THE ENGLISH SIMMER

The English Simmer is a well known and respected Simmer within The Sims community across the world. Not only do her Lets Play videos entertain thousands of her fans daily, Mollies Live Streams on Twitch are also fun and inclusive and a true ‘safe space’ for the LGBTQIA+ community. You can find Mollie entertaining her fans across social media and the one thing I always find with Mollie is that she is always there to support her fans, be it a small supportive reply to a comment, or an all out post defending one of her friends or the games that she loves. The one thing you can always be assured to get from Mollie is Honesty, and that is something the team here at SimmedUp Magazine applaud. If you haven’t followed or watched The

English Simmer yet, then make sure to check out Mollies Twitter, Instagram,

You Tube and Twitch Channels and we promise you that you won’t regret it, you will laugh, you may cry but in the end, you will be hooked, just like we are.

SimSimmerly: Hi Mollie, Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with us you are such an inspiration to so many including our team. Please start with telling us a little about you and how you got into playing ‘The Sims’.

The English Simmer: My name is Mollie and I'm now 27 but I started playing The Sims when I was 6 years old! My brother brought it home and we instantly installed it on my dad's pc and I got to stay up late to play it to make my own family as sims. And from that moment it's been a staple in my life. I had always been into playing video games on the n64 and sega megadrive

SS: What was life like before The Sims and how did you decided streaming was the way to go and not a 9-5 job like everyone is expected to do?

Mollie: Before I started recording and streaming The Sims I was in university studying English Language. During my first year I got really into watching other simmers content on YouTube and then through my second year I decided to invest in a dedicated gaming PC instead of playing of my MacBook and started recording my own gameplay to post on my channel. I reached 100k subscribers by the end of my third year, decided to go with it and carry on making content for it to be my full time job.

SS: You don’t limit yourself to Just Sims 4 Lets plays but also create for Sims 2 and 3, out of all of them, what is your favourite Sims Lets Play Creation to date?

Mollie: It's always so hard to choose my favourite let's play because they all mean so much to me for different reasons and sometimes I just really connect with my sims. But I'd definitely have to say that my favourite to make has been my Black Widow Challenge. I think it's really what

made me fall in love with The Sims 4 for

made me fall in love with The Sims 4 for the first time purely because myself and my community loved the sim I used so much and we're constantly changing her up to make her feel like a brand new sim for every single person she married.

SS: You were invited to be a contestant on The Sims Spark’d show and were one of the runners up alongside LittleSiha and Doctor Ashley. How did you find the overall experience and would you do it again?

Mollie: It was definitely a situation that was out of my comfort zone but that also makes me really glad that I did it because it was so different to anything I'd ever done. Usually playing The Sims is such a single player

me really glad that I did it because it was so different to anything I'd ever done. Usually playing The Sims is such a single player experience but getting to bounce ideas off my friends and each being able to bring our own individual connection with the game to the stories we were telling was amazing. My favourite challenge was definitely the first one where we had to race to get items to drive our story because team gnome clearly had a dark undertone that we were all connecting to and it made me laugh

SS: When you started out streaming on

YouTube did you ever imagine you would amass over 290K Subscribers? And what did it feel like to reach your first 10,000 followers? Does it still feel the same with every milestone or do you now take it in your stride with a nice cup of Coffee and a stiff upper lip lol.

Mollie: I honestly never expected my channel to take off! There was already so many established sims channels before I started mine and I really just started as a hobby in university because I always loved telling stories in my game. My first 10,000 subscribers definitely didn't feel real. I remember being sat in an arena just after hitting it and my niece was telling me that my audience would have half filled it which was unbelievable. I still celebrate the 100ks and very much on the road to 300k at the mo! Aiming to hit it by the end of 2021 (nudge nudge haha) but I love celebrating with my community who are the ones who actually got me there. 44

SS: You are an icon in the Sims LGBT+ Community, having a gay Simmer that we can relate to that’s as well-known as yourself has also inspired so many to ‘come out’ or just accept who they knew they were anyway. How does being such an inspiration the community feel?

Mollie: Being part of both the LGBTQIA+ and The Sims community is one of my favourite things in the world. It feels really incredible whenever anyone comments that my channel is their safe space or a place where they feel represented because that's always the space I've wanted to create and why I'm so loud about my sexuality. I want the LGBTQIA+ community to know they can see themselves in the game on my channel no matter what video they first see from me.

SS: Have you come across any negative experiences in coming out as gay? Did you find that you lost followers and friends or did you just gain a bigger following and more supportive friends?

Mollie: Online I didn't really notice anything different when I came out are started creating content that including LGBTQIA+

relationships except gaining more support and people finally feeling as if they were being included. Sure sometimes I get some homophobic or transphobic comments but people know my channel isn't a space for that and I will just delete those because I never want my community to see that. Of course there was the whole YouTube hiding lgbtqia+ content under the "safe content" filter which definitely hid some of my videos, but I'd rather that than not having those videos up on my channel at all.

SS: You recently created a video on YouTube ranking every Sims game ever made, how long did this take you? What inspired you to take on this feat And overall which pack was your top voted pack?

Mollie: Luckily another amazing simmer had already made the tier ranking list because that's the most time consuming part of preparing for those videos. Plumbella inspired me to do it because I absolutely love listening to my friends talk about the game we all love. Abd because I've played since I was 6 years old, I've been lucky enough to try most packs throughout my life. I think the only ones I really missed out on were some of The Sims 3 stuff packs. I always love researching for those types of videos though and reminding myself of the odd things that used to be part of Sims 1 expansion packs. They seem so random because things weren't really split into different packs back then.

