The Sims 4 focused aim & execution on inclusivity /representation - helpful or harmful?

I would have liked to see an optional feature for all inclusivity content and gameplay instead of adding it through patches. You don't want it. No problem. Opt out.

It's extremely difficult to be critical about content like inclusivity /representation because people believe that because you are not interested in some content, you are against what the content stands for.

I'm not against inclusivity /representation but I am also not very interested in it... so when that becomes Maxis focus, in their marketing and in terms of the content that they make, then I am not sure how to feel to be honest.

I'm not sure if "Harmful" is the word that I would use, but it is a direction that I don't feel very strongly about, and thus, I don't feel very strongly about the sims 4 when that is it's focus.

I can be happy for other people, but in the end there are other things that I would have wanted for the sims4 too.

I'd like to say that I like the aim, but in all honesty I'm not at all sure exactly what the aim truly is. All I've really seen about that are somewhat vague generalities. Perhaps it's necessarily that way because diversity and inclusivity are such complex concepts for a game to try and tackle accurately enough and sensitively enough not to alienate people who feel overlooked or intentionally omitted in representation. The whole topic is highly charged, and possibly too risky a thing to attempt to undertake at such a late stage in a game's life cycle. It's even a difficult topic to discuss, because it's all too easy to have various views interpreted as being "anti-inclusion" or "agenda-pushing" sentiments even if they aren't meant to be. And then we remember why public forums generally don't want people to discuss political matters. As for the execution, I think only time will tell. I do applaud the attempt, at least.

Sometimes I feel that general gameplay is kinda thrown to the wayside because the aim seems to be checking off a checklist of everything that is inclusive as heck and non-offensive as humanly possible. Now Im fine with whatever they give us, you wont see me rallying against some new diversity feature coming to the game. But, new gameplay features is going to keep my attention longer than making sure that the game is the most woke game that ever woked. Pronouns coming to the sims? Great! But my focus is still going to be having sims do more things.

Heya, @StrawberryYogurt

I'm going to let this stay, you presented your argument for the thread in a thoughtful, open-minded way and I see no reason to remove it.

As for the comment section, I will offer a word of caution:

Thinly veiled sexist, racist or bigoted replies of any kind are still sexist, racist and bigoted. They will not be tolerated and I will swing the ban hammer at you.

In general I totally support the representation and inclisivity, but I feel that EA really americanized this issue. For example every not-american style world has american touch and due to that I feel that every world is too similar. Mt.Komorebi has too big lots and no representation of tiny Japan apartments, Britechester has the same problem but this time we don't have a british townhouses and what is more we have an american-style university system. Henford on Bagley has another issue. I love the backstories and the representation, but due to fact that we have a lot of totally different townies I lost the feel of a British countryside. The game should be inclusive, but also needs to have a character and a personality.

I also don't like the fact that EA is focused on CAS in 90% to implement the inclusivity, where BB items are also a part of culture. For example, we don't have european windows, kitchen sets (especially build-in), japanise beds (futon), kettles ect.

Finally I'm against to implement paid content into the base game. We have a lot of CC creators if EA doesn't have enough time to make hairstyles, makeup or clothing. Maybe it is better to make a collaboration instead of reimplement a content?

I think the addition of more inclusiveness is commendable, absolutely. But my problem is the fact that, most of it is just cosmetic stuff (and some of not done very well).

They've added:

• More diverse hairs
  
• More diverse clothing
  
• More skin tones
  
• Non-Gender Clothing Tags (Which is actually pretty horrible, considering a good majority of the female tops add ta-ta shadows to any male frame wearing them. And, almost every single pair of female tagged pants on a male frame cause the mesh to deform on that male frame in the crotch area because it was not specifically rigged and weight painted to adapt to the male body).
  

So EA's idea of being more inclusive is to add things that visually represent different cultures/lifestyles, which again, I'm all for, but in the end, these things don't make the actual game play any better because of the that "inclusiveness" regardless of the sims you've created.

Yes, some people can definitely make their sim-self and feel more represented in TS4 than in past games, but all of the sims act the same, they will still be attracted to any sim. There is no way to set the gender preference of these sims you've created.

So, has the inclusivity really changed anything beyond the visuals?

Inclusivity kinda gives the game more variety. Which allows players to tell more stories that are relevent to them.
It doesn't change the depth of gameplay, but it certainly gives the surface of things more varied looks.

I feel like the aim for exclusivity is good but the execution of it is slow compared to other AAA companies of being exclusive to all people. I feel like the focus has been too Americanized over the years it has gotten boring. I have yet to see myself represented in the game well with traits, gameplay, culture, religion, height, hair color, and my disability. I do have all my pets represented in the game well. It has gotten better with the game repressing my friends at least but still has yet to represent my multigenerational family too and all our family ties. I see Sims 4 MMO roots both with the files and its CAS focus and point scaling system.

TBH I find this topic is a bit too broad for me to really have strong feelings one way or another.

In general, I do find it eyeroll worthy when a corporation tries too hard to market off of inclusivity but this is a game where you're meant to simulate life and its diverse aspects - so it makes sense. But there are many things I do feel like it's a bit too late to implement at this point. I'm sure the devs fully intend to keep making content for the game as long as they can, but I'm sure the moment Sims 4 stops making enough money it's going to be dropped like a hot potato--no matter what state it's in.

I really enjoyed the "gender customization and cross-dressing" patch, but to be absolutely honest; the cross dressing (or wearing clothes not made for the frame that it was designed for) is an absolute mess and while initially I gave it a pass cause I felt it was something they could tweak later down the line--but they never did. I adore the idea behind the patch but it's so messy that it's hard to appreciate it. And at times it's straight up annoying because a lot of items have been placed in the wrong fashion tag/category (it fits the style for sure but not the sim's frames) so you can't ignore it completely. That being said, I would never get rid of it--but it definitely needs improving or should've been implimented differently. I'm just not sure how that would be done.

I feel like a lot of the inclusivity focus is centered around CAS mostly cause a lot of the game is centered around CAS (and it is one of its strongest attributes + cheaper/easier to produce regularly then gameplay which is constantly breaking). Which isn't bad, but ultimately the other aspects of the game fall to the wayside because they end up getting neglected.

Ultimately, it's impossible to represent everyone or appeal to everyone, but you try to appeal to as many as you can. What's funny to me cause I personally find this game to be the least US-centric compared to it's past iterations, but there are many people who feel that the game is still too US-centric (which I'm not denying if it is or isn't). People have different views on what is needed in a game and so I feel like it ultimately will boil down to a battle of opinions.

But on a side note, I have to wonder if the model of the Sims' franchise is even realistic/feasible at this point. It's always been a glitchy series but now we're getting broken packs on release or packs break in like 1-2 months after release. I can't help but wonder if it's something that is due to how the Sims 4 is built/complicated code or if it's the "release a pack every couple months" business model that is the source of the problem. Part of me wonders if it would be healthier to have the Sims Store from Sims 3 instead but it's possible that it may not make a difference. Can't say for sure what the answer is, but I hope they figure it out by Sims 5 and are properly prepared this time because it doesn't matter what kind of game they make -- if they can't keep it operable no one is gonna want to play it.