The Modern Menswear Kit Has Simmers Divided
The Sims 4 announces their ninth kit this year
On Tuesday, The Sims 4 team announced the release of their ninth kit this year in partnership with Stefan Cooke. The kit will be available for purchase and download on December 2nd.
As all Simmers know, the community is greatly divided on many, many matters. However, something we all can agree on is a lack of masculine clothing, accessories, and shoes in Create-A-Sim. Players have the capability of putting any clothes on any Sim, whether they have the “feminine” or “masculine” build, but the clothing assets are designed specifically for one body type versus the other, and often the “feminine” clothing looks odd on the masculine figure. So we have all been asking — nay, begging — The Sims 4 for more masculine options.
Well, on Tuesday we got our wish. A $5 pack specifically filled with modern menswear is set to be available in just two weeks. So why are some Simmers upset by this? There are two sides to that negativity; one, Simmers are upset that these menswear options aren’t being added to the base game for free, and two, some Simmers believe the clothes shown off in the cover art aren’t “masculine enough.”
Starting with the payment issue, I absolutely agree. Not everyone is able to shell out $5 per pack and to put these options behind a paywall is unfair to players who can’t afford it. The options aren’t available in the base game (which everyone has access to so long as they purchased the game itself) and it’s a privilege to be able to buy DLC to create a more diverse game.
I recently was able to purchase all of the expansion, game, and stuff packs that I had yet to own after a big sale on Origin. I’m quite lucky to be able to afford that, as the full collection of DLC weighs in at over $800, not including kits.
Given that there are now going to be nine kits out, buying each of them adds $45 to the full collection price. That is just under the price of an expansion pack, which offers a ton more gameplay, Create-A-Sim, and build/buy items.
To lock something seemingly essential to a player’s ability to create any Sim they desire behind a paywall is sketchy, to say the least.
The more pressing issue to this Modern Menswear kit is the internalized misogyny that half the community seems to be experiencing. Comments on Twitter and Instagram are just scratching the surface of how sexist and misogynistic people are about something as simple as clothes.
Comments like “how is this menswear?” and “what is this?” are the tamest of the comments. A ton of comments on The Sims’ Instagram posts regarding the kit target the idea that The Sims team doesn’t know what we want and that this kit is a bust.
The blatant disgust and distaste for men in skirts is sad. It’s 2021. If a person wants to wear a skirt, a dress, a sweater, a pair of shoes; who cares?
I’ll agree that the asset images we got through The Sims team’s social media aren’t exactly what I personally would consider “modern menswear”, but high street fashion. Neither is bad, just not what I would have expected from a game that “has always been a creative destination where players come to express themselves, discover new experiences and play with life.” Most people who play The Sims are probably not fashion gurus who wear these kinds of clothes daily.
But that’s not the issue that much of the community has. Their issue is that skirts don’t belong on men. Clothes are clothes, and it’s a video game. If someone wants to put their Sim in a skirt, who cares if it’s a masculine or feminine Sim?
In the description in The Sims 4 blog post, the collaborating artist Stefan Cooke says “The brand is about redefining masculinity…We always try to be authentic, and without excluding anyone. We’re about redeveloping and refining old ideas, but making them incredibly modern, and pushing that idea to the point that it transcends things like gender.” Cooke says he is committed to creating this 23 piece kit without putting anything — or anyone — in a box.
I still feel quite strongly about kits in The Sims 4, so I’m still undecided on whether I’ll purchase this pack or not. What I hope we can all agree on is that we need to wait and see what other images surface and what items look like in-game.
