Customizable Pronouns First Look

"dearie_blossom;c-18039750" wrote:

"Icewolf;c-18039726" wrote:

"LiELF;c-18039701" wrote:
Okay. Here's my thing. As I said in another thread, I like that they made the options flexible. People are free to make up whatever they want. But I also do not want any pronouns showing up in live mode with the Sim's name. This is where the game stops being the fictional world of my own choosing ("play your way", right??) and starts to force real world drama into my face. The whole reason I play this game is to create my own world, how I want it, and as far away from reality as I want it. My Sims don't need gender identity because they are fictional beings in a fictional world existing in fictional ways and they don't have social politics. They don't need pronouns, especially in real world languages because they speak Simlish. They don't need inclusion because it's not an issue in the first place in their world. So I would very much appreciate it if we could default to a Sim's sex, the way all of the past games have, and make this pronoun thing optional altogether.

I know it's going to be hard for some people to understand, but I play this game for escapism, amusement, laughter and to weave whatever my creativity demands in the moment. My real life has been hard and I want to leave it behind when I load up the game. I don't play for political ideals or realistic life conquests or Utopias. I play for me. And if the company truly wants to claim inclusivity, how about sticking to the long-time brand idea that every player makes the game what they want it to be? Isn't that the purpose of the Sims 4 campaign when they say things like, "you do you, wherever you want to"? The entire pronoun movement is for a specific group of people. Power to them, they should have it in their games if they want it, I'm not trying to contradict that. But why does it look like it's becoming a core focus that all players are going to have to deal with? Are rotational players who play a bazillion Sims (like me) going to have to go through a bunch of nonsense and select pronouns for every single one just so the game can recognize them? And what happens if we don't? Where does the game default? If it defaults to non-binary because of the language of pronouns, then does that mean the mechanics will never be able to incorporate sexual identities like gay or straight? Because that's a problem. You can't claim to be "inclusive" and not allow for sexual identities too, especially when past games did.

See, this is the main problem that I see people having with the entire pronoun argument. It leads into gay/straight erasure because suddenly people aren't "allowed" to have gender (or rather, sex) preferences or it's considered some kind of phobic. I have a gay friend who plays Sims and straight up wants all of his Sims to be exclusively gay. I have a lesbian friend who is self-described "butch" who is constantly being "pronoun analyzed" in real life because she wears men's clothes, plays male characters in rpgs and renaissance faires and has male alter egos, yet proudly identifies as a woman and wants an exclusively female world. But in seven years our Sims haven't even shown a semblance of sexual identity and even autonomously flirt with random other Sims. We have no way of choosing preferences and the game doesn't seem to even acknowledge our choices. If all Sims become gender neutral by default just so the scripting can accommodate pronouns, does this mean we will never have these choices? I'm sorry, but that's upsetting.

I don't really want to be the one running around and yelling "the sky is falling" because of one sneak peek. Maybe in the end it will all work out. But I do want to make sure that the devs have truly considered what they're doing and how it will affect the game (and players) down the line.

This is exactly how I feel about this whole situation. I honestly hate all this pronoun hype and I wish we could just keep real life things out of the game. And I think that this pronoun trend will pass in a few years too. So all of this feels so unnecessary. But, as long as they make it optional, then great. But I'm still worried that they will try make everything gender neutral to please the minority.

I agree. The Sims 4 is going to age so poorly.