The Sims 4 gay filter will be fixed quickly, EA promises

You may have noticed while playing The Sims 4 that if you use words like "gay," "queer," or "homosexual" in your Sim's name or description, you cannot share him or her in the public gallery: Doing so results in an error message stating that "the description contains a forbidden word." But it's not a bug, it's EA's automated, and somewhat overenthusiastic, filtering system in action.

The issue came to public attention by way of YouTube user Anna Eichenauer, who posted a video demonstrating the problem on her WhyStuffIsGreat channel. She created characters with descriptions including "queer gangster rapper," "homosexual gangster rapper" and "Laura Lesbo," none of which could be uploaded; "heterosexual gangster rapper," however, went up with no problem.

Kotakutested and confirmed the existence of the filter, then contacted EA. The publisher acknowledged that things aren't working quite as they should. "The Sims has a long history of supporting stories that players want to tell, irrespective of gender preference," an EA rep said. "The Gallery uses an automated filtering program that filters out certain words, including some of the ones you mentioned below. We are aware of [the problem and] have been working on a fix, which will be out soon."

It's the right response to a problem that never should have come up in the first place, but at least gay Sims fans in North America can look forward to a fix.