvonen sets out to explore the way in which The Sims game supports this type of player intervention and expression. The result is a close reading of The Sims that draws together multiple threads and ideas regarding the forms of player creativity it supports with a number of insights into game technology and computing, focused on an analysis and assembly of approaches to and discussion of this particular gaming environment. Thus, Sihvonen surveys a number of the key issues and literature that can contribute to an understanding of computer games from a play-centered, ludic perspective [1] as materials that offer a canvas for performance, exploration, appropriation, creation and détournement.

Sihvonen offers a framework for talking about the various forms of “modding” activity (pp. 89–90), including interpretation:

semiotic interpretation of the game—what it is for—how should we play, what do the elements mean? [including] glitches and bugs which might be exploited by users—design flaws which allow players to, for example build a house on columns which are then removed—leaving a floating house

(p. 92).

Another category is that of configuration, whereby elements of the game are adjusted to provide player-configured aspects such as personalized avatars. Reworking “the deconstruction and reassembly of game elements” (p. 89) offers the most important focus for discussion. Playing with the game is the active intervention by players upon the materials (files and code—digital content and assets) on which the game is based. These are edited or replaced using other software tools either provided by the game designers or produced by the modding community. Finally, a further category, that of redirection (using the game to produce new media content) is discussed. This aspect of modding is present in activities such as machinima and gamics (comics...