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My opinion about the Sims 4's redesign

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I hate this. The sims was always about acceptance since day one. This redesign only has traditionally pretty, skinny sims. This? This is fat shaming. If I was a potentially new customer to the sims, this branding would be a huge turn off.
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Comments

  • munroelemunroele Posts: 286 Member
    It's not fat shaming, as it doesn't put down anyone of a bigger size, but it is odd there isn't a larger sim on the cover, and it is also strange there are proportionally more female presenting Sims than male.

    Amber and all sims from the old cover will still be in CAS, but these are simply the ones on the cover now, and they are fresh and it is a more dynamic cover. It has more life than the old one, and it better represents the 'target' demographic of TS4, younger women.

    Part of me also thinks people on this forum are too averse to change or anything that isn't the Sims 3, so...
  • ListentoToppDoggListentoToppDogg Posts: 2,103 Member
    Though I wouldn't call it fat shaming, it certainly doesn't reflect the 'inclusivity' they love to pretend they care about. Out of 9 sims, all are young adults, all have the same body shape, all have similar clothing styles, and over half of them are females. None of them stand out and it's just boring to look at. The old one was super basic too, but at least there was more variety.
  • DyingLightDyingLight Posts: 309 Member
    That is not true. The Sims 4 promotes a healthy lifestyle. Those sims on the cover look healthy and athletic. :smile:
  • RouensimsRouensims Posts: 4,858 Member
    CSTO9NJ.png
    I hate this. The sims was always about acceptance since day one. This redesign only has traditionally pretty, skinny sims. This? This is fat shaming. If I was a potentially new customer to the sims, this branding would be a huge turn off.

    Primarily skinny, attractive, young, and white. No more African-American male.

    Ooh Be Gah!! Whipna Choba-Dog? Whipna Choba-Dog!! :smiley:
  • RouensimsRouensims Posts: 4,858 Member
    edited July 2019
    DyingLight wrote: »
    That is not true. The Sims 4 promotes a healthy lifestyle. Those sims on the cover look healthy and athletic. :smile:

    Really? Most of the outfits could not be described as activewear, and they're even eating cookies!

    Ooh Be Gah!! Whipna Choba-Dog? Whipna Choba-Dog!! :smiley:
  • DragonCat159DragonCat159 Posts: 1,896 Member
    edited July 2019
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    This redesign only has traditionally pretty, skinny sims. This? This is fat shaming.
    Fat shaming? With no disrespect, but If you wanna make a political/social issue out of this underdesign cover at, we may as well go all the way without trivializing it: there aren't enough black sims and zero transgender sims. I don't see any asian-oriental looking/race Sims either, so not only would this fat shaming but racist and homophobic?

    Though I can agree on one thing, that TS4 upcoming cover art look inferior (personal opinion of course) in comparison of TS3 (1/r3d) and TS1, as they represent quite well of versatile and diversive Sims can be in job quo, race, age, personality etc.
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  • RouensimsRouensims Posts: 4,858 Member
    Please forgive my ignorance, but how do you know that none of these Sims are transgender?
    Ooh Be Gah!! Whipna Choba-Dog? Whipna Choba-Dog!! :smiley:
  • JoAnne65JoAnne65 Posts: 22,959 Member
    DyingLight wrote: »
    That is not true. The Sims 4 promotes a healthy lifestyle. Those sims on the cover look healthy and athletic. :smile:
    That is fat shaming. And they’re eating cookies fcol :D I don’t need a game to promote anything by the way, even if it were true, but that’s me.
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  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    It's also being deceptive as most townies, at least in my game, qualify as fat and elderly. Not just any cookies, either, but chocolate chip cookies. Quite agree with the sentiments expressed that for a company/game that supposedly is widely inclusive the cover representation is quite narrow.

    Am likewise baffled by the transgender comment. One of my friends is, and there is no visual clue. Very interesting lady, but that's a whole other subject.
  • Renato10Renato10 Posts: 472 Member
    Old cover represented various ages and both skinny and fat people. This are all skinny young adults. And the logo looks ridiculous.
  • happyopihappyopi Posts: 1,355 Member
    Primarily skinny, attractive, young, and white.
    Attractive ? Really ? They all look like generic townies to me, even airbrushed to death.


    And not to knock down your opinion but why make it a separate thread instead of just ... joining the conversation in the many other threads about it.
  • nerdfashionnerdfashion Posts: 5,947 Member
    Attractive? The only good-looking thing to me about those Sims is the girl with the pink hair's hairstyle. Not the sim itself, not the hair color, the style.
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  • Sigzy05Sigzy05 Posts: 19,406 Member
    Heh.......
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  • WenzelWenzel Posts: 75 Member
    edited July 2019
    The sims was always about acceptance since day one.

