Highlights

  • The Sims 4 players are facing confusion as the word "GOTH" is apparently "banned" from The Gallery platform.
  • The issue could be a glitch or oversight that developers may address in the future.
  • When Game ZXC tried to replicate the problem, we received the error message: "Server error. We could not process this Gallery request. Please try again later."

The Gallery, an online platform that allows The Sims 4 players to share their custom creations with the world, has apparently banned the use of one seemingly innocuous word. While The Sims 4 has managed to avoid a lot of controversy in its 10-year-long, recent reports of the word "goth" being banned in The Gallery are leaving a lot of players confused.

The Sims 4 players can use the gallery to show off the houses, characters, and other creations they've made in the game. One of the biggest selling points of the game is its customization, and EA offers an incredibly wide variety of content packs for Create-A-Sim mode and decorating in and around buildings.

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Reddit user YooranKujara reported on May 24 that when trying to upload a character they created, an error message appeared stating "A Sim name contains a disallowed word. Please return to Create-A-Sim and edit to resolve the problem," with the word "GOTH" appearing in a red box at the top of the post next to a warning symbol. This is particularly confusing, as the iconic Goth family have been recurring residents in every mainline installment of The Sims dating back to the series' debut in 2000. Fans replying to the Reddit post have noticed the obvious irony of disallowing players from giving characters a name that the series continues to use, with some suspecting the word was deemed offensive due to the sexualization of people who present a goth aesthetic in their appearance. Others simply believe the developers are disallowing players from attempting to alter or add to the existing family.

There is always the possibility that the banned word is simply a glitch in The Sims 4 online platform. Developers have recently announced plans to fix bugs and glitches in The Sims 4, and that could potentially extend to The Gallery as well. Another player in the Reddit forum also reported having problems uploading a character no matter how many ways they tried to change it, but YooranKujara insisted The Galley's upload function was working for them, but it wouldn't allow any of the custom Goth characters they had tried to upload. As it stands, there don't seem to be any other prominent complaints online about problems with uploading characters named Goth.

When Game ZXC tried to recreate this experiment, an error message appeared stating, "Server error. We could not process this Gallery request. Please try again later." The word "goth" isn't banned on the forum hosted on the same official game website, however, as Game ZXC tested this theory by making a post with the supposedly banned word, which was approved and posted without incident. Unless The Sims is trying to make the Goths disappear again, the goth issue is likely to be explained or ironed out soon.