Growing up on real-life simulation games like the Sims, I never realised that I, a South Asian woman, was not represented accurately on a screen without a bindi. To add to this, I couldn’t even adjust the body size to match mine. The Sims ’ skin swatches did not come close to matching mine, and in the process of finding a premade Sim by looking up ‘Indian female’, results showed lacklustre, stereotypical depictions of what is deemed Indian or whitewashed avatars in traditional Indian wear. When it came to making my avatar, we struggled. We go from choosing their body type: slim their hair colour: light brown their eyes: black and their outfit: jeans and a t-shirt. One friend, a caucasian female, does so with ease. I’m sitting by a laptop as friends fiddle with the characteristics available on the screen to create a Sims 4 avatar. Just check out this father and daughter duo.It’s an uneventful evening. The Black Simmer forum was born, and the results have been some pretty great character creations. And if you can’t design yourself in The Sims of all games, where can you? Not only were there no skin tone options that accurately matched her own, but there were no hairstyles that properly represented her either. In the video, the Sims fan noted her frustration with the lack of options that resembled her. In a video for AJ+, she says she was tired of the limited options available in The Sims and other mainstream video games. The Black Simmer is an online forum created by Amira Virgil. Better character options for creating black Sims come to the game thanks to Black Simmer

Thankfully, there’s another option for black gaming fans: The Black Simmer.

The Sims may be one of the best-known character creation games around, but it’s still fails when it comes to accurately representing non-white races - Sims publisher EA even admitted as much to Mic in an article earlier this year. Yet plenty of big-budget games still struggle to provide players of color with anything more than varied skin tone options and a few stereotypical hair styles. Accurate character customization options for non-white avatars is an important part of achieving better representation in games.

Sims 4 black people