Why can you only sell the moon base to men??!?

[confuddled_squirrel]

I bought the moon base and did it up with the aim of selling to the elderly couple. But the more I did it up, the more it became clear that only the single men in the game take any interest in the moon base - other people including the single lady are not even an option!
I sold it to confirm my suspicions and again only the single men made any bids. Please can this blatant sexism be fixed??? It's bad enough that most of the buyers are male (not to mention overwhelming white!) without literally banning females from purchasing a moon house!

[garyh2462]

I think you will find, it has nothing to do with gender. It is to do with the content. within the house. Some people like it, some don't. This is a simulation. not real life. So the representation is limited. I agree, there needs to be improvement in the overall buyers identities as well as genders. Make each house, your own, put you into it, and forget about the politics. Sell them, buy them again, and recreate with that beautiful talented artistic heart and soul, that you posses.

[tatiana]

There aren't many women bidders in the game. The Moon house is too small for the two families; the Jantart couple have grandchildren, so probably don't want to share a room with them. Veronika Lipston doesn't like the Moon because it has no flowers; Maria Kolkowsky is after a bunker. So in terms of "lore", it makes sense

[SassyJo]

Originally posted by tatiana:

There aren't many women bidders in the game. The Moon house is too small for the two families; the Jantart couple have grandchildren, so probably don't want to share a room with them. Veronika Lipston doesn't like the Moon because it has no flowers; Maria Kolkowsky is after a bunker. So in terms of "lore", it makes sense

Too small for the two families? Uh...I don't think so. I've had the freakin' Jonson family with 6 people buy the Almost Only a Garden 1-room building!

I'm glad someone else mentioned the sexism in the game. I mentioned it elsewhere in a post and got flamed for it. >:(

[confuddled_squirrel]

It is a simulation not real life.... which is exactly why you can get ridiculous outcomes like selling the all pink house, complete with love hearts everywhere to the "real man"!

In terms of lore it also doesn't fit that most of the men would buy the moon house - what girls are you going to get to drop by the moon base for a hookup? What tenants are going to rent it - if you find any then are they really going to be the same tenants that need cheap furniture and crappy walls?

I'd argue that Veronika is driven by art more than flowers - what more artistic inspiration can you find than having the earth hanging there in the sky? Not to mention artistic compositions made more interesting by low gravity. No artist (even female ones) would sniff at the opportunity to live on the moon for a bit, you can always bring flowers inside.

[confuddled_squirrel]

In all of the other houses the bidding is open to everyone (ignoring the whole "only bunker people can buy a house with a bunker" thing) so it really hurts that the conscious decision was made here to actively exclude women from the moon. If it were to be restricted on lore then restrict it to Gorgio Shanua and Veronica Lipston and make it clear that it's because they are the two most non-conventional buyers and everyone else wants to be in touch with the world.

[tatiana]

Why are you so sure that this "sexism" is deliberate, rather than accidental? Just because the base game only has one female bidder doesn't necessarily mean the devs are against women's rights.

House Flipper was made by a small team in Poland. If I remember rightly, it was their first ever game. Chances are, they didn't expect the game to become such a global hit. And if it hadn't become popular, nobody would have sat here discussing sexism, because most people are willing to give small studios some slack.

There are some problems with the game that are a lot more serious than this. The lack of darker skin tones for the hands. The inability to paint or panel staircases. The absence of information on how the garden competitions are scored. The inexplicable 10 minute cooldown for re-entering said competitions. And the fact that there are only 3 buyers for the homes in the Apocalypse DLC.

[FattyMooMooMan]

At the end of the day its a game and light entertainment, I think you are reading too much into this and its not likely intentional at all. You could also look at it from the perspective that a house like this on the moon would be a stupid purchase and none of the female buyers were daft enough to bother with it and you could argue anyone putting a bid in was lacking in intelligence... (let's be honest if you wanted to apply logic here the house would have no access to any amenities, no assistance available from emergency services, would cost an astronomical amount to upkeep and be a pretty boring and unsociable place to live, etc, etc lol).

Are you sure that there is no way to get a female buyer to put a bid in on it - have you experimented with different room setups and decorations to make it more desirable to one of the female buyers?

To be honest with you I take most enjoyment in the house design and the selling part just gives me different properties to play with, never took a lot of notice who was buying when I was selling my houses as I was not that bothered - I just designed how I wanted to then moved on

[Ayreborn]

You said it's not real life, so why does it matter?

[confuddled_squirrel]

Originally posted by tatiana:

Why are you so sure that this "sexism" is deliberate, rather than accidental? Just because the base game only has one female bidder doesn't necessarily mean the devs are against women's rights.

House Flipper was made by a small team in Poland. If I remember rightly, it was their first ever game. Chances are, they didn't expect the game to become such a global hit. And if it hadn't become popular, nobody would have sat here discussing sexism, because most people are willing to give small studios some slack.

