EA Gets Called Out For Excluding Lesbian Flag From The Sims 4, Dev Repsonds
Much like many other companies, Electronic Arts Inc joined in on the celebration of Pride month, [...]
Much like many other companies, Electronic Arts Inc joined in on the celebration of Pride month, which is held each June to honor the Stonewall riots of 1969. They did this by adding a handful of flags and other Pride gear to The Sims 4 that players could use in-game to celebrate. While the developers have seemingly always been inclusive for members of the LGBTQ+ communities, they definitely slipped up with the recently revealed addition as out of the 17 flags they included, they left out the lesbian flag. After this was brought to the attention of the devs, one of them responded.
Twitter user "bjjou" recently took to the social media platform to share an image that shows the 17 flags that were added to The Sims 4 for Pride month. As can be seen in the image below, the lesbian flag was excluded, despite it being the first letter in the initialism of the communities.
hey @EA and @TheSims, where is the lesbian flag? https://t.co/WRszC4HsIX
— emma is watching the l word (@bjjou) June 12, 2019
Upon catching wind of the exclusion of the flag, senior producer Grant Robiek addressed the issue on another thread, saying that they are working on adding a lesbian flag. However, it might not be ready for the next patch. "My belief is that the flags were already covered as different variants, but I could be wrong," Robiek said. "If we messed up, it likely won't be ready by the patch. But again I thought we caught multiple flags..."
I’ve lived in SF for 13 years, been to a lesbian wedding, and I had no clue they had their own flag. I’m thrilled the producer on the job got so many with their own initiative...no thanks to leads! But we need to do more. We’re on it. Blame me for not asking about it.
— Grant Rodiek (@SimGuruGrant) June 12, 2019
More Pride gear is also being added in the upcoming patch, including an It Gets Better t-shirt, which is in partnership with the It Gets Better Project, a nonprofit organization focused on LGBTQ+ youth. In addition to this, there will also be gender-neutral bathrooms added to The Sims 4. The Pride content will arrive in-game on June 18th for PC and Mac, but PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will need to wait until July.
What do you think about all of this? Are you shocked that the devs forgot the lesbian flag in The Sims 4? Sound off in the comment section below, or feel free to hit me up over on Twitter @anarkE7!