The Sims pro gay?

[Menaki-Neko]

I was playing "The Sims" and I noticed that my female character could flirt with another female friend. And that made me wonder whether or not the company was pro gay?

[Cloudbreaker]

I would assume they are. You can not only flirt with someone of the same sex, but you can marry them as well. I would always have my sim flirt with, move in with, and marry another guy sim. And this was before I came out, so it was like I was putting my secret out there where anyone could find it. Which was kind of awesome, seeing as how it was completely optional on my part.

Anyway, I would definitely say The Sims is a pro-gay series.

[SkyDiver]

I always made gay couples. They were friends with everyone else on the block. No homophobia or judgement. I played the Sims at a time when no one knew that I was gay... and it helped me realize for the first time that maybe being gay wasn't such a bad thing, afterall. That everyone wouldn't hate me.

[ANightDude]

The Sims have always been like that, even from the very first game. They've always been able to become romantically involved, marry, have sex, and adopt kids. It's freaking awesome.

Sims 3 makes it the best, though. I love how you can have "crushes", "boyfriends/girlfriends", be friends with benefits, engage, marry, all sorts of things. If only Sims 3 didn't run so slow on my computer...

[SunSparks]

Ofcourse! The game developer, EA Games is a pro-LGBTQ company. You can just search it on google and find quite a few examples of it. A quick search pulls up that they also added some LGBTQ in a star wars game.

[Yuki]

EA has always been LGBT. In fact, I think there was a lawsuit about it once... maybe my brain is acting weird. :P

If it wasn't for the fact that I married myself to my best friend on this game, I would be safely in the closet and not dealing with constant stress over being harassed by my step dad for being gay.

The only reason I ever played it again was because I found a download for gray skin and I wanted to make the Homestuck trolls and ship them as I please.

[NoName114]

EA is pro gay, but I wouldn't call it pro gay, if anything pro-human rights

[WeirdnessMagnet]

Originally Posted by ANightDude

The Sims have always been like that, even from the very first game. They've always been able to become romantically involved, marry, have sex, and adopt kids. It's freaking awesome.

You couldn't marry same-sex couples in the original The Sims (everything else was, indeed, possible) and it was a "joining ceremony" in TS2 (depending on the translation. In some languages a spade was called a spade.) with slightly different under-the-hood mechanics. TS3 has full marriage equality.

Neither of the three games ever shipped with any same-sex couples in any of the neighbourhoods/worlds. However, in TS2 there were pre-made sims with positive value for same-sex attraction (so they would flirt etc., with the same sex even if not actively directed to) but TS3 is actually a bit of a step back in that regard: by default, everything that happens in the town is strictly hetero, you need to create a same-sex couple to signal the game you're OK with some of the sims being gay. (or even to actively play them faillng in love, not just create them that way in CAS, I don't remember all the details straight away.)

ADD: And a bit of a nitpick: TS1 and parts of TS2 were published by Maxis before their merger with EA.

[NoName114]

you could get married (ish) have a kid (a guy and a guy can have a baby, using cheats) and adopt and some Sims would flirt with same sex

[WeirdnessMagnet]

ADD2: Cis/trans/queer gender and The Sims... Ok, I have only experimented with it in TS2, - there's nothing available by default (except for none of the make-up options being gender-segregated,) but mods and custom clothes are there, if you know where to look.

It's not difficult to cross-dress a sim in either direction, and with some mods and "feminized" skins and clothes it's possible to create an MtF sim, although it's by no means perfect, and I didn't see any FtM stuff anyone put up for upload, although it's not that difficult to make (simpler than MtF in fact.)

[lilbitlost]

Originally Posted by SunSparks

Ofcourse! The game developer, EA Games is a pro-LGBTQ company. You can just search it on google and find quite a few examples of it. A quick search pulls up that they also added some LGBTQ in a star wars game.

Which game? The old republic? Cos that was made by Bioware, who are now owned by EA. But there also isnt currently any homosexual romance options in that game, they've said they will add them at some point, but time will tell. They also made dragon age and mass effect series both of which offer same sex relationships. Though they did get an awful lot of flack for a same sex/alien sex custscene. One of my fav game developers

[SunSparks]

Originally Posted by lilbitlost

Which game? The old republic? Cos that was made by Bioware, who are now owned by EA. But there also isnt currently any homosexual romance options in that game, they've said they will add them at some point, but time will tell. They also made dragon age and mass effect series both of which offer same sex relationships. Though they did get an awful lot of flack for a same sex/alien sex custscene. One of my fav game developers

Star Wars: The Old Republic... here is the article I got that from.

[JackWin]

I don't think the sims are pro or anti gay. The game is designed around creating a life for your character to live, and part of that life that you create is your sims sexuality. I have made several of my sims gay, and kept others straight. It really is just up to you.

[Sayu]

Yeah, it's definitely gay-friendly I've made a lot of gay couples there :P But I think it would be better if the characters would be born either gay or straight (or bi), because that would be more realistic. Now you just basically make them gay even if they were straight in the beginning...

[Cody25]

Yeah I've had gay sims ever since the original one haha. They just keep skinny dipping in the hot tub together! :P

[WeirdnessMagnet]

Originally Posted by Sayu

Yeah, it's definitely gay-friendly I've made a lot of gay couples there :P But I think it would be better if the characters would be born either straight or gay (or bi), because that would be more real. Now you just basically make them gay even if they were straight in the beginning...

There are tons off issues with that. Imagine I want my sims to have a gay child for storytelling purposes. (or straight, for that matter) If it's fixed at birth, I'm either pretty much at the mercy of whatever entity controlling random numbers or forced to cheat. Then, there's an awk-ward business of finding/making partners and so on. And the alternative (that almost ended up being implemented in TS2) with teens working the way the sims do now, and getting sorted into much more fixed gay/straight/bi categories on aging up based on their teen romances isn't really all that more realistic or free of unfortunate implications, and it still constrains player's freedom.

The exact gameplay mechanic they ended up with is indeed a bit too "everyone is bi" (not that I really object, sims always were primarily about wish-fulfillment for me than anything else.) but I think they struck an acceptable compromise between realism and player choice.

[Shevanel]

EA is gay friendly for a business model only. They do plenty of really shitty shit otherwise.

If any game companies are actually gay friendly, rather than doing what EA did (Bandwagon because of a working business model), it's the developers. Maxis when it comes to the Sim games, Bethesda, Bioware... They never get credit because everyone see's EA in front of everyone's name.

By the way, I'm not saying their position is bad, on the LGBT shit, it's the reasoning for it and the taking credit for it that pisses me off.

[lilbitlost]

Originally Posted by SunSparks

Star Wars: The Old Republic... here is the article I got that from.

Yeah thats the one i was on about no LGBT to be seen in that game! At least, not yet. As i said they said they will add it, but the game has been live for 6months and no eta yet. I wont be surprised if they do a U-turn. Gotta love though how there were people writing furious letters about content that currently doesnt exist

[J200587]

May be a little off subject, but here's a good article about a Transgender transition of one of EA's (publisher of The Sims) employees. They seem to have went out of their way to support her and make sure everything went smoothly.

A Transgender Transition Inside EA Sports: "Will Everyone Stare at Me?"