Sexism is about many things, and is not just about being against female rights, it also doesn't have to be a deliberate act.

Representation in games is a tricky issue because not being represented in games gives the subliminal message "you are not welcome here". This has real world consequences - for example when you speak to devs (whether game devs or other software devs) and ask them what got them into programming the answer you most often get in the West is that they enjoyed playing video games while growing up and wanted to make them or mod them or just see how they work. Now look at how many women there are in software development in the West (in my company there are just two female devs in over 100 devs and we just don't get female applicants) and you can see that many women have been completely put off the sector all together. Which is a real shame as coding is fun and pays very well.

Of course a lack of representation or making particular groups feel excluded is rarely anyone's goal! It just happens that when we design things, we do so using our own experiences - this means that we make characters look like ourselves (race, gender, nationality) and that when we make an extra effort to include diversity we lean on our unconscious embedded stereotypes.

A smaller game dev studio is unlikely to have the resource or even the knowledge to combat these biases and that it why although I highlight general lack of diversity in House Flipper as being a trouble point, I'm not overly offended by it.

The case of the Moon Base though is different. Extra work had to be done to exclude bidders - this means that a decision was made by multiple people, time and resource allocated and then devs executed a plan to make the Moon Base different to every other house. And it was decided that only the single men would be able to bid on it. That isn't passive sexism - that is active sexism and it is a real problem!

[tatiana]

If all the bidders are single men, does it mean that the moon base is ageist, as there are no bidders over sixty? Or anti-family-ist, as there are no families or couples present? The latter is particularly strange as there are 6 beds in the dorm. Unless it's a military base, training camp or prison, which would explain a lot... But why would anyone wish to Buy a military base?

Talking of ageism, am I the only one who finds the Apocalypse quest of "Do up a bunker, for me to lock up my mother-in-law in" very disturbing? Especially the prison-style bunk bed you are required to put inside... Unless they are referring to the genre of jokes about men who hate their mothers-in-law, which are popular in Russia, and presumably also Poland.

[confuddled_squirrel]

Originally posted by tatiana:

If all the bidders are single men, does it mean that the moon base is ageist, as there are no bidders over sixty? Or anti-family-ist, as there are no families or couples present? The latter is particularly strange as there are 6 beds in the dorm. Unless it's a military base, training camp or prison, which would explain a lot... But why would anyone wish to Buy a military base?

Haha, all good points - I guess you can go pretty far on this line of thought! Maybe it's a little mixture of all, to be honest it's pretty hard to tie down without any kind of scenario description as to why the Moon House has been locked down to a subset of bidders.

Free the moon base! Equal rights to all bidders! Maybe even the preppers - bet you could wait out an apocalypse on the moon quite nicely ;-)

[garyh2462]

Originally posted by confuddled_squirrel:

Originally posted by tatiana:

If all the bidders are single men, does it mean that the moon base is ageist, as there are no bidders over sixty? Or anti-family-ist, as there are no families or couples present? The latter is particularly strange as there are 6 beds in the dorm. Unless it's a military base, training camp or prison, which would explain a lot... But why would anyone wish to Buy a military base?

Haha, all good points - I guess you can go pretty far on this line of thought! Maybe it's a little mixture of all, to be honest it's pretty hard to tie down without any kind of scenario description as to why the Moon House has been locked down to a subset of bidders.

Free the moon base! Equal rights to all bidders! Maybe even the preppers - bet you could wait out an apocalypse on the moon quite nicely ;-)

Try just cleaning the Moon base, no furnishings, nothing, see whom bids for it. And you are quite right in pointing out the disparity. Up the Squirrel revolution!

[Greyark]

Why do some always have to bring sexism or racism into everything? This is a game, don't ruin the game for everybody. Next you will want it all to be feminist crap. Go away!

[garyh2462]

Originally posted by Iamme:

Why do some always have to bring sexism or racism into everything? This is a game, don't ruin the game for everybody. Next you will want it all to be feminist crap. Go away!

Easy Lamme everyone is entitled to their opinion.

[StormyHeather]

I don't know if anyone has noticed but women aren't realistically represented in too many games. I cringe when I see the characters in my sons games. I'd like to see a woman in those games where she is flat chested and has no butt.
I can say at least in this one the women actually look like real life women. And the game does seem to be more marketed toward women than men. Just my observation and opinion.
I just wish they had more paint colors or allowed us to mix them :)
And I saw a lot of the "feminist crap and racist crap" comments...right now this is a really touchy subject for so many people. Being older than most here (probably) I know why it's important and these people just want to be represented as well. I don't see any black men or women in the game. But once again just an observation once again.
Be tolerant of others feelings and instead try to support where they're coming from even if you don't understand it.