The Simpsons: Tapped Out

The Simpsons: Tapped Out is a freemium city-building mobile game for iOS and Android, based on the American animated series The Simpsons. It allows users to create and maintain their own version of Springfield using familiar characters and buildings. The game is regularly updated with new content, often season and holiday themed, for example during holidays like Thanksgiving, and Treehouse of Horror episodes-related content for Halloween. The game is available in several languages such as English, French, Turkish, Italian, German, Simplified Chinese, Peninsular Spanish and both European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. The game was developed and published by EA Mobile and launched in Europe on February 29, 2012 and in North America on March 1, 2012 for iOS[1] and February 6, 2013 for Android.[2] The game was released for Kindle Fire devices in several markets on June 24, 2013.[3]

"Tapped Out" redirects here. For the 2014 boxing film, see Tapped Out (film).

The Simpsons: Tapped Out
Game logo
Developer(s)EA Mobile
Publisher(s)EA Mobile
EngineUnity
Platform(s)iOS, Android, Kindle Fire
ReleaseiOS
  • EU: February 29, 2012
  • NA: March 1, 2012
Android
  • NA: February 6, 2013
  • EU: February 14, 2013
Genre(s)City building
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

According to its own estimates, EA generated over $130 million in revenue since the game's release, as of 2014.[4] As of 2020, the game has received 80 million downloads and grossed $200 million.[5]

Story

Too busy playing an elf-related game on his myPad (parody of iPad) at work, Homer neglects his workstation and accidentally causes a meltdown at the nuclear power plant, leading to a complete destruction of Springfield. Left stranded, he is solely responsible for rebuilding Springfield and bringing back its town members. Homer is desperate to find other characters so that he can get them to rebuild and he can get back to his elf game. With the help of Lisa, Homer rebuilds Springfield and brings back key sought-out characters.

Gameplay
A typical gameplay scene

The game may be considered a city-building game. It offers a variety of buildings (houses, shops, public buildings from the animation series) that the player buys with "Money ($)" in-game currency. Premium items are bought with donuts which can also be purchased with real-world cash. This references Homer Simpson's passion for donuts within the series. The player uses building and character quest-lines to make in-game progress. By completing quests and levels, the player collects more characters and buildings unlocking further quests and levels. Each building regularly generates in-game money to collect, under names such as "Income tax" from houses and the "Collection plate" from the First Church of Springfield. Players can place rivers, roads, pavement and decorations on the land. In 2013, developers added the "Krustyland" transporter, to get players from Springfield to the infamous Krustyland, where they can expand and build like the main Springfield game.

The game is supported by EA's Origin, which acts as a social bridge to where players log into their Origin accounts and visit friends' towns to collect cash once every 24 hours; and occasionally other tasks during an event.

There is a hidden easter egg where, in order to obtain the statue of Jebediah Springfield decoration, the player must tap Homer 10 times in a row whilst he is performing any task. This action also gives the player 10 free donuts, but can only work once.

Since the May 18, 2016 update, the maximum number of levels is counted to 939, because this is the Simpsons' area code in Springfield.

Frequent content updates have been released for the game, with new game content or time-limited events related to episode promotions or holidays. Major events include a temporary currency, which can be used to buy – or win – limited edition prizes.[6] For some events every user's winnings contributed to a community fund, which includes prizes for certain levels of the event currency.[7]

Development

According to game runner and longtime Simpsons writer J. Stewart Burns, the game originally started as a "labor of love" and he didn't expect much to happen after the game's release.[8] Although they do not get credited, there are about ten writers who currently work on the game, including Simpsons writers Burns, Matt Selman, Brian Kelley, Jeff Westbrook, Jon Kern, Carolyn Omine and Diana Wright.[8]

In-game problems

Shortly after the iOS launch, the game was pulled from the iOS App Store due to EA's servers being unable to cope with the demand and a plethora of serious glitches reported by users.[9] After a month had passed, EA set up a forum whereby users could report bug issues, but failed to offer solutions to issues or temporary updates. Some users who had made in-app purchases discovered that their purchases had vanished. After contacting EA, users were able to collect refunds directly from Apple. Several months later on August 16, 2012,[10] the app returned to the App Store. Since 2016 there has been a bug that removes most functionality from the game interface. Players are calling this the "rollback bug" since the only way to fix your game is to have EA support roll your game back to a previous date before you acquired the bug. As of April 2018 there is still no fix for this bug and it continues to grow, affecting almost 20% of all players. Since the end of 2019 the bug has a fix.

Criticism

Due to criticism of the larger trend of freemium games' revenue structure, the game was satirized in the South Park episode "Freemium Isn't Free" as exploitative and lacking in gameplay.[11] The game itself earlier lampooned this point during an in-game conversation between two characters.[12] In The Simpsons season 25 episode "Labor Pains" Homer opens the game on his phone and is automatically charged $300.

Accolades

The game won the People's Voice Award for "Strategy/Simulation" at the 2018 Webby Awards.[13]

gollark: ++choose 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524
gollark: The first number is the number of times to choose.
gollark: <@402456897812168705> Working as intended.
gollark: ++remind 1d5h fix.
gollark: Oops, wrong channel.

See also

References
  1. ""Life-Ruiningly Fun" Comes to iPad, iPhone and iPod touch with the Launch of The Simpsons: Tapped Out". Electronic Arts. January 3, 2012. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  2. "The Simpsons:Tapped Out". Google. February 6, 2013. Retrieved February 6, 2013.
  3. "Tapped Out Kindle Edition at Amazon". June 24, 2013. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  4. "Electronic Arts Management Discusses Q3 2014 Results - Earnings Call Transcript". Seeking Alpha. January 28, 2014. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  5. "Waleed Kamel (Disney Marketing Manager, EA Senior Product Manager)". LinkedIn. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
  6. "Whack Attack – The Unofficial Simpsons: Tapped Out Blog". tappedoutunofficial.wordpress.com. July 1, 2013. Retrieved December 22, 2013.
  7. "The countdown to the final community prize is on! – Tapped Out Daily". tappedoutdaily.wordpress.com. November 1, 2013. Retrieved December 22, 2013.
  8. "How the Mobile Game Tapped Out Brought Old Simpsons Fans Back Into the Fold". Vulture. September 25, 2014. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
  9. Parfitt, Ben (March 5, 2012). "EA pulls The Simpsons iOS from App Store". MCV. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  10. "THE SIMPSONS: TAPPED OUT RELAUNCHES ON THE APP STORE". Retrieved August 17, 2017.
  11. ""South Park Trashes "Freemium" Games Like The Simpsons: Tapped Out". CraveOnline. November 6, 2014. Retrieved November 10, 2014.
  12. "The Simpsons Tapped Out Is Surprisingly Honest About Freemium Games". Dorkly. August 31, 2014. Archived from the original on April 3, 2015. Retrieved November 10, 2014.
  13. "2018 Winners". The Webby Awards. April 24, 2018. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
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