14 Somehow Inappropriate Facts Around The Sims
How did an explicitly homophobic video game company put out a perennial progressive and queer staple? Through the power of shitty management!
‘The Sims’ Was the 19th Crack at the Sim Franchise
Previous installments included underwhelming titles like SimAnt and SimGolf. While developing 2000’s The Sims, Electronic Arts was still riding high on the success of 1999’s SimCity 3000, so they weren’t all that interested in reinventing the wheel. Developers distinctly recall the vibe that EA was letting this game die on the vine.
An Important Precursor to ‘The Sims’: ‘Aggressively Heterosexual Bimbo NPCs’
While developing 1996’s SimCopter, one programmer coded an Easter egg to combat what he called “aggressively heterosexual bimbo NPCs” that populated the screen when the player beat a level. His Easter egg caused an army of shirtless, pixelated, studly men to randomly swarm the player, and aggressively hug and kiss each other.
‘The ‘SimCopter’ Fiasco’
Maxis, who owned the franchise at the time, responded by firing and shaming the gay designer who had secretly coded all those studs. This decimated the company’s cred among the LGBTQ+ community for years to come.
‘Grow Up and Get a Life’
Maxis/Electronic Arts employees wouldn’t soon forget the SimCopter Fiasco either. The Sims designer Don Hopkins proposed an easy technical tweak to allow for same-sex relationships during the game’s development. He went on record saying that “anyone offended by that needs to grow up and get a life. And hopefully our game will help them in that quest.” Hell yeah, Don!
Electronic Arts Told Hopkins to Go Kick Rocks
Hopkins and other developers made their case for the inclusion of same-sex relationships. But the bigwigs made the call to program out the possibility of queer friskiness. They had already written up The Sims as a loss, and didn’t want to stir up any trouble when they quietly released this dud of a game.
This Was an Objectively Awful Decision
Developers described the choice as explicitly “heterosexist and monosexist.” The coding made some Sims have a “violent negative reaction” when approached romantically by a Sim of the same sex. Hard to imagine a more homophobic heel turn for this wholesome game.
But Their Greatest Hurdle Would Become Their Greatest Asset: Dogshit Management
A newly hired employee, Patrick J. Barrett III, was given some coding instructions by a distracted boss who was about to go on vacation. By a crazy stroke of airheadedness, his boss gave him outdated instructions that didn’t include the anti-gay directive.
The Big Day: 1999’s E3 Expo
Barrett was coding a demo for E3, a gamer dork’s paradise. This was The Sims’ one big chance to drum up interest, but Electronic Arts had already given up on the game. Or as Barrett has said, “EA did nothing to help us. They hid us away. The game wasn’t even displayed on the large screen with the other titles’ trailers.”
The Gay A.I. Kiss That Changed the World
While running a simple demo of a wedding scene, some random NPCs got caught up in the moment and kissed each other. Two of these NPCs happened to be lady Sims — and the gamers in attendance went nuts. It quickly became the biggest story of the expo, and amassed more media attention than EA’s meager marketing budget.
EA Was Pissed, But They Were Stuck
EA investigated, assuming they had a rogue, SimCopter-style Easter egger on their hands. They eventually found that it was an honest mistake, but it was too late to remove same-sex smooching from the game. Its skyrocketing support was all based on that one gay kiss. As Barrett put it, “I guess straight guys just loved the idea of controlling two lesbians.”
‘The Sims 2’ Finally Allowed Gay Couples to Marry (Sorta)
The Sims quickly became popular among the queer community, giving people an opportunity to navigate the world using an identity they may not have felt safe to adopt in their own life. But gay couples weren’t canonized until The Sims 2, when they were able to enter a “joined union” (although, notably, not a “marriage”) and adopt a baby.
How Do You Pee?
2014’s The Sims 4 started asking players about individual habits, instead of asking about gender and then making a series of presumptions. Hence, the character builder feature will ask if your Sim prefers to stand or sit to pee.
They Further Divorced Behavior From Gender in 2022
Working with the It Gets Better Project and GLAAD, they introduced a distinction between physical and romantic attraction (or the lack of either or both). This also marked the first time users could choose their character’s pronouns, unrelated to gender.
In 2024, They Added a Polyamory Scale
A new Romantic Boundaries system allows players to set different boundary and jealousy values, separating the idea of emotional exclusivity from physical exclusivity. It’s pretty cool that a nearly-homophobic game is still constantly working toward inclusivity and diversity a quarter of a century later.
