In the PC game ‘The Sims’, where you can design a family and a house for them to live in, and guide them through their day-to-day lives, the only way characters of the same sex will become involved in a romance is if you click on them and force them to flirt with or compliment each other repeatedly, no matter how compatible they would be. On the other hand, if you have two people of the opposite sex living with each other, they will often fall in love without you ‘helping’ them along at all.
This game seems to be implying that homosexuality is unnatural, as it requires manipulation from an outside source for characters to become gay (or bisexual) while they are hetero by default.
Indeed, it is just a damn game…
But because I have no life, I decided to test out Badtz’s theory. Started two male sims in a family together (Stu and Troy). They both have average personalities. I had them in love within three minutes. If they were more outgoing, it would have been sooner.
Even with hetero couples, you have to work on the relationship before they are in love totally.
Maybe your prospective same sex couple weren’t living together? It is always easier to develop relationships
with your starting couple.
Umm…I guess I just earned a few geek points, huh?
The point is, you have to make same-sex characters fall in love. They will not spontaneously start with the types of actions that can lead to romance in the game (i.e. back rubs, flirting, complimenting, etc.). I believe it even mentions this in the manual. Characters of the opposite sex WILL do these things without you having to tell them to, it has happened before in my game.
I’m not really outraged or anything, but I thought this would make a good discussion.
On the one hand, this representation of sexuality does imply that homosexuality is unnatural. On the other hand it is a simulation. Just because they present sexuality in a certain way, that doesn’t mean that they believe that that is how it works. Did you know that if your Sims have annoying neighbors, you can off them by inviting them over for a swim, pulling out the ladder out of the pool, and waiting for them to run out energy and drown? Now, obviously they don’t believe that people can be killed that way. It was probably to difficult to take into account every detail of human behaviour. For the issue of homosexuality, there are a few alternatives: they can just not have homosexuality (is that better?) or have certain specific people be homosexual, introducing a very large amount of complexity.
Hmm…don’t have the manual handy, but I have never noticed any difference between same and mixed sex couples, or having to force gay relationships at all. In fact, it’s all I can do to keep my dinner parties from turning into a huge bi orgy.
Err…in the game, that is.
Even if there is a difference, it is very slight. Calling it anti-homosexual is pure hyperbole. How many other video games have prominent homosexuality of any stripe?
Slight nitpick: people will give a backrub to people of the same sex.
But your complaint is really pure nonsense. If anything, it reflects the fact that homosexuality is the minority. If they did it on their own, every guy in the game would be gay. I mean, c’mon, it’s a computer game. At least it has homosexuality. It’s positive that they’re willing to do this, since I’m sure some conservative Christian groups have taken to protesting it because of this fact.
Not being very familiar with the game, I have to admit I’m amazed it has homosexuality at all. You should be happy it has what it has, and they didn’t have fundies boycotting them into removing that aspect.
Hey has anyone tried to make the whole population gay? or maybe just one sex all gay, now THAT would be fun just to see how long you can get them to last!
Maybe you need to open some Gay bars in the game though, that should lighten them up some. I’ve never played the game and I’m suprised too that they have gay characters in it.
According to one of the designers of the game who posts to a Sims mailing list I’m on, (YES, I’m a geek, shut up.) you have to start the FIRST gay relationship yourself. After that, same-sex couples will act like every other couple in the neighborhood.
Nice info Falcon.
Yeah, all this talk is making me realize my barbeque skills are lacking since I’ve been adventuring through The Shadows of Amn lately. My Sims are probably lonely
I wonder, though…my sim female would paint wedding pictures of her man now that they’ve been in love for a while (I don’t think I let them all below a 98). Any input on the gay couples? I’d be interested to see what happens there.
The sims allows polyamorous romances, too. For a time I had a really good friend.
For the record, Maxis caught a lot of flak for including same-sex relationships in the game at all, and did it anyway.
As it is, my sims rarely interact on their own. Maybe they aren’t outgoing or smart enough, but if I don’t tell them to do anything, they eventually do the following:
I was thinking about this and I’m assuming that this game can also be played by younger children, like 5-6, who wouldn’t really know about gay people yet. I’m guessing that the did this so the youngsters don’t start asking questions about my Bob likes Neal. I don’t think at such a young age they would really understand, but they do understand man/woman relationships. If that’s the way it was designed, you need to start the first one, then it sounds like a good idea to me if you want gays you can get them. I’m telling you though i’d be making all the women gay just to see what the guys would do!
