“Creating your own player is a massive part of the experience,” said Dustin Hansen, author of Game On!, a definitive history of video games. “You can start in one gender. You can transition to another. And the reason that is so important is that a lot of [Sims] players don’t have a safe space to completely communicate that to themselves.”
Coding for inclusivity
Christine Brownell is a game designer who worked for EA in 2013, as The Sims 4 neared its final stages of development. According to her, the game’s embrace of vulnerable communities isn’t an inadvertent benefit; it was part of the planning for the game’s inaugural edition.
“The team recognized early on that they had a decision to make with the Sim relationship system,” Brownell said. “If they restricted the types of relationships that Sims could have, they would be excluding LGBTQ+ players that would want to tell stories about themselves in the game.”
Inclusivity was important 25 years ago, of course, but the polarization of the country in 2025 makes the virtual world inside the game especially valuable now.
“In light of what is happening in politics these days, so many people are looking for reassurance that these intolerant views aren’t how the majority of people feel,” Brownell said. “When the president, the media, and many large corporations are denouncing and casually backing away from DEI initiatives, it can really seem like we are moving backwards.”
The Sims, Hansen added, is “literally an exploration” of self, allowing gamers to choose not just what they look like, but who they are.
“It’s not like playing Call of Duty,” he said.
