REDWOOD CITY, Calif — Today, EA Games and Maxis Studios introduced an update for their popular life simulator The Sims 4 that restricts unmarried, childless women sims from owning pets.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson addressed this update in a short press conference this morning.
“We pride ourselves in growing The Sims brand to adapt to the times, whether that means expanding our gender and sexuality options so all players can feel represented, or instituting restrictive social norms under a regressive government.”
This change comes in the wake of a number of comments from Vice-President Elect JD Vance criticizing the role “childless cat ladies” play in American society.
“Previously, The Sims represented a dangerous fantasy for many young women,” the upholstery enthusiast stated in an official press release, “in which they had a purpose beyond securing the existence of our people and a future for [our] children.”
The reaction to this latest update from The Sims community online has been split, with some disappointed in the stripping of their Sims’ basic rights, freedom and autonomy, and others expressing joy at seeing people they disagree with suffer.
On Reddit, dataminer “will_wrong” dug into the patch for hints at future content. “I found strings with the ‘proj2025’ label, some unused models for a ‘library_bonfire’ social event, and weirdly enough, the ability to ‘WooHoo’ household furniture.”
It is currently unclear how many of the updates will actually be carried out, and whether the current dev team has the ability to execute their plans. Many fans of The Sims expressed hope for “lazy devs” that spend most of their time complaining online instead of implementing changes.
“It’s disappointing to hear about these changes but luckily devs who believe in such doctrines have a history of doing literally anything except working on their game. So I have hope most of these things won’t end up in the game,” wrote user PoolNeighbor on Reddit.
At press time, Vance was last seen playing Hearts of Iron 3 with the Discord status “Fixing some mistakes.”
