First, the Sims team gave us a look at My Wedding Stories, the next romantic thing in The Sims 4.
As the name implies, the new game pack is all about love, romance, and marriage, with a special focus on the stories that aren’t told as much as they should be, like Dom and Cam’s.
In The Sims 4, Dom and Cam are two new female characters who discover their feelings for one another are stronger than friendship, a realization that occurs shortly before one of the women is scheduled to marry a man.
They get together after canceling their wedding, forming a long-lasting relationship that withstands all obstacles. Their heartwarming story, which is accompanied by a Simlish version of Etta James’ “At Last,” is shown in the pack’s trailer. It sets the tone for the new add-on and shows support for the game’s many LGBTQ+ players.
Some people who play The Sims 4 won’t be able to enjoy Dom and Cam’s happy marriage.
February 9 is when an open letter was posted on The Sims 4’s official blog. It said that because of federal law, The Sims 4: My Wedding Stories will not be sold in Russia.
Because they are “steadfast in upholding that commitment by shining a light on and celebrating stories like Dom and Cam’s,” the Sims team explains in the letter why they have decided to “forgo the release of My Wedding Stories where our storytelling would be subject to changes due to federal laws.
There was more: “Unfortunately, this means that members of the Sims community in Russia will not be able to buy this game pack.
A letter from the The Sims team said that they made the decision because it was in line with “the values we live by.” This meant that they could “be who you are, love who you love, and write the stories you want to write.”
After the blog post was published, many players, mostly from Western countries, took to Twitter to praise the team’s conviction and thank the studio. They said things like “love is love” and thanked the studio.
For them, it is not hard to see why this decision is good. How brave and selfless is it for a company to stand up for equal rights over more sales? However, it turns out that the situation is a lot more complicated than it first seemed to be.
When EA made this decision, some people thought it was a victory for the LGBTQ+ community. Sims players in Russia, on the other hand, felt a lot of pain and panic because of it.
Russian artist Nushanchel was quick to speak out against the The Sims team’s decision. They said EA’s decision came across as “cruel” and “exclusionary” to the Russian LGBTQ+ community.
In Russia, there is a big LGBTQ+ community that is having a hard time under Putin’s rule and anti-gay laws that get more and more strict every year. Nushanchel said that. In order for us to be free, we need some help and love from people who are like us.”
The government is like this content when it keeps excluding or belittling us, just like it does now. There are a lot of people in Russia who are LGBTQ+.
When this content keeps excluding or making fun of us, it acts just like our government.
This has been on Oleg Kushakov’s mind as well. Kushakov is a community manager for a Russian Sims 4 Facebook group with nearly 68,000 followers.
After the blog post, he said he quickly prepared for a lot of toxicity and backlash from people.
First, I thought, “Oh, no, they’re going to blame the gay community for this, and it’s going to get even worse.” I run a big Russian Sims community on social media.
Kushakov said that, as well. So much homophobia can be seen when The Sims have a gay party.
And this is what this decision does: It makes this happen. You’re making people who are homophobic even more angry at the LBGTQ+ community. First they ruined my favorite games with their gay things, and now I can’t even play them.
It is Nushanchel’s opinion that the The Sims team should not sell the game in Russia. Kushakov agrees with Nushanchel. Kushakov then said that he thinks the incident is also an example of good-willed but bad allyship.
Federal laws The Sims team talked about don’t stop the game from being sold in Russia, or make EA remove any of the game’s content, says Kushakov. These games, like Stardew Valley and Miitopia, are still sold in the country.
Instead, the laws say that if you use LGBTQ+ content in marketing, it could be seen as “gay propaganda” aimed at young people. Kuskakov, on the other hand, pointed out that in the Russian translation of the blog post, the Sims team made no mention of federal legislation at all.
If the game is marked as 18+, then The Sims 4 looks like it’s legal in Russia, even if it has LGBT+ content and other things. Because of that, The Sims has been a way for LGBTQ+ communities in Russia to live their real lives in a country that sometimes makes it hard to.
Kushakov said the gay relationship shown in the trailer was great and progressive, but he thinks The Sims team’s unwillingness to change the marketing in order to make sure Russian LGBTQ+ players can play the game is bad. This is because Russia wants to keep LGBTQ+ content out of the country.
Is there anything the queer community would prefer to see disappear, including films, television shows, books, and video games that tell their stories? Nobody wants that, but they want to see and make it.” She told us.
Seeing a Disney film without the few scenes with gays that were added as a token is preferable to not seeing it at all, and the lesbian couple that is being used for the promotional campaign is essentially a small part of a game that will continue to exist for many more years, while being super great and progressive.
Change this small part for the sake of history. It’s been a little over a day since The Sims team made their announcement.
Since then, the hashtag “#WeddingsForRussia” has become more and more popular on Twitter. Similarly to Kushakov, those who are using the hashtag are doing so in order to draw attention to the fact that the decision has a negative impact on LGBTQ+ communities in Russia.
He says the goal is for The Sims team to learn who their allies are and what they want, not to “exclude the ones that are being more affected than others” in the fight for equal rights, as Kushakov says.
In the Sims 4, many Lgbtq players have been left out of the game because it has tried to be more inclusive.
