Two weeks ago, Electronic Arts opted not to launch a same-sex marriage story in Russia for its hit life-simulation video game The Sims 4. At a glance, this is a simple story – a game publisher refusing to compromise its art in order to comply with Russia’s controversial “homosexual propaganda” law. Yet to Russian LGBTQ+ gamers, EA’s blog post wasn’t a show of solidarity – it was a betrayal.
Since 2013, it’s been illegal in Russia to “promote” homosexuality to minors. This means that any LGBTQ+ content must carry an adults-only rating. It’s a law that EA knows all too well, as back in 2014, The Sims 4’s same-sex relationships saw it slapped with an 18+ rating in Russia.
Despite its disproportionate age-gating – the game’s a PEGI 12+ in the UK – The Sims 4 became massively popular in Russia. Over the last seven years, it has amassed legions of dedicated Russian fans and streamers, including a huge LGBTQ+ following. Now, that community felt abandoned.
Despite putting out pre-release trailers for the My Wedding Stories expansion in the region, on the day before launch, EA suddenly announced that it wouldn’t be available in Russia. “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,” read a blogpost attributed to The Sims developers. “The ability to tell stories – any story – is at the core of what we do at The Sims. Holding back [characters] 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.”
To Russian Simmers, the move felt baffling. They swiftly rallied to create the hashtag #weddingsforrussia and a Change.org petition with more than 10,000 signatures. Because The Sims 4 already had an adult-only rating in the region, the Russian Sims community strongly believed that releasing the downloadable content (DLC) wouldn’t break any laws. For Russians in the already marginalised LGBTQ+ community, seeing EA pull a game that publicly endorses same-sex marriage felt like a kick in the teeth.
“Our Twitter riot is due to the fact that The Sims team, by limiting the sale of new content, is ready to discriminate against the Russian-speaking audience,” said the Russian YouTuber JPluiy. “We are part of this community, and we are offended by what is happening at the moment. Nobody forbids [EA] to do anything. [EA] themselves turn away from the Russian queer community, which is already sitting without any rights, up to its ears in hate.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by another leading Russian Sims YouTuber HoboGivi. “I was first shocked, and then furious!” says HoboGivi, who has been covering the game for eight years. “I rushed to tell my subscribers and it started a real riot. In Russia there is a law on the promotion of homosexuality, yes, but it only applies to people under the age of 18. Since The Sims 4 game is already rated 18+ in our country, EA can easily release new DLC in our country.”
“It makes me feel isolated from the rest of the world, not supported by Simmers, or the LGBTQ community from other countries. It’s like everybody matters except us,” says lifelong Sims fan and proud queer gamer, Daria Sachsen. “I’m quite sure that the 18+ rating gives [EA the] opportunity to release the expansion. Our government wouldn’t be bothered right now by a single game pack after years of publishing The Sims here – there are bigger problems for them at the present time.”
To Daria and many others in the Russian LGBTQ+ community, games such as The Sims offer a welcome refuge from real life’s challenges. “The Sims is one of the most popular games among our LGTBQ community,” she explains. “Everybody loves games where you can be yourself, free from the boundaries of our reality and where you can love like your heart wants to.”
In 2020, Putin proposed a Russian constitutional amendment forbidding same-sex marriages, which was signed into law in 2021. This is possibly the legislation EA feared its expansion would be in breach of. Yet in the eyes of HoboGivi, even this is incorrect. “Since 2021, our country has had a constitutional amendment stating that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, but it does not affect the media space and only applies to living people and real marriage ceremonies.”
After a week’s worth of relentless pressure from fans, EA finally reconsidered its stance. In a new blogpost on 16 February, EA announced that it had decided to release the expansion in Russia after all: “We’ve reassessed our options and realised 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.”
This is undoubtedly a victory for The Sims and the wider Russian LGBTQ+ community, vindicating the legions of fans who believed that there was no legal ground for EA’s initial stance. The question is, with no pressure on EA from the Kremlin, why did EA initially decide not to release the expansion in the region?
“EA did what the players asked it to do, and that’s commendable!”, says Hobogivi. “I just hope that next time we will not have to go to such lengths to get content in our country.”
This isn’t the first time EA and Russia have publicly clashed over the controversial law. In 2016, Fifa 17 drew the ire of Russian MPs by distributing free in-game rainbow-coloured uniforms, during a campaign to combat homophobia. Other games have been removed from sale in Russia. Square Enix’s first game with a trans lead, Tell Me Why, was quietly delisted from Russia’s Steam store in 2020. It is unknown whether this was advised by the Russian government, or a risk aversion strategy from Square Enix, or Steam itself.
The #weddingsforrussia movement is not only a big win for an often overlooked gaming community, but also one that shows the world that for a new generation of online Russians, Putin’s laws – and the west’s assumptions – simply aren’t representative of its populace.
“The Russian LGBT community is huge!” HoboGivi tells me, “Our country is changing, and the people in it are changing their attitudes towards LGBT people. Just recently, we started doing drag shows, and everyone is excited about it. We are not the people you see on American TV shows.”
