The Sims is undeniably the iconic series of simulation games. However, she often fell into high-profile scandals. Did Electronic Arts manage to get out of the water?
When The Sims franchise captured the minds of gamers, no one could have imagined what problems it would bring to its developers in many years. As society is evolving, more and more demands are being made on games, especially on simulators. EA have repeatedly got into scandals due to the fact that they did not keep up with the audience’s appetites. Here are 6 of the biggest scandals in the history of the Sims franchise.
Too many DLC
The main “sin” of the Sims series is a huge number of additions. Most of the scandals are connected with this. In fact, if not for The Sims, then most likely DLC politics would not have become so popular.
Initially, the add-ons literally took the Sims to the next level. The game was so voluminous that if all the content for it were released in one package, then the new part would have to wait for tens of years. Besides, it would be worth fabulous money. EA found solutions and went through the DLC, but as a result, the project became even more “gold” for users. In addition, Electronic Arts and other companies, upon seeing the system for sale, began to apply it not only to simulators, but also to other games… As a result, gamers now have a market overflowing with DLC.
The expansion scandal reached its climax after the release of The Sims 4. The game didn’t even have iconic basic things like swimming pools, which in a sense have become a symbol of the game. The content in the “vanilla” version of The Sims 4 lasted just a few hours. Players even boycotted the franchise, forcing the developers to release several free updates.
Death
In The Sims, characters go through their entire life cycle, from birth to death. And if babies have always been faceless dolls, then characters are dying colorfully. And the older generation never liked it, because the Sims is family content.
In the game, you can die due to electric shock, old age, hunger, fire, as well as simply drown or get a heart attack from fear. Besides, all additional types of death cannot be disabled in the settings… Because of this, from the side of Sims, it can seem like a very bloodthirsty game. This topic was supported by fans who began to upload videos of how they lock their characters and burn them, or leave them in the pool without ladders and let them drown. Because of this, the game even wanted to raise the age rating in Europe, but in the end it avoided this fate.
Same-sex relationships and 18+
The fourth part of the Sims in Russia received an 18+ rating due to the fact that it is possible to enter into same-sex relationships there. This seriously hit the sales of the game, the audience of which is very wide and includes minors.
The Sims is rated 12+ worldwide. The censors set such a boundary because of deaths and the ability of Sims to have sex.
However, the age limit is an even smaller measure. The question was raised of a complete ban on the game on the territory of the Russian Federation, but as a result, the censors decided to do with more lenient measures.
Lack of feedback
The Sims developers set up special twitter accounts to communicate with the audience, but in fact they only started listening to fans in September 2020. This month, the company released the Journey to Batuu add-on, the biggest flop in the franchise’s history.
In February 2020, The Sims polled on its official website what kind of content fans would like to see in the game. The same questions were asked on Twitter. As a result, the Star Wars Batu variant came in last place, but EA released just that.
Because of such a disrespectful attitude players boycotted DLC. As a result, the developers had to apologize, promise to release content that people voted for.
Unconventional couples did not initially think
The Sims team has always been an active advocate for nontraditional relationship rights. However, one of the company’s programmers, Patrick Barrett, said that in fact, same-sex couples in the game appeared by accident… He simply did not have time to write the necessary script that would prohibit sims of the same sex from entering into relationships.
As a result, the footage of the two female characters kissing got to the press and made a splash. The company started to get enough boldness and innovation, so EA decided not to remove such content.
When the community found out about this, they got very angry. Electronic Arts was saved only by the fact that they managed to release several canon transgender characters in The Sims 4so they didn’t get into a big scandal.
Tolerance seems to be, but it is not there
Another scandal was due to the poorly developed aspect of tolerance. Yes, you can create a character of any skin tone or body size in the game, but this was not enough for the community. The players were outraged by the small variation in the shades of the Sims. We talked about this in more detail in this article.
In addition, EA has a serious problem due to the fact that in the game for all the years of its existence there were no disabled people. As a result, they promised to add people with disabilities and all the content they need in a separate add-on.