Nobody really knew how to localize Drew Carey in The Sims.

In 2000, shortly after launch Simspublisher Electronic Arts and developer Maxis found that the game was popular among people EA had never seriously entertained before: young women and teenage girls. “We never set out to make this game popular with girls,” original game designer Roxy Wolosenko said in 2022. “We just made a game that was interesting to us. The girls just found it. A happy accident that EA continues to capitalize on with a steady stream of expansion packs, content updates and brand partnerships, as well as collaborations and appearances from the likes of Avril Lavigne, Hilary Duff, Carly Rae Jepsen, Bebe Rexha, Vanessa Hudgens, Millie Bobby Brown and Winnie Harlow. So, in retrospect, it’s odd that the first celebrity to sign on with EA and Maxis after discovering the franchise’s huge appeal to teenage girls was Drew Carey.

Comedian Carey, then the star of the ABC sitcom of the same name, was an early fan Sims and mentioned the game twice on his show, the second time Maxis providing special footage. Quid pro quo: Carey agreed to play a cameo role as himself in Sims‘second expansion, Home party. If a player had a good party, Carey would show up in a limousine. “Heyyy! My agent said I just HAD to come. Let’s have this party!”

Virtual Carey could communicate, dance and in a chaotic sandbox Simsmake unwanted passes towards every female guest and receive a slap in return. “He wanted to really flirt with (my) ‘mother-in-law’ this time,” one noted Sims player in a 2001 Usenet post: “And he kept going out into the hallway to be alone and talk to himself before talking to anyone else. It was as if he was practicing what he was going to tell people. (…) This is how it works on The Drew Carey Show? Other players reported that Carey showed up at their homes even when they weren’t having parties or leaving the Goth family cemetery at midnight. Players, tired of Cary’s pop-ups, were looking for the secret to destroying him (“There is a ‘thing’ that takes care of Drew! I just don’t know this site… let me try to find it”), and one discovered that another guest might have urinated on him parties.

“Being in (Sims) was one of the coolest things in my career,” Carey told Polygon in a statement, declining to go into detail about his appearance.

“Working with Drew Carey was very organic. He was generous enough to say, “Yeah, sure, put me in your game,” says Patrick Buechner, who worked in marketing and management at EA and Maxis from 1995 to 2015. Carey, an American comedian on an American network, was not necessarily known for his worldwide fame, but this was not taken into account. “They didn’t really look at Drew Carey as the guy who was going to sell the game in Bangladesh,” says Jake Simpson, an EA engineer between 2001 and 2006.

When Home party was translated into Italian and Spanish, Carey’s character and appearance were retained, but his last name was dropped – he was simply “Drew la Celebrity” and “Drew el Famoso” – presumably intended to prevent Italian and Spanish speakers from recognizing him Name. Less explicably, in Polish, Swedish and German, Carey was mistakenly called “Eva”, “Ilva” and “Nadine”. “I mean, he’s a man, and a famous one, with a name,” replied one German player. “They can’t just write Nadine there!!!”

“Germany does what Germany does. I have no idea who Nadine is,” Buechner says. EA’s Cologne office, Buchner recalls, was on a particularly long leash from the publisher’s Redwood City headquarters. Cologne, for example, was able to enter into a profit-sharing agreement for product integration between Sims and the right-wing German tabloid Bild, which no one in California knew about. “At the time,” Buechner says, “EA was very much like: Germany can do what Germany needs to do to sell games“

That’s not how it works now. A network TV star won’t be fired without a promotion to a major video game franchise – to get urinated onno less – without any marketing thought other than it sounded cool and the star did it for cheap out of a genuine love for the game. Sims This is no longer just an American franchise, but a global one. If someone like Katy Perry was in the game, Electronic Arts’ regional office wouldn’t be able to decide that her new name was Nadine.

The logical continuation of the appearance of Cary Maxis was the 2003 expansion. Superstarwhich solved the problem of Carey’s limited name recognition by signing stars who became much more famous. Among others, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, Jon Bon Jovi and Sarah McLachlan appeared in the game. Cologne guaranteed additional local appeal by adding German and Belgian celebrities as downloadable characters.

