WickedWhims is without doubt one of the hottest mods for The Sims 4. Led by modder Turbodriver, the fan creation, which provides absolutely animated and interactive intercourse, expanded relationships, and even a menstrual cycle and contraception to your Sims, has over 16,000 paid supporters on Patreon. In keeping with a current interview, the precise variety of individuals utilizing the mod is way larger than that. As famous by PC Gamer, German information web site Taz printed an interview with Turbodriver (who makes use of his pen title for anonymity) this week. Through Google Translate, when requested how many individuals use WickedWhims, the modder stated that his server is pinged a mean of 400,000 instances per day. For context, the pings happen each time somebody begins the sport with the mod put in. It’s essential to notice that, based on writer EA, The Sims 4 has accrued greater than 80 million gamers worldwide, a statistic it shared with Selection throughout an interview in September 2024. In fact, not all 80 million boot up the sport day-after-day, and the typical 400,000 pings can embody repeated periods by the identical individual. Nonetheless, the mod’s widespread utilization supplies a invaluable and curious perception into how many individuals are all for amplifying the sexual content material accessible within the sport. Because it stands, the (figuratively and metaphorically) vanilla model of The Sims 4 contains choices to customise sexual orientation round “males” or “ladies,” romance dynamics and bounds, and attraction turn-ons and turn-offs. With regards to intimacy, nonetheless, the act of intercourse itself isn’t proven, typically obscured by bathe steam or mattress blankets. Mods like WickedWhims break that barrier with painstaking readability, whereas amplifying each visible and simulation choices. Sims will be absolutely managed throughout intercourse—together with over 10,000 animations from numerous creators, based on the positioning—bare our bodies can present pubic hair and sweat, and fantasies reminiscent of voyeurism are added into the combination. However as Turbodriver instructed Taz, anybody taking part in a life simulation needs it to be “as lifelike as attainable.” That’s why WickedWhims additionally contains mechanics round a sexually transmitted illness, menstruation cycles, and contraception, amongst different issues. The modder doesn’t intend for WickedWhims to be academic, and considers it a facet impact. “Probably the most complicated factor is that Sims have totally different fertility ranges relying on once they’re of their cycle,” he stated, by way of Google Translate. “In fact, as a person, I had to perform a little research once I programmed that a part of the mod.” Whereas Turbodriver doesn’t take into account himself a feminist activist, he remarked that the mod is a product of his “political convictions,” and that feminist views additionally affect his work, albeit not completely. Furthermore, the modder argued that sport builders have gotten extra open to express content material, citing Cyberpunk 2077 as a title that options nudity, however that there’s nonetheless a double commonplace within the trade in relation to sexual content material. “Massive sport builders can embody intercourse scenes of their video games with none repercussions,” Turbodriver stated. “Indie video games, however, are penalized way more rapidly by the platforms, which label them as grownup video games and present them to fewer individuals.” Whereas the variety of WickedWhims periods is unquestionably noteworthy, it’s essential to recollect the context by which this exercise is going down. For one, as Turbodriver identified, the web is changing into more and more centralized on fewer platforms that limit sexual content material of any type. The context surrounding The Sims 4, too, is essential to think about. Developer Maxis lately shared a weblog publish saying that it stays dedicated to its values, one in every of which is inclusivity, and that “The Sims workforce’s inventive management has not modified.” This is available in response to considerations from the neighborhood across the Saudi Arabia Public Funding Fund’s intentions to grow to be the most important proprietor of EA, because it marches to safe a deal to purchase 93.4 p.c of shares in a $55 billion deal. Whereas the deal is pending authorities approval, the Public Funding Fund is nearly solely owned by a state recognized for persecuting and killing queer individuals and denying ladies many fundamental rights, amongst different causes for concern. It’s unclear if Maxis will be capable of preserve its values if the deal comes into fruition sooner or later, however it’s clear that gamers have an curiosity in mods like WickedWhims which offer types of expression and expertise that transcend the boundaries of what’s provided within the vanilla sport.
