The American company Electronic Arts (EA) and its “daughter” Maxis decided not to release a new addition to the video game The Sims 4 in Russia because of the Russian law banning “gay propaganda” among minors. This was announced in a message from the developers to the players, published on the EA website on Wednesday, February 9th.
The addition, dubbed “Wedding Stories” and presented the day before, features two female characters, Dominica and Camilla – “a couple whose love knows no bounds.” “Because we cannot tell the story of Cam and Dom without significant changes, we have decided not to release Wedding Stories in Russia,” the companies said in a statement.
The developers noted that they could have abandoned this storyline for the Russian market in order to comply with local laws, but then they would have to “compromise” with their values. “We cherish the freedom to be ourselves, to love and share our experience without restrictions,” the authors of the game emphasized.
The Russian State Duma adopted a law banning “propaganda” of same-sex sexual relations among minors in 2013. A group of deputies led by Elena Mizulina submitted a draft amendment to the law “On protecting children from information harmful to their health and development.” This, in particular, included information that “denies family values” and promotes “non-traditional sexual relations.”
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