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"Modding Your Dream World: How Players of the Sims Push back on Neoliberal Ideals.”
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McGlotten, Shaka
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Spring 2020
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2020
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In Modding Your Dream World, I explore the parallels between the Sims 4 and the capitalist world it was created in, focusing on how non-normative identifying players fit into the game. In its most recent edition, Sims programmers have begun to allow players to create trans sims and have gay relationships but have failed to provide representation for players with disabilities. My paper explores this failure of representation as it parallels the capitalist narrative that disability is not desirable. By marketing the Sims as a "dream world" or an escape from your "real" physical world, there's a sort of disconnect as disabled players are only able to create and play with sims that are able-bodied. This sense of disembodiment leads most players to downloaded modifications, "mods," in order to push back on the capitalist ideals the Sims feeds into.
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