The Sims Developers Quietly Made The "Insane" Trait Less Problematic

24 April 2018, 12:13

By Marianne Eloise

Sims will now be "erratic" instead

As first noticed by a writer at Kotaku, the recent Sims 4 update featured a few changes. One of them was slipped in pretty quietly – without it being announced, the developers sneakily changed the name of the “insane” trait to “erratic”.

The same writer had previously noted how offensive the “insane” trait was, and that it isn’t in line with our current conversations about mental health in 2018. The trait makes Sims talk to themselves, have mood swings, and behave at random. It doesn’t make gameplay any easier, but it’s also disrespectful to users with real mental illness.

The writer said that Insane Sims were “lashing out at their peers and talking to themselves like an antiquated version of how culture has portrayed how mentally ill people behave”.

Nothing else about the trait has changed – the icon for it is still a straitjacket and the Sims still behave in the same way, but the title is slightly more appropriate for their behaviour and less offensive to users.

Do you think The Sims have gone far enough, or should they just get rid of the "erratic" setting altogether?