I was going to play this game, but was turned off by the fact that no matter how many times I clicked to generate a person, there were no African American characters. There weren't even any who were light enough brown to make you think they might be Asian or Latino.

I don't mean to come off sounding like one of those loonies on a soapbox, but yes, this is a soapbox. The world is not all white. Really, it isn't. Give a little diversity to your virtual families. (Even Flo's Diner has an African American regular customer!)

I'm going to stick with EA's The Sims. It's pricier, sure, but at least I can chose the skin tone and the world isn't white washed.

See this thread and this thread.

You might find some answers in this thread.

Yes, that's fine for VV, I understanding "mixing the parts" to form numerous villagers. But, why for Virtual Families? You're not dealing with 10 - 50 little villagers, but one family.

Yes, but there are still 50 male and female heads nonetheless. Try adding 50 or so male and female bodies to that, and you have a near infinite number of combinations. It's still just too hard to add different skin tones to that, and for the same reasons as in VV.

Ok, I think I understand now.

I'm sorry to hear about the programming nightmare, 'cause it seems like a fun game. My daughter (black/white) and her best friends (white/Asian) and (white/Cuban) really like the game and I was just hoping there was a way to have them play with more "beige" characters (they're words, not mine!) They are reaching that point where they really aware of how "not 100% white" they are and how a majority of dolls, etc. lack characters that look like them.

We'll probably stick with Sims 2 and some supervision just because the girls like making and playing with characters who look like them.

I know you're not the only one . Many others would like it (including me), but it's not easy, and not exactly realistic at this point in time .

I did make a dark skinned peeps mod that you can find in the mods section. It isn't perfect as they're clothing is also darkened, though there are just too many bodies to do just the heads, arms, and legs only.

I actually have Lewanda's mod and I LOVE IT!!!!! The babies and people are beautiful and although the clothing is darkened, you hardly know it after playing for awhile. This does not address the issue for other skin tones, but it does at least let you have characters who are "beige". As Lewanda said, it's not perfect, but it does let players who want a more realistic experience enjoy the game. (games and characters that are more representative of who plays them). While I understand and can appreciate the incredible amount of work that goes in to creating the games, it is something that I hope the developers will strongly consider. I would also think that with the popularity, ease of use, addictive games that LDW creates, the developers would create a way to allow the games to reflect the diversity of their users. Perhaps alternate the VV & VF franchise between skins tones instead just creating "white".

I don't mean to be on my soap box either, but I do love these games and wish something could really be done, instead of just linking people to post about why LDW can't create skin tones.