You’ve always had the iconic interface for your games, but yet each interface is
quite a bit different than the one before it. Why is that?
It’s really hard to just do
an interface out of context.
You really have to take a
look at what the game
needs, and how you’re
going to interact with
things in the game. That’s
going to determine a lot of
your interface. You also
have to take a look at the
environment you’re living
in, which is to say, what
are the other applications
and the other games
doing? There were things
that we did inThe Simsto
maintain consistency with
SimCity 3000. Like the right button scrolling, where you right-click and drag, and the
edge scrolling — we tried to mirrorSimCitythere. And in general you just learn. I think
that each interface I’ve worked on for a game has been better than the last one. Also, as
games reach a wider and wider audience of more casual people, that puts even more
requirements on that interface. It just has to be that much easier if you’re going to cap-
ture these people. It used to be hard-core computer people playing these games, and
they would put up with anything. Now it’s people who are much more casual, and if they
find the interface frustrating in two minutes, they’re going to put the game down.
In general, I’d say the PC designers, myself included, are still catching up to the
console developers. This is something the console people learned a long time ago on
the Nintendo and Sega because they were dealing with a casual, wide audience, youn-
ger kids for the most part. So they’ve had much more accessible, simple, and
understandable interfaces long before we have on the computer side.
ForThe Simsyou have a hybrid world with 3D characters walking around in an
isometric world. Was that for the same reasons as inSimCity 3000?
Yeah, since the editing and building of the house and all that, if we had a full 3D camera
and all that I don’t think there’s any way we would have made it as easy as it is now. Also
we would have had some real graphic load issues. We could not have gotten the detail
we had on the objects if they were geometry.
Was there ever pressure to make the game 3D since so many other games
were 3D?
About three years ago it seemed like everything was going to 3D, and if you weren’t 3D
you were just dead. At some point that kind of hysteria passed and people started look-
ing at the top-selling games and realizing, hey, you still hadAge of Empires,SimCity, and
430 Chapter 22: Interview: Will Wright
The Sims