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The Sims: Welcome to the (Lesbian) Dollhouse

The video game world has never been particularly kind to women. Whether female characters were prancing around as skimpily clad sex objects in Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, or prostituting themselves before being mercilessly killed in the Grand Theft Auto series, the existence of positive portrayals has been quite rare. Throw in the exploitative lesbian characters in superficial games like Playboy: The Mansion, and lesbian gamers have few, if any, positive role models to follow.

Enter The Sims, a life-simulation game by Electronic Arts. Originally released in February 2000, the game broke all sales records on its way to becoming the number-one selling video game of all time–and in the process, it also broke down significant social barriers.

The game allows players to create and control characters (called “Sims”) and help them succeed in everyday life. But unlike most games, there is no end to The Sims: players progress through the expected ranks of education, employment, and family within their custom-built homes and neighborhoods, all the while creating personal legacies and giving birth to offspring that allow their family tree to continue to thrive. The game has been favorably compared to a dollhouse, and although characters receive points by building up skills and relationships, there are no winners, and no end to the possibilities set forth in the game.

While the lure of The Sims is in the seemingly never-ending scenarios offered to the player, it is also one of the few items of pop culture to include equal rights for the gay community.

It would have been easy for the game’s creators to ignore the issue entirely by allowing only heterosexual romances and marriages. But early in the creative process, creator Will Wright decided that players should be given free reign to create their own likenesses and mimic their own family structures. This means that the world of The Sims, unlike many real-life societies, is inclusive of all sexualites.

The latest incarnation of the game, The Sims 2, gives same-sex couples even more rights: lesbian Sims can move in together, get married, and even share a single household bank account, a luxury that is rare outside of Sim towns. Their relationships and families are not ignored, shunned or despised by their Sim neighbors. Well-adjusted, happy couples are even offered the chance to adopt children, and in The Sims 2, those children can be modeled to take on the characteristics of both parents. It is equal-opportunity turkey basting at its finest.

Creation within The Sims is not limited to the in-game character models. It features an open-ended system that allows users to add options to the game’s database, so that new objects, houses, and characters can be designed and used in the game. To further enhance the personalization available in The Sims, players are also given the opportunity to create “skins”: unique, lifelike models of people, both famous and unknown. Every subtle nuance of a character’s appearance can be manipulated, and this feature allows each individual to truly customize their Sim families to their liking.

There is also a large faction of skin designers who create very detailed likenesses of celebrities. Now, with a few clicks of a mouse, a gamer can have the complete cast of The L Word or Buffy the Vampire Slayer appear in their Sim neighborhood, and with additional tweaking, these characters can be made to interact similar to their television counterparts. “Shane is scoring with all the chicks, and they all nearly faint when they walk by her,” describes one gamer who has utilized skins of the The L Word characters.

Indeed, this additional level of customization allows lesbian gamers not only to live out their real life dreams of love, relationships, and family, but also to indulge in the fantastical aspect of crushes and role models.

One might expect that conservative gamers would poorly receive these simulated same-sex relationships, but in fact there has been very little backlash. Unlike TV shows or movies, which may receive a preemptive warning when gay material will be shown, The Sims has an ESRB rating of “T,” a reflection of the mild sexual behavior in which characters can engage. This is roughly equivalent to a PG or PG-13 movie rating and is a minor victory considering the way lesbian relationships and sex scenes are usually rated.

The one inequitable difference in the entire game is that characters will not pursue same-sex relationships (including flirting and physical contact) while they are on “Free Will” (a mode of game play that allows the computer?rather than the individual player?to control each character).

Tracy, co-founder of the women’s gaming site ThumbBandits.com, believes this was the right choice for the developers to make. “In an ideal world [the characters] would act the same way as the heterosexual couples, but it’s a good positive move to have it included at all,” she says. “They got the game out there to the masses, and perhaps if the same-sex relationships were easier then they’d have been faced with a lot more opposition.”

