While we try and maintain a positive attitude here at TSN, I don’t think it’s unfair to say EA have a history of putting their foot in it. While Maxis puts their best foot forward, the big bosses usually get the blame for mistakes.
As is the case with The Sims 4’s latest issue with makeup swatches.
More than skin deep
One of the latest issues popping up has been makeup swatches appearing incorrectly on Sims with darker skin tones. While appearing more correctly on fairer skin tones, it should be a surprise that plenty of Sims players have pretty diverse casts inhabiting their games, so it’s a bit of an immersion breaker.
Now, considering these are makeup swatches, there’s a lot to be said about historical colorism in the makeup industry and how it relates back to this; even with major strides having been made. But I’m not the best qualified to speak about that, and unfortunately the old axiom “don’t attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence” is pretty evident here.
While it’s true that not every color and shade looks good on every skin tone, one player explained: “What they should have done is have numerous swatches for each flag, for multiple skin colors. And this is a failure on the part of the team. But it’s impossible for all swatches to work on all Sims.”
Sadly it seems that this a rather typical example of something slipping beneath notice that really should’ve been caught. And if that sentence seems familiar, well, welcome to The Sims; or anything published by EA it can seem like.
Said many frustrated Simmers on Reddit: Bold of you to assume EA tested the makeup at all.”
Welcome all
The issue is a bit of egg on the face of EA and Maxis, especially considering the pains they’ve gone to in order to showcase The Sims’ diversities. And for that matter, seeking to show off how diverse the Sims community is and working towards more content aimed at a wider audience.
However, what this does aptly demonstrate are issues that should have been caught early on. And unfortunately even this far into The Sims 4’s lifestyle we’re still seeing such issues crop up with frightening regularity.
