The Sims 3 berates you for having a child out of 'wedlock' Yes they use that word...

[Chibz]

There is absolutely no shame in having children out of wedlock these days and many couple choose to remain unmarried because of cost and also religious (or lack of) beliefs.

I'd like to take a moment to point out that marriage ISN'T a religious institution and hasn't been in a very, VERY long time. If it belonged to Christ-ians the way they'd like to say it does, then other religious people would have a hard time getting married wouldn't they?

It's secular now and a secular society is a sane society. In fact the expensive, stupid ritual you go through is just for show. It's just that, a meaningless ritual. The only thing that matters is the (incredibly inexpensive) legal document you sign at the end.

But yeah, it's pretty unbelievably stupid that they'd put this in. But it's the sims, so what do you expect?

 

[Savagezion]

My uncle and aunt had two children before they where married, they where raised in a stable enviroment and they are the nicest kids you have ever met, they loved eachother so why does it matter whether they where married or not

I am not saying it is impossible, I am saying it is not logical. As in, it isn't smart. In the same way that not bothering to get insurance because "you will be careful" isn't smart. The point still stands unless all of the world will be looking to your aunt and uncle as a shining example as to how to do it, which I doubt. I would bet your aunt and uncle would not claim it as the smartest decision as well.

 

[Xisin]

Personally it made my blood boil. There is absolutely no shame in having children out of wedlock these days and many couple choose to remain unmarried because of cost and also religious (or lack of) beliefs.

I like it. There is shame in intentionally having kids as a single parent and couples who choose to remain unmarried in my experience have only bad reasons for doing so.

Nice to see a piece of modern media actually shoving that in peoples faces a bit.

Wow...at first I thought this was sarcasm. I can think of an example for each of these right off my head. I have a friend, she's in her early 30s who had a baby as a single parent on purpose. She has a disease that effects her uterus and she needed to have a surgery that would make her sterile. So she had an artificial insemination so she could have a child before she was no longer capable.
The other is example is I know a couple who have been dating for quite a while now, who are also very good friends with another friend I have. They wanted to have a double wedding together, but the other couple is no longer able to get married right now(gay marriage). Therefore they are waiting, but they didn't wait to have children. Why should they? They've been together fir over a decade.

This in a game seems a bit odd and dated to me.

 

[Zenn3k]

Its a virtual doll house game where the people speak in gibbering.

Lighten the hell up.

 

[manaman]

Having looked it up online it seems to be tied to your "celebrity" status. If you do anything (and this qualifies) that the "public" deems "unsavory" as a celebrity you are shamed for 3 days.

You just had to go an look it up didn't you? You couldn't just ignore that you probably where not getting the whole story from the OP and jump to the same morally outraged conclusion the OP wanted?

Some poster you are. What are you even doing here. Hurry, get massively outraged over this for no reason before other people notice and turn on you.

You will notice that I edited my opening post to include that, I didn't feel it was relevant at all since it's still pretty much offensive. The public where I live in a rural area of England don't think it is 'shameful' or innapropriate behaiviour' do you?

You didn't feel it was relevant. Well I dont feel like exploring this point any more. Let me stick my fingers in my ears and hum. I am right you are wrong. Dadidadida.

Since when is context not relevant? I mean those silly space badgers keep trying to tell me to take things out of context and then make a big deal out of them, but you don't see me listening to them.

Between you and me I think they are a little crazy.

In this case the context of the dialog only appearing when you take tnhe celebrity track has less to do with general consensus on the matter and more to do with things the tabloids can whip the unwashed masses into a frenzy over. In much the same way you made this thread with the exact intent of whipping people into a frenzy over something that really doesn't matter.

 

[Ekonk]

That's pretty conservative of you, Sims.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

People honestly are getting offended over this? This is what happens in reality, if anything EA/Maxis are bringing to light that having a child out of marriage get's you negative public attention, They aren't telling you what you did is bad, just that other people will think things about you (and don't try saying that people don't judge others in 2011 over things like this, this sort of stuff still is very much existent now.)

Bingo.

And suffering judgemental assholes will fuck up your mood too.

 

[Sojoez]

Someone please try this out. Get a couple married, get the woman pregnant, then let the father die in an 'accident'. Now the mother is single with a kid. Does that give a stigma(debuff)?
Because the above is what happened to me.

 

[Harry Mason]

That's... Actually pretty offensive, yeah...

I didn't really need another reason to dislike The Sims, you know.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

In much the same way you made this thread with the exact intent of whipping people into a frenzy over something that really doesn't matter.

Woah Woah Woah

I'm sorry if I have an opinion about somthing and want to ask the gaming community at large about it. I think the reason I reacted the way I did to this message was the fact that my sister had a kid out of marriage and the game was basically insulting her. I really didn't think the celebrity part was relevant when I wrote the OP but I added it later in case people thought it was. (as it was pointed out to me)

You'll notice in my OP that I said 'how do you feel about this' I meant that, I wanted to know if people found it offensive, sarcastic or otherwise. Not to cause controversy.

I think that's really low for you to accuse me of that tbh.

Oh and just as an aside being a celebrity is actually kind of hard to avoid in the game when your Sim makes friends or does well in thier career, It's not an optional thing it just goes along with everything else.

 

[Zanakanishi]

It's a game, it's not real life, if you had a child out of wedlock in real life and someone spoke down to you because of it, be angry, if a game does it then continue playing, an NPC called my character an "inbreed pile of trash" or something before, I did not get offended, it made me chuckle, when in real life I would be angry, theres a big difference between the two. Games=fun

Real Life=Serious buisiness

EDIT: also, it's to be expected that they would say that, it's based around a conservative area, and even more so if you are playing with the EP that added the fame system, stuff like that would get around in the real world if a celeb did it, (and for some reason people would actually care and talk about it, that's one thing I don't understand.. most evidence points towards the general public being idiots) and obviously sims is based on (BASED on... not IS) real life, it's as simple as that.

 

[manaman]

I don`t think it belongs in a game, but lack of a father figure is something which a large portion of the inmate population share.

They also share impoverished backgrounds. Which do you think is more relevant? Especially when its far less common to find those without a father figure and without coming from an impoverished background in prison.

You are grasping at straws and drawing conclusions from an incomplete data set. It's been bad enough over the course of this thread that you have me wondering if you are not just tolling. So has the OP by the way.

 

[Soviet Steve]

From what I've heard it still carries some negative reputation with it to do this in the deep south, and the Sims 3 is mainly targeted and set at a US audience, so it only seems natural that it completely ignores that the civilized world sortof stopped giving a shit 50 years ago.

 

[William Ossiss]

\
Way to put bigotry in your video games, EA.

EDIT: Also, only the female sim receives the public shame??? That implies pregnancy is the female's fault... Wow. Just wow.

EA is simply the publisher. maxis studios is behind sims 3, if im not mistaken... (and that could very well be so)

 

[TheFederation]

this makes me angry, because i'm born out of a wedlock, and i honestly don't understand what's wrong with it

 

[Atheist.]

Fact is, a lot of people still pass judgement on couples who have children out of wedlock. It can be embarrassing for some. I doubt EA was saying it's shameful, rather that in our society it is often viewed as disgraceful.
EDIT: You'll notice it doesn't say you're depressed because you had a child out of wedlock, but rather people found out. And so you became the social pariah or whatever.

It also says "mood -20" which can be interpreted as somewhat depressed. Being that keeping your mood up is the entire point of the game.

I'd also like to point out to the OP that getting married is in your best interest, even if you aren't religious. There are serious tax breaks for people who do so, which is part of the reason gay people fight so hard for the right.