"We Aim To Be Inclusive"

This thread is probably going to be closed. I totally get what you're saying but these topics just turn into religious/political arguments.
What's done is done. I was disappointed it was removed also but I think we should move on from this. A modder as added it back too.

Inclusive or not The sims is a company before anything. And just like any other company you do what you have to in order to protect that company.
I don't agree with it per se but I I understand why the choice was made. And they were definitely in between a rock and a hard place.

The over sensitive cancel culture of 2020 is annoying as all heck and I hate it. But it's over at this point. And the cancel culture is not going anywhere anytime soon.

This is the audience they market to: woke twitter. Theyll adhere to their wishes because thats where the money is 'dont bite the hand that feeds you.' I dont think people should forget about it or brush it under the rug like EA has.

Twitter audience would have harassed them to no end until they got what they want, I understand the Sims team just saying "f*** it we'll do what they want because we're tired of getting criticized left and right" or something.

Doesn't help that many Sims Content Creators with a huge audience blindly called EA out on this issue without doing their own research just so that they could criticize EA because that's their only way of getting views, and yes I'm talking about Pix***** among others but mostly him :smiley:

nevermind

You can still bow it was only removed from the shrine. Although to appease & remain inclusive they maybe could have had an option to toggle shrine bowing? I don't know enough about this to comment on whether it was right or wrong. There are just so many "wrongs" in all our history.

"Bluegayle;c-17725316" wrote:
You can still bow it was only removed from the shrine. Although to appease & remain inclusive they maybe could have had an option to toggle shrine bowing? I don't know enough about this to comment on whether it was right or wrong. There are just so many "wrongs" in all our history.

They could've labeled a trait as "Polite," and made it where the sim pays respect to certain objects such as shrines or statues and other sims in specific worlds.
That way no sim could act without the player's input, unless they depend on the Randomize button.
(In the case of Randomize A Sim, it likely wouldn't be an option, even if you had the pack.)

I wanted to add in this quote from Kotaku:

The shrine represents something people believe. The beliefs have a long history and a collective memory within Japan. Shrines are places people go to pray and reflect. Shrines are places that protect. This isn’t just something to be included in a game because it looks “neat” or “cool.” This is a country’s culture that is being borrowed for financial gain and then tossed aside in the name of inclusivity.

Players in Japan don’t seem happy with the situation.

I understand your frustration but I think this is the one time when EA really isn't at fault. This conflict has been going on for a long time and it's not just with the Sims 4. There is a very pro-active Korean community dedicated to abolishing every piece of that particular religion. It's just a never-ending fight where both sides are kind of right but at the same time also kind of wrong.

EA didn't realize what they got themselves into and there is really they could do that would keep the shrines in the game. The Korean fanbase for the Sims is very large and then even people who have no idea about the topic like Pixelade jumped on the bandwagon in the name of social justice and started talking trash about how EA doesn't do research or is insensitive.

Notwithstanding having passed eye to the comments made through this thread and the likelihood that it may be checked, I too wish to add my thoughts in regards to this matter.
I shall avoid implicating the issue of race as, from an objective standpoint, the removed content at debate (the act of bowing at shrines) has zero relevance upon the relationship in which the nations referred to previously by others in the thread.

The Shinto religion, much like the pantheons of Europe in antiquity, existed well before its formal acknowledgement in the 6th century CE whereby the varied ancient Japanese practices of worship (and if one were to follow common academic thought, not all of which had their origins in Japan) were collectively recognised as Shintoism, as to differentiate these ancient practices from Buddhism and Confucianism, which had then been recently introduced into the country. It is true that following the Meiji Restoration in 1868 , Shintoism had once again seen reform, but this was an act that largely concerned the separation of Shintoism and Buddhism rather than a total reformation of the religion, and the state sponsorship of Shintoism was short lived.

In regards to the act of bowing, this tradition can be traced back as far as the 4th century BCE and is of Chinese origin and its origins in Shintoism are thought to have originally been an influence of its close association to Buddhism prior to the Meiji Restoration and as touched upon previously, the reform brought forward by the Meiji Restoration was one to disassociate Shintoism from Buddhism.

In conclusion the removal of the content concerned, as stated in my opening, has absolutely no historical significance in regards to the reasons that the content had been removed for.
In fact, one could argue that the removal of such practice (albeit one would have to be educated in such a field to identify such subtleties) is in fact removing an element of Shintoism that had likely been introduced from Buddhism and thus only acting in furtherance of what had intended to be mitigated.

How can a religion be insensitive? Banning the bowing is the same thing as if the islamic religion was banned just because there are some terrorists who wrongly use their extreme view of religion to justify their acts. Just because some Japanese enforced their religion on Koreans during the war, doesn't mean religion itself was to blame. If we went by the same logic, there'd be no Christians in the world. :s

@JPNeko
I believe there once was a mosque that was planned to be built in my area. It got voted as not to be built after all.
People threw a virtual hissy fit of calling it "racism," due to the vast amount of churches, when the actual issue was with the amount of traffic that would invite to a low traffic area.
(Churches only call to prayer on Sundays, Mosques call five times a day. To put that into Sims City terms, you'd need wider streets for more traffic flow. Suburban streets aren't enough, and you can't move the houses to make room for that.)

There seems to be a lot of insensitivity to other facts in the world, other than just the involved party's feelings.
It definitely seems as if EA jumped the gun here on multiple levels. (Which shocks no one, considering their current legal cases.)
New shrine models should probably be included in new free packs, in order to not further offend the Japanese audience.
Asking for these packs to involve more "Sulani Worship/Culture" content might be asking a bit much.
(But should be done, now that Shintoism was released and quickly removed.)