    Have you taken a look in the gallery? It is bursting with ultra skinny, samey-looking, boring model sims. I've recently revisited the Sims after a year or so of absence and this strikes me everytime. Also, as Renato says, there are only young Sims on the cover. And a lack of males.

    Now, I'm not arguing for identity politics and "representational inclusiveness" (every part of our society needs to be depicted on a game's cover! lol) , as this is a flawed idea from the get-go (hey, what about bald people! I don't see any bald guy on this picture!! It's bald shaming!). But it tells you something about the game's intended target audience. Mostly female teenies and young adults. When you enter Sims 4 on youtube, you will find (apart from speed-builds) innumerous let's plays by "influencer girls" whose intonation hurts my ears. The game play also caters to that target group. For example, I'm quite certain that there is a much bigger selection of CAS stuff for females than there is for males.

    From my perspective (as a male in his twenties), the actual game play is utterly boring or non-existent. There are no meaningfull interactions between sims (you can just keep spamming interactions), no drama whatsoever, no long term moods, no negative factors at all, no consequences or risks for anything, no rejections of any kind, etc. The narrative potential of the Sims is very mediocre, which is a shame in a "life simulation". The Sims' world is a bright naive candy wonder land. It's not about acceptance of the world as it is. This is what bothers me. It has nothing even faintly grungy, ambivalent or dark in it. No character, no soul. Everything is constantly superficially happy.

    The Sims' world is a very dishonest game world. A distopia. What bothers me though is that the game is not presented and marketed as such. The Sim's dystopia is not marketed with an ironic twist. I think they seriously mean it as an utopia.

    For that reason I mainly use the Sims as a software to design houses. For that it is good (but very overpriced). The other major appeal of the Sims (maybe particularly for males) is connected to a particular X-rated mod. (which, by the way, now experimentally features a personality archetype-system!)

    It's just interesting to see how blatantly the vision/presentation and reality of a game can differ...


    Post edited by Wenzel on
  • OldeseadoggeOldeseadogge Posts: 4,973 Member
    TS2 captures what you refer to much better. There are consequences to sim behavior, good or bad as appropriate. Sims respond to events in believeable ways - whether tears, jeers, or cheers. There are fights, burglars, fires, impromptu pillow fights and inter personal games. If you have the pets pack there are dogs and cats wandering around in every 'world', not just a few cats in Brindleton Bay (if you live there). There are mean sims that will kick your trash can over for no reason, accidents when fishing, and even a pick-pocket. Let's not forget Mrs. Crumblebottom (who is a phenominal bowler, BTW), who is sure to enliven your date life. It is and does what TS4 claims but fails to deliver, proving it is possible to put it into a sims game. Alas, the current EA team prefers roses and buttercups over the life simulator the game used to be.
  • RouensimsRouensims Posts: 4,858 Member
    happyopi wrote: »
    Primarily skinny, attractive, young, and white.
    Attractive ? Really ? They all look like generic townies to me, even airbrushed to death.


    And not to knock down your opinion but why make it a separate thread instead of just ... joining the conversation in the many other threads about it.

    I didn't actually make this thread. :)

    Ooh Be Gah!! Whipna Choba-Dog? Whipna Choba-Dog!! :smiley:
  • NorthDakotaGamerNorthDakotaGamer Posts: 2,559 Member
    I was just wondering about age diversity. It seems all the new render only has young adults, so it gives a negative vibe. It confirms they really do not care about the other age stages in-game.
  • shorty943pshorty943p Posts: 247 Member
    I think it simply looks amateurly done. Oh, and Blue and Green should Never be seen! Terrible fashion faux pass there EA. ROFL
  • RaevynRaevyn Posts: 428 Member
    Wait, what? Fat shaming? Smh. This is the Sims, lets not get too politically correct about a game.

    But I mean, if we want to go there, I hope those cookies are nut free, dairy free, gluten free and vegan! Because I mean, we wouldn't want to offend the people who are allergic to nuts, gluten and promote animal abuse.
  • WenzelWenzel Posts: 75 Member
    edited July 2019
    TS2 captures what you refer to much better. There are consequences to sim behavior, good or bad as appropriate. Sims respond to events in believeable ways - whether tears, jeers, or cheers. There are fights, burglars, fires, impromptu pillow fights and inter personal games. If you have the pets pack there are dogs and cats wandering around in every 'world', not just a few cats in Brindleton Bay (if you live there). There are mean sims that will kick your trash can over for no reason, accidents when fishing, and even a pick-pocket. Let's not forget Mrs. Crumblebottom (who is a phenominal bowler, BTW), who is sure to enliven your date life. It is and does what TS4 claims but fails to deliver, proving it is possible to put it into a sims game. Alas, the current EA team prefers roses and buttercups over the life simulator the game used to be.

