EA reverses its earlier decision to not release The Sims 4: My Wedding Stories DLC – featuring a same-sex couple – in Russia.
In a news story on February 9, 2022, EA announced that its upcoming DLC for The Sims 4, My Wedding Stories, would not be released in Russia.
This is because the Russian government considers any content that features same-sex relationships as “gay propaganda” and it must be labeled as such, with sales restricted to over 18s only.
(For reference, The Sims 4 is rated “Teen” by the ESRB, citing “crude humour; sexual themes; and violence” as the content responsible for that age rating. PEGI rates the game as “12”, citing “realistic looking violence towards human characters; sexual images and/or sexual innuendo; and violence causing minor injury only”.)
At the time, EA wrote:
“The ability to tell stories – any story – is at the core of what we do at The Sims. Holding back Cam and Dom’s story meant compromising the values we live by. We are committed to the freedom to be who you are, to love who you love and tell the stories you want to tell.
So what does that mean for you, our players? We are steadfast in upholding that commitment by shining a light on and celebrating stories like Dom and Cam’s, so we have made the decision to forgo the release of “My Wedding Stories” where our storytelling would be subject to changes because of federal laws.
Regrettably, this means that members of The Sims community in Russia will not be able to purchase this game pack.”
In a further update to the news story published yesterday, EA announced it had reversed this decision. It has committed to release the My Wedding Stories DLC worldwide – including Russia – unaltered and unchanged. That includes the same-sex relationship of Camille and Dominique.
Wrote EA:
“At the time, we believed that our team could not freely share the storytelling of same-sex couple Cam and Dom in Russia and decided the best way to uphold our commitment to sharing their story was to not release this pack there.
Since then, we’ve been listening to the outpouring of feelings from our community including both support for our decision and concern for their fellow community members. It’s equally important for us to stand by our values, including standing against homophobia, and to share stories like this with those who want and need it most.
With this in mind, we’ve reassessed our options and realized we can do more than we initially believed and we will now release The Sims 4 “My Wedding Stories” Game Pack to our community in Russia, unaltered and unchanged, featuring Dom and Cam.”
In order to ensure everyone can play The Sims 4: My Wedding Stories DLC at the same time, the release has been pushed back to February 23, 2022, to accommodate bringing the Russian release back into the fold.
People enjoy dunking on EA for various reasons and, to be fair, they often deserve it. We also tend to be cynical of big corporations rainbow washing, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with the inclusive culture around The Sims. This is just good news all round, so we’ll let The Sims Team have the final word:
“Love is love, and The Sims community will continue to be a safe space for those who want to see a world where that is true for everyone. We are thankful for the support of our team and our values even when it is hard. Thank you for being a part of The Sims.”
Well said.
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