⚠️ As usual, long post. ⚠️
Thank you very much for your input @yorithesims.
Somebody whose country’s building icon wrongly used - from Japan - for Shang Simla world, has spoken.
This is reply from post somebody asking about traditional Chinese clothing and continuation from “EA Misinterpretation of China and Chinese Culture in Shang Simla world.”
I did research about San Francisco, California. It has big Asian population in USA country. Chinese has big percentage 19,8% from total Asian population 33,1%. Source WIKI.
As for the 2010 census, the ethnic makeup and population of San Francisco included: 390,387 Whites (48.1%), 267,915 Asians (33.3%), 48,870 African Americans (6.1%), 4,024 Native Americans (0.5%), 3,359 Pacific Islanders (0.4%), 53,021 from other races (6.6%), and 37,659 from two or more races (4.7%). There were 121,744 Hispanics or Latinos of any race (15.1%).
The Sims 3 studio that created The Sims 3 World Adventures located at EA’s Redwood City campus, San Francisco, California.
Second biggest Chinatown is in San Francisco. Quite near from The Sims 3 studio is located. 51 minutes by car.
Then explain why The Sims 3 World Adventures team cannot represent Chinese culture at all for Shang Simla world when the studio location is near big Chinatown and the state has big Asian population, especially Chinese?
The year was 2009, there were fast internet connection, line telephone, magazine, encyclopedia. The Sims 3 was first being published then started to create new project World Adventures Expansion Pack. There must be Chinese descent working at The Sims studio, it is logically Asians - especially Chinese - living in Western country working for big corporation. Then why were the designer team not willing to spend one minute to ask to their Chinese descent co-worker? Not willing to ask actual Chinese people on the street, Chinatown, make invitation for interview in corporation, with EA’s gift & merchandise as return, at all?
As 3D Designer staff myself who used for work in mobile game studio, I’m sure one of designers and programmers (who coded the game) must be Chinese descent. 3D Designer sit close together with programmers division, as they must send the work quickly to programmers to be coded, then got feedback if there’s something wrong to get fixed quickly. Why nobody checked the inaccuracies, “Hey, we’re Chinese people do not bow like Korean or Japanese”, “There is no such thing as Fortune Cookies in China”, and definitely “The country icon is very wrong, that is Japanese Torii Gate not Chinese Gate? Have you ever went to Chinatown? Chinese gate is supposed to look like this:”
That is Chinatown’s Chinese gate located in San Francisco. 51 minutes drive by car from EA’s The Sims studio.
That is merely Chinatown, which the gate is very simple and not resembling complexity of actual Chinese gate from China. Chinese gate in actual China look like these:
EA had created Chinese Gate at Forbidden City area.
Japan is very popular destination country desired by many people worldwide. Westerners must be willing to travel to Japan compared to China. If somebody had been travelled to Japan, they must be knew that this gate is from J A P A N.
The first thing to do when to design something is asking for reference right.
How could many employees in studio didn’t know the difference between Japanese and Chinese gate. The 3D designer had already made Chinese gate in the game! Surprisingly, I did research at Sims 3 World Adventures credit and it has:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/sims-3-world-adventures/credits
many Chinese descent working at studio working in Art Team and there’s Japanese name on the credit.
My god.
The designer team made the building like Forbidden City, Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, Chinese gate right and appropriate for game (low-poly & modular & have great textures),
Soundtrack music used for Shang Simla are accurate because EA bought the music stocks from actual Chinese music. I had heard one in supermarket in my hometown city, played when I was shopping for Chinese New Year’s Eve.
Then the rest of elements are just... meh. Wrong and stereotypical.
Upper management must be know if the game sold internationally in the actual countries as portrayed in the game, they should prepared Research & Development. EA as big video game developer clearly has big budget, resources, headquarters in Shanghai, it’s clearly very easy for them to do survey to real Chinese people in China country by asking their own employees working in Shanghai headquarters!
My workplace is very multicultural and multi-religion. It’s common and usual for designer in my team for asking to the person who practices the religion or specific race embraces the culture for reference. Non-Chinese designer asked to me is it right to use fireworks to design Chinese New Year? I said no, because fireworks are not used for Chinese New Year. Fireworks are for regular New Year. Traditionally Chinese New Year uses firecrackers. I supervised my juniors for not wrongly representing the design such as do not use white colour for Chinese New Year because white colour is to represent sorrow for the death.