    I've never played Sims II. Before Sims IV, I only played Sims I.

    What you say certainly sounds interesting. But I'd even go one step further. Most of the things you mention are external factors. I'd prefer if a Sim's mood state was more embedded in his social life, rather than in his reactions to "catastrophies" from the outside (burglars, fires, a totally random sim knocking over his trash, etc). There are so many ways how social game play could be deepened and improved but obviously the people responsible for Sims IV decided against it (processing power on mobiles?).

    A good start would be to implement sympathies and antipathies. Sims should be able to negatively and positively perceive (both in terms of friendship as well as romantic) other sims based on both sim's characters and habitus/appearances. Sims should be socially aware - which they are currently not. By playing and also by observing how other Sims interact with your Sim and other Sims (!) you could try to find out their antipathies and sympathies, which would help you plan your own interactions with them. In such a game, watching other Sims' social interactions would be interesting and meaningfull as behaviour would actually tell you something about them, which is also not the case right now.

    In combination with that, dependencies and hierarchies would make the game more interesting - Sims should also need to deal with people they don't like. Examples of dependencies: 1) Boss at work (relationship to boss affects income and career progression), 2) teacher-relationships (this Sim is the only way to learn a particular skill), 3) romantic (I'm romantically interested only in that particular sim and no other). Imagine if you could have situations like your boss visiting your home for dinner. You'd need to wear your best garment (your boss will socially judge you!), provide the best food (the quality of the food should be associated to the relationship perception), etc. etc. A failure would delay your career (competition relationships would be interesting!) & vice versa.

    Another interesting idea would be to do away with the shared perception of a relationship between two Sims. One sim should be able to see a relationship differently than the other one. This would lead to interesting situations and conflicts! A relationship bar could represent one Sim's DESIRE to become friends/enemies or lovers with that particular other Sim, rather than the actual relationship between two Sims. Unfulfilled desire is what causes sadness & vice versa. Imagine how unnerving a toddler would be who wants to become friends with a child-hating adult!

    In a brainstorm, I've excessively fleshed out some ideas here with several walls of texts. It's over the top, but shows what a deeper social system could look like: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/15088326/#Comment_15088326 (pls open the quote-boxes)

    PS: On a positive note, I do very much welcome the "Sims Story" feature that got added just now. I'd still prefer a manual input of skills in CAS. All those questions... Listen, I know it's just a game, so would you please just let me set those skills quickly!

    There's also a nice mod available that fixes some of the crazy mood rollercoaster that vanilla Sims go through: https://roburky.itch.io/sims4-meaningful-stories . It seems as if more simulation-oriented players need to use mods. But even mods are dependent on the overall framework.
    Post edited by Wenzel on
  • MaggieMarleyMaggieMarley Posts: 5,299 Member
    edited July 2019
    DyingLight wrote: »
    That is not true. The Sims 4 promotes a healthy lifestyle. Those sims on the cover look healthy and athletic. :smile:

    @DyingLight Not everybody who is overweight is leading an unhealthy lifestyle. I have hypothyroidism and although I am not overweight it means I have to eat much much less than everyone else in order to stay at a healthy weight. If I were living what is a normal “healthy lifestyle” for everyone else I would be obese. In fact, the way I have to live in order to stay at a healthy weight probably doesn’t count as a healthy lifestyle since I have to subsist on what is technically a starvation diet.
  • zuper_buuzuper_buu Posts: 12 New Member
    I don't see it as fat shaming, but at the same time I don't like seeing every single one of these Sims being "skinny" either. They should be showing more than just race/gender diversity in the cover. There are more body shapes than that generic skinny model, and I still miss having an older Sim on the cover, and to be honest shouldn't the whole point of selling the Sims 4 as a life-simulator mean the cover should reflect this? All I get from this cover is "These people have hobbies". I don't see a toddler, child or elder here...and because teens, YA's and Adults all look the same you can't even tell what age these Sims are. I dunno, I just liked seeing more than one age on the cover as well as more than one shape...
  • drake_mccartydrake_mccarty Posts: 6,114 Member
    Is the male sim with the camera wearing makeup? Was it really that necessary to make the most prominent male sim on the cover look so feminine? Is that the message they are trying to send? Only feminine males are supposed to play this game?
  • babajaynebabajayne Posts: 1,866 Member
    How come it’s still copyright 2017?
  • Sigzy05Sigzy05 Posts: 19,406 Member
    edited July 2019
    Is the male sim with the camera wearing makeup? Was it really that necessary to make the most prominent male sim on the cover look so feminine? Is that the message they are trying to send? Only feminine males are supposed to play this game?

    Oh, and that's because you haven't yet read their stories and backgrounds in the gallery. Ahahaha If you did, you would know the answer to those questions.
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