If you know anything about video games, you have heard of The Sims.

If you don't know anything about video games, The Sims is an incredibly popular game that allows you to create a virtual avatar that can interact with other users, build a home, work and find love. Essentially, through your character, you can live the entirety of a virtual life through the screen.

Although you can create your Sim by building their physical appearance from scratch, there are limitations to the type of Sim you can create. Out of the box, the game comes with only one black skin tone and only two hairstyles for black people.

This fact is less surprising when you consider the fact that only three percent of video game developers are black. (According to the International Game Developers Association.)

Amira Virgil — an avid player of The Sims — had had enough.

In order to give Sims players more choices, Virgil created The Black Simmer, an online forum where gamers can share and download custom skin tones, hairstyles, mannerisms, clothes and body types that reflect actual communities of color.

Talk about Black Girl Magic!





Neilsen found that 71 percent of black people play video games, yet less than two percent of the characters in all video games represent any person of color.

That means that although only 61 percent of white people play video games they represent 98 percent of the gaming world.

It is no wonder that The Black Simmer has amassed a great following — Virgil filled a void that largely needed filling.