"We Aim To Be Inclusive"

"Movotti;c-17745005" wrote:
They need to generalise more, and blur the boundaries.
They should never have done 'a Japanese' world. It should have been a north eastern Asian world, or a south eastern Asian world, or a central Asian world. Something less specific.

Interesting point, I'm inclined to agree. I have doubts about their ability to choose to do so (they are probably being pushed to do it for marketing reasons more than anything else) but yeah, I mean, they as americans, probably having spent the majority of their life within in a single city or two, are going to have a hard time trying to do justice to any specific culture... even cultures within the US that are beyond their little bubble of experience.

On the other hand, if you get too general, you can get accused of treating culture as an aesthetic rather than representing its specific attributes. But it seems like that's already happening anyway. :shrug: Part of I think just comes down to the fact that this is a very specific game with a specific rating and tone. So how can you represent any culture or peoples accurately when your premise is so off-the-wall? Some people desire realism, but the game rating and tone holds them back from ever embracing it, truly.

I don't remember if this is just based on analysis of gameplay or ever been confirmed as such, but I think some have at least argued that the sims franchise is somewhat of a parody of the suburban 'consumer' culture. Which would be some deep irony considering how much of a cash cow it is now. But that's neither here nor there, the reason I bring this up is because if that kind of thing is (whether intentionally or not) directing the heart of the franchise, then by nature it can't properly represent other cultures, no matter how well researched. To do so would require creating fundamentally different versions of the game. Instead what you'd get—and I think it could be argued, this is what we have gotten multiple times in the sims 4—is some pieces of another culture atop the layer of suburban 'consumer' culture. Which is never going to feel right for people who live the actual cultures and have a drastically different kind of experience going on... even if they have some similarities, there are going to be subtle or drastic differences that make it seem like a strange mashup of cultures rather than a nod to their culture.

Edit: Just realized Horrorgirl6 already made a similar point above lol.