Reply to @murfeelee I do empathize with your situation regarding race/ethnicity portrayed in-game. I had heard Black simmers protested about how awful the skintones and hair based on cauliflower in Sims 4. It was very bad. Sorry about that too. There must be Black / African descent in studio, but somehow they cannot make the content right at all. Just look how bad and stereotypical the portrayal of Shang Simla despite the studio has Chinese descent, surrounded by Chinese population in San Fransisco and EA has headquarters in Shanghai, China. The Sims is AAA title made by big budget corporation, they seem reluctant to hire or consult specialist expert in the area regarding race/ethnicity at all, despite they had earned a lot of revenue from Sims 1,2,3,4.
I have no words towards TS4 Snowy Escape. Better Japanese Simmers themselves to judge whether the portrayal is right or wrong.
I had read simmer from Hong Kong complained about Shang Simla inaccuracies in Sims 3 forum. Had heard somebody in Youtube complained about wrong icon Japanese Gate used for Shang Simla. Not just me.
Who are the clients of video games? None, just customers who throw money at developers. Video game developers can create any concepts of game anything they want, they can release their game whenever they want, but the problem is the investor or any upper management wants to sell the game as fast as possible because classic reasoning of “production cost“ of the game.
TS3 World Adventure has big and ambitious title with 3 different countries, it should be postponed to last order of expansion pack rather than first, as it is obviously needs more time to develop.
Another information for non Chinese simmers:
@pitheinfinite Glad to see you came back again. You can jump in and comment to add more information, because I might have missed something:
Queue hairstyle from Qing dynasty.
This is not just ugly hair. This is forced hairstyle by Manchus because China was ruled by Manchus in Qing dynasty. Which is not original Chinese hairstyle. Bold in front, then pulled with braids. Refusing this hairstyle would be punished with death (beheaded) by law stated by Manchu emperor. My real life great-great-great grandfathers before migrating to my country now were from Qing dynasty with this kind of ugly hairstyle. It’s very insensitive for EA to release this kind of hair, as it is bad ugly stereotype and reminds of bad past when China was ruled by Manchus. May mislead international people as if China and Chinese people still has this kind of hairstyle in modern times.
In-game Sims, the Tourist NPCs keep appearing with random clothing and hairstyle including this kind of hairstyle. As ethnically Chinese myself, I do not want to see this kind of hairstyle, ugly and oppression to invader with beheaded as penalty. Not funny. Furthermore, Shang Simla is supposed to take place in modern but in village. This ancient hairstyle is supposed to not exist in Shang Simla.
EA designer team seemed to forcing themselves making local hair for each country including France and Egypt, which are... stereotypical. Hate to say this but Americans apparently only know Queue hairstyle as Chinese hairstyle, which kind of hairstyle when Chinese immigrant first came to USA country. If only the team do some research and survey to actual Chinese people... Shang Simla local male Sims should have hairstyles like these.
*Ladies, please focus on the hairstyles*
More reusable modern short hairstyles. Champs Les Sims have modern hairstyles too, not ancient Medieval.
And for ancient hairstyle it should be long hair before Qing Dynasty Manchu oppression came in.
which all of them can be added as CC hair made by CC creators.
Scary dragon cave
The dragon cave with red eyes portray as if Chinese dragon is scary monster beast. With this kind of image, international non-Chinese people who don’t know Chinese culture will see Chinese dragon as beast monster like Western dragon.
Chinese dragons are gods who control rain, weather, and seasons. Not comparable with Western dragon which is evil reptile beast who throws fire from mouth. Chinese dragons are kind, benevolent, powerful, who bring luck and prosperous. In Chinese New Year there is Dragon Dance as symbol for good luck.
Unrecognizable “Chinese” something random clutter.
@pitheinfinite Do you know what item is this? I can’t recognize at all.
If those are chopsticks, they are very big, as big as and look similar to Chinese incense burning sticks. Very inappropriate to put Chinese incense burning sticks - which is to pray - in eating utensils on kitchen table. Yes, I know those are kitchen utensils with chopsticks but EA employees forgot to resize, maybe because struggled with tight deadlines.
Chinese burning incense:
Shang Simla is not based on any real China province. It’s just random *plop* of specific iconic buildings to *plop* random green forest.
The mountain forest is not Guilin. Very far from that. It’s like EA wanted to imitate Guilin’s high and sharp mountain but failed miserably, so it looks like ordinary mountain hills.
Forbidden City, Great Wall, Chinese Gate, Temple of Heaven are in fact in Beijing, China. But the rest of the forest surrounded is just random forest. The real Beijing is all city. Shanghai is all full city. Do not believe if there is Westerner / non-chinese international person says Shang Simla is based on Beijing or Shanghai or Guilin. That is wrong and bullshit. 😂
Beijing city, where the Forbidden City located: https://www.sohu.com/a/414882678_118889
EA Shanghai headquarters
List of games made by EA Shanghai, China. :
