Here at Maxis, inclusivity is one of our key values. We know that inclusion matters, and we aim to ensure that everyone feels represented—not just in our games but also in how we work; it’s ingrained in the very culture of our studio.
So when we got the opportunity to work with both legendary beauty brand Dark & Lovely and multi-award-winning gaming content creator and DE&I advocate Danielle “Ebonix” Udogaranya, we leaped at the chance. The result is “Play in Color,” a campaign and documentary that shines a spotlight on the importance of authentic representation in gaming.
For much of the history of the video game industry, authentic representation and features of people of color and other marginalized communities have been significantly underrepresented. These groups have made up a substantial segment of the gaming community from the very beginning, but games have often dramatically underrepresented Black hairstyles in particular.
At Maxis, we’ve been grateful for the chance to help make progress toward better representation through in-game releases. This includes Vitiligo skin features; updates to Townies, in-game characters, incorporating different backgrounds, regional features, and skin tones to match their story; and collaborations with our extensive community of talented creators. Our updates give players of The Sims the resources to create characters that look like them and tell stories that reflect their lived experiences - but there is so much more room to grow.
This is why we’re so pleased to be collaborating with Dark & Lovely and Ebonix to help draw attention to both the progress being made and the need for continued improvement. To start, we’re supporting our partners with the launch of this campaign that includes a documentary video showcasing the voices of Ebonix, The Sims 4 teammates Senior Creative Director Anna Huerta and Assistant Producer Kaelah Smallwood, and Taireek Simms from the Dark & Lovely team who are helping to drive this progress. Take a look:
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Next, building on previous collaborations with Ebonix on in-game features like skin tones and nail options, we’re working with the hair professionals at Dark & Lovely to introduce 24 color combinations across two existing hairstyles in April 2024, inspired by the company’s newest color Immersive Bolds collection.
Then, in a free content drop, we'll introduce a new locs hairstyle that’s also developed in collaboration with Dark & Lovely and available to players in July 2024.
“Ebonix has paved an instrumental path towards greater representation in The Sims through her many years of dedication and work, from her first piece of custom content being a dashiki, to her many diverse and detailed hairstyles offered to the community,” shares Anna Huerta, Senior Creator Director, The Sims 4. “We’re thrilled to be teaming up again to have her as a key part of this campaign as we showcase and advocate for the importance of Black hairstyles in our virtual worlds as much as our real one.”
We’re also extremely excited about the inclusion of one of our own The Sims 4 developers in the campaign. Kaelah first got her start in the video game industry by creating mods for The Sims as a player. “Being very involved in the Sims community,” she says, “I started to notice that there were things fans were asking for that would really make whole groups of people feel better represented—so I decided to figure out how to do it!”
That wasn’t a simple process, of course. Not only did Kaelah have to teach herself how to create mods, but she also had to overcome the practical effects of the aforementioned lack of representation in the industry. “Growing up I always thought that working on video games would be amazing,” she says, “but I never really thought it was possible for me, since I didn’t see many people who looked like me making them. Seeing the diverse group of mod creators for The Sims made it all finally seem possible.”
One notable member of that group, in fact, was Ebonix herself. “Dani’s mods were some of the first ones I downloaded!” Kaelah says. “At the time there weren't many hairstyles in the game that really connected with me, but her mods let young Sims have the same little twists and braids that I had growing up—which is such a huge deal for representation.”
Now she’s able to continue the work of representation within the Sims team itself. “I started making mods,” she says, “all because I wanted to add more diversity and inclusion to the game. So helping make sure that The Sims is actively working to bring diversity and inclusivity to all players is a really big deal to me.”
Of course, this work is ongoing. There will never be a point where we’ll say, “Diversity accomplished!” We will continue to improve however we can. “At every step of the process, we’re thinking about ways to make the game more inclusive and diverse,” Kaelah says. “Because everyone should be able to see themselves in their Sims.”