Superstar was a success and whetted EA’s appetite for more such expansions, but the experience of negotiating and managing the images of multiple talent and their management teams required so much unexpected effort that Maxis was able to forgo working with celebrities for a time. (“There are things Sims do that a celebrity can’t afford to do,” says Simpson. “(Avril Lavigne) can’t pee on the floor, you know what I mean? She can’t kiss other women.”) More one indication of the challenges ahead is that ten years later, Maxis and EA entered into a major partnership with Lady Gaga to create a similar expansion pack. The Sims 3: Showtime; the deal then fell through and was reworked for Katy Perry.

But 20 years of the social Internet have provided a new solution to Drew Carey’s problem. Today, you don’t have to be world famous to have international reach. Who needs Lady Gaga when Baby Ariel can make the same impact for a fraction of the hassle?

Ariel, who gained fame on social media through the lip-syncing platform Musical.ly (later TikTok), appeared in 2018. Sims 4 extension Become famous. “Who is she? And why is there a YouTube musician in the game, and not an actress?” wrote one outraged Sims fan. Another: “I mean, come on… a musical ‘star’… really, that’s the best they could do? “I’d rather have real stars like Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears, classic actors? “

Derek Jacobi and Catherine Hunter won’t be coming to The Sims anytime soon. Baby Ariel has 36.8 million followers on TikTok. Lucy Hale, who was paid to share an image of herself as a Sim in 2015, has 23.8 million followers on Instagram. Millie Bobby Brown, named a “Sims Ambassador” in 2018, has 63.4 million users on Instagram.

Despite their broad scope, Brown et al. that’s what they say on a popular celebrity podcast. WHO? Weekly, The Whos are named after what you might ask when you hear about them. It’s a kind of aspiring class of celebrities or influencers who transparently and quickly use the levers of gaining and maintaining fame: sponsored content, podcasts, skin care lines and salsa.

Iggy Azalea takes money to ask her followers which store her Sim should go to The Sims 4: Get Started “Who” behavior; Christina Aguilera would never do this. But Who will promote The Sims joyfully, professionally and through a huge social media presence, including, ideally, a large audience of teenage girls. Girls and young women are still the lifeblood of The Sims, but the way EA can reach them has changed in the company’s favor. Global video game franchise such as Sims no longer works in an American or German context, but works online. On the Internet, someone like Iggy Azalea or Bebe Rexha could be known to every teenage girl in every country, without any need for localization. If you’re not online, you might not know the names, but The Sims isn’t really for people who aren’t online. What at the moment?

But despite all the benefits the Internet has brought to EA’s marketing department, — cheaper talent, greater reach—nothing he’s ever posted through his social channels has had as big an impact as Keke Palmer’s Sims threesome. In 2023 Nope The actress went viral for her performance. Sims 4 – expanded and broken by mods; Palmer was a devoted fan – on her Instagram Live. Palmer recounted the drama of her Sims’ romantic lives, reacting in shock when one of her Sims took it upon herself to perform oral sex on another while sitting on the toilet. “Yes baby, this is Keke Palmer in her gamer era,” wrote Buzzfeed News. You can’t buy that kind of PR; EA is not in the era of oral sex in the toilet.

The official collaboration between Palmer and EA following this viral moment resulted in a short clip of a virtual Palmer with a dog, where the dog demonstrates that it has several variations of neckerchiefs. It didn’t compare. Palmer’s Instagram blew up not because it was lustful, but because it was personal. Her the game was chaotic and unconventional. It was clear how much fun you could have playing and smashing this sandbox.

“(In The Sims) I would get everyone pregnant,” Chappell Roan said in a viral TikTok in early October. “I would make it so everyone had alien twins. I was a freak and tried to use a cheat code to get everyone naked. (…) I was just trying to undress everyone.” That’s it. When Sims was first released, EA was worried that the aesthetic was too American to translate globally, but everyone understands Dollhouse, and everyone understands how to kiss dolls in Dollhouse.

The Sims survives because when it shows its audience Drew Carey, the audience buries him in a hot tub. When The Sims gives viewers Baby Ariel, viewers lure her into being a female vampire. Play universal language, but mess better. Who in this world doesn’t like chaos?