I think a lot of you here have very thought through and valid points, both for and against and the different reasons why, and I agree with you all, in different ways, especially on implementation methods.
But I think a note on "representation" is needed:
It is not to be understood as a want for visual identity or the need to give someone else that, like a box to be ticked, in the self-imposed norm's peripheral vision - it is a complete rewrite of the map, to take into account the actual complexity that is, any, society.
In my city, half a million citizens, there are 169 nationalities, people on motorized wheel chairs driving on bike lanes, crying teenagers fiddling with their phone sitting on the curb, a huge hospital with a psychiatric ER, a large youthful community of feminists, a even larger queer one. There are students, poor people, families, both rainbow and not, academics, people without work, people on extended sick leave etc, and these categories, and others, are too blunt to come close to an actual understanding of the people therein.
When it comes to game play of The Sims (3), the offence is, more than anything else, that I am to agree with that the chosen sims, with their looks, behaviour and limitations, are what is considered "fun", "okey", "common", and mostly: "neutral".
Even if a norm, seen as concept, is an unmarked category, it does not mean that it is never represented in real life, and for me, that person would never be my choice of company, interest or any kind of focus except critically in an analysis.
So to be expected to accept that kind of 'representation' in a game I play for fun, is ironic. Any kind of diversity that is managable within the game engine frames would be better than that, simply because it, actually, would be more fun.
Play with life?