But even if it is not stated outright, all of the characters are inherently bisexual, and with the right mix of personality, they have the potential to fall in love with any other character at each gamer’s whim. While they still chance romantic rejection, it will never happen on the basis of sexual orientation or bigotry.

At the very least, this offers lesbians and bisexual women the chance to escape the uncomfortable situations that they often face in dealing with real life social expectations.

Because of this open-ended equality, The Sims has received a cult-like following among many of its players. Long game playing sessions are flaunted like a badge of honor, and 12-hour marathons are not uncommon among the game’s hardcore fans. Many gamers have even created photo albums and websites for their Sim families to share in their day-to-day activities, and these sites are designed much like real family websites that can be found online, sharing innocuous details as well as important events with the rest of the world.

An online version of the game is also available so that gamers can interact with each other’s characters in real-time, and now The Sims can essentially be controlled as one big neighborhood.

This sense of community has been fundamental to the continued growth and success of The Sims, as progression through the game is nurtured among its players. Like real relationships and families, little details in the game are not always easy, and disaster stories abound on gaming message boards and within Sims communities.

“By the time I got the family to go to bed it was 3 a.m., then when it was time to get up, it took me until noon! By then, everyone was hungry, late, and sleeping in the road!” posted one Sims newcomer eliciting help from some seasoned Sims players via a message board.

It is this sense of a large, diverse, open community that has set The Sims apart from other video games.

This type of atmosphere also allows other gamers to participate in and follow the lives of Sim characters in much the same way that they would watch a TV show, sharing in their joys as well as their heartbreaks. Also, because such a diverse audience plays The Sims, the community as a whole is very tolerant of the plethora of non-nuclear families within the game.

Although it was initially conceptualized and designed as an individual game, this interactivity and group participation is now a significant part of the gaming experience, and capitalizes on the same voyeuristic phenomenon that has driven reality TV to the top of the ratings charts for years now.

Reality TV has historically been kinder to lesbians than fictional television shows, and The Sims seems to be following a similar path with its community-oriented, reality-game structure. It seems to be understood within the game and the community that players from many different backgrounds will participate and create characters similar to themselves, and there is an unstated acceptance there that is not necessarily found in real world interactions.

The Sims has shown over time that consumers will buy games that aren’t ubiquitously silly and sexist. In fact, the beauty of the game lies in the simple depiction of reality, with the smallest tweak of utopia mixed in. It is a fun and highly addictive escape from the impossible standards set forth both in other stereotypical, straight male-centered video games, and in real life.

The game offers its players a chance to create a workable likeness of themselves and their own aspirations, and in allowing them to live their own lives in this safe, simulated world, The Sims has quietly broken new ground in an unexpected way: by placing every person and every relationship on an even playing field.

“It doesn’t push you into the patriarchal way of life,” comments Tracy from Thumb Bandits. “[People] may feel they don’t have enough control in their own realities, and The Sims is a nice form of escapism.” Indeed, it’s no wonder that so many people would rather play this game than venture out into the realities of the world.

Can The Sims ultimately change people’s minds about lesbian relationships? While it is difficult to say for sure, the normal, healthy way in which lesbian couples are presented in the game certainly offers the chance to do so. Because of this understated equality, it should come as no surprise that the game has sold so well throughout the world.

Fans of the game revel in how divergent The Sims is from the typical video game culture, and it is unique for so many reasons, not the least of which is the game’s fan base: females surprisingly represent over 50% of its players.

In a sexist, homophobic gaming industry, The Sims is a welcome anomaly.

Although critics were initially doubtful?believing that nobody would be interested in playing a game where things didn’t blow up and there were no winners or losers?over 41 million people ultimately proved them wrong. Now, hundreds of online communities are devoted to the game, and with the subsequent success of a multitude of expansion packs as well as a revamped sequel released in 2004, The Sims is not only one of the first games to adequately address lesbian relationships, but also one of the most successful and best-selling video games ever.

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