Instead of genre staples such as lobbing grenades or casting spells, the game asked players to get excited about tasks such as personal hygiene and interior design. Yet such seemingly mundane activities combined to create a sensation, with the original game and subsequent expansion packs selling a combined 40 million copies to rank as the most popular computer game ever.
Intrigued by the virtual dollhouse aspect that allows the game to be used as a vehicle for creative design, storytelling, social experimentation and more, "The Sims" has also created the biggest and most fertile online community to revolve around a game. (That success hasn't fully spilled over to the sparsely populated "The Sims Online," the multiplayer version of the game.)
Will Wright, who made one of the first breakthroughs in computer games by creating "SimCity," had to develop "The Sims" on the sly after co-workers at Maxis, a development studio at leading game publisher Electronic Arts, nixed the idea. But there was no such hesitancy about "The Sims 2," the highly anticipated sequel that went on sale yesterday in the US.
"With 'The Sims 1,' all we could do was succeed, because nobody really expected anything," Wright said. "If you come out with a sequel after a successful game, though, everybody expects it to be at least as successful as the original. With 'The Sims 2,' it felt like all we could do was fail ... But I think we really have improved the experience. After four years of living with it, we have a much better idea of what parts of the game people really enjoy and how they use them, and 'The Sims 2' really benefits from that."
Wright talked with CNET News.com about the new game and beyond.
Q: Start out by telling us what's different in "The Sims 2."
A: Basically, the set of possibilities in the game is much larger. There's a 3D engine, which lets you zoom in closer and get a much deeper immersion in the Sims' lives. You pretty much feel like you're in the room with them.
Their personalities are far more fleshed-out; they're really three-dimensional characters now. They have aspirations, memories, a much more detailed social landscape and knowledge of their social relationships with other Sims. They have tactical goals; depending on the aspiration you set for them, they have intermediate things they want you to attain for them.
Primarily, the game allows much more interesting stories for the player. It is really about the player telling the story, not the computer. In "Sims 2," the computer has more recognition of significant events. The Sims grow and age, from a toddler to an elder. They have very different approaches to life at different stages; different kinds of success and failure. Basically, we made it so that the Sims feel in your mind to be much more like real people. You really establish a much deeper emotional connection with them.
So the consequences of your actions are more cumulative?
You've talked before about what you call the "Calvin factor" -- players building things just to destroy them. What's the Calvin factor here?
We did find with "SimCity" -- and later with "The Sims" -- that players really enjoy exploring the failure side. They want to experiment with all the different ways they screw up the Sims' lives, from having a bladder failure and soiling the carpet to losing a job or being spurned in a romantic advance. The failure states in "Sims 2" are quite a bit more elaborate than in "Sims 1." And you've got a deeper emotional connection, so when the Sims fail, you really feel guilty. You feel as if you're dealing with a pet instead of a robot.
So if I really mistreat my Sim, does he end up in a clock tower with a sniper rifle?
Not quite, but they definitely will go loony. We try to make the failure side more humourous. But at some point, they'll start to see imaginary people; just go totally bonkers. If you give them a screwed-up childhood, they can go in that direction, or they just might develop very particular phobias. They have memories, both good and bad, and they can develop positive or negative associations in connection with those memories that carry through into adulthood.
It seems as if there's a lot of psychology behind this. How much of an education do you have in that?
Enough. We found that it's a lot easier for us to research a topic than it is to take experts and teach them about game development. When it comes to psychology, we looked at hundreds of different theories, and the thing is that none of them are right. They all capture some little element of the truth. So what we end up with is a smorgasbord of various bits and pieces of theory that help clarify parts of the game. The basic needs are coming from Maslow, the personality side is roughly Myers-Briggs, the childhood-to-adult transitions are more Freudian.