SS: Being such a big influence in the community, you have been invited to a lot of gaming conventions across Europe. What was your favourite one to date and did you meet anyone you totally fangirled over that you’re willing to reveal to us?

Mollie: Oh man that's so tough! I absolutely love conventions but I'd have to say Sims Camp is my favourite event that I get to attend because I just get to hang out with all my best friends, the development team and play The Sims all day! I definitely fangirled over the development team and still do when I meet someone for the first time. I was meant to go to Summer in the City once and Jenna Marbles was going to be there but I got chicken pox 3 days before and couldn't go. I was so upset.

SS: What would say your biggest achievement to date is?

Mollie: I think my biggest achievement was EA reaching out to me before The Sims 4 Base Game was released to fly to San Francisco and record some early access gameplay. I only had my channel for 6 months by that point and I couldn't believe that actually happened.

SS: Streamers are an important part of the gaming industry because it helps to show the content of the game before people decide to dive in and buy. How do you find the relationship between streamers and Content creator’s work and the fact you aren’t paid for reviewing games like the Sims by EA does this have an effect on how you would review the games or is impartiality key when reviewing a game be it Sims or not?

Mollie: This is something I've struggled with all throughout my time as a content creator. For a while I was calling my early access videos reviews to let people know it was new content and I was playing it for the first time but I've never really tried to review the game numerically. The way I see it is I'm a fan of the games I play, I always have been and of course I'm always excited by new content because its new. But I try to cover as much as I can on my channel so that people know what they are paying for or in some cases what's missing. Of course I'll always throw in my ideas of what I feel is missing, what could be done better or what I think is 45

done and covered well because I still want my p e r s o n a l i t y to come across in my v i d e o s . T h e r e ' s g a m e s j o u r n a l i s t s who are paid to w r i t e n u m e r i c a l reviews and who review a bunch of games on top of The Sims, whereas I'm a player first and foremost.

SS: Are there any other games you play and what would be your favourite game for Chilling to and what game would you recommend for playing with your friends if any?

Mollie: I play so many other games! Sometimes on my YouTube channel, sometimes on twitch and other times just for myself. I absolutely love the Life is Strange series, I would say it's my second favourite franchise to Sims. Obviously this last year I've played an awful lot of Animal Crossing New Horizons but right now I'm loving Red Dead Redemption 2 in my spare time. When it comes to playing with friends, there's a lot of phasmophobia, Stardew Valley multiplayer and Among Us. Anything that we can have a laugh to together.

SS: If EA called you up and said Mollie we need you to design us a brand new EP and let you do anything you wanted, what EP would you want to see in the Sims and why?

Mollie: Oh my goodness, the POWER!!! Honestly if we weren't getting Cottage Living officially, it probably would have been that! I'd also love to see some form of a Generations back and really fill out the life stages in Sims 4 but my all time favourite pack is a real hobby based expansion. One that has a dedicated hobbie system, with talents and things like that. I always just want more interests for my Sims.

SS: The team has confirmed Sims 5 in production what are your hopes for the future of The Sims and what would you say are the bits we do have that we

could maybe do without?Mollie: I have to say I don't think I'm too fussed by a multiplayer for The Sims 5 unless it works like Animal Crossing where I can invite my friends over to a specific save and have our Sims interact with one another, that could be so much fun! I really just hope the expansion packs go back to being bigger in scope. I feel like Sims 4 is quite limiting because of that and often the expansions don't feel like they expand the game, especially not as much as they used to.

SS: Do you have any upcoming projects you can tell us about?

Mollie: I've got my fingers and toes crossed that I'll hopefully be chosen to have some early access content for Cottage Living! And I don't know if I can talk about it yet (I know everyone says that!) but I have just taken part in something very cool and a new experience for me so I'll be talking about that on my socials when I know I can.

SS: If any of our readers want to know where to find you how do that do that?

Mollie: I go by The English Simmer online and upload 5 times a week over on my YouTube channel https://YouTube.com/ theenglishsimmer stream Monday and Wednesdays over on my twitch https:// twitch.tv/englishsimmer and I'm always on twitter, chatting about gaming, music, books or anything that takes my fancy at https://twitter.com/englishsimmer Thanks so much again for asking me to be part of this!!

YouTube channel https://YouTube.com/theenglishsimmer stream YouTube channel https://YouTube.com/theenglishsimmer stream YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ Monday and Wednesdays over on my twitch Monday and Wednesdays over on my twitch TheEnglishSimmer https://twitch.tv/englishsimmer https://twitch.tv/englishsimmer Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnglishSimmer And on Twitter at https://twitter.com/englishsimmer And on Twitter at https://twitter.com/englishsimmer Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/englishsimmer

YouTube channel https://YouTube.com/theenglishsimmer stream YouTube channel https://YouTube.com/theenglishsimmer stream YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ Monday and Wednesdays over on my twitch Monday and Wednesdays over on my twitch TheEnglishSimmer https://twitch.tv/englishsimmer https://twitch.tv/englishsimmer Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnglishSimmer And on Twitter at https://twitter.com/englishsimmer And on Twitter at https://twitter.com/englishsimmer Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/englishsimmer