people would say they
hated an idea, but then you
put it in the game and all of
a sudden...Games are so
emergent sometimes that
even if you tell the players
what you’re about to do,
they can’t really imagine
the actual result of it in the
game. So, sometimes you
have to discount what the
players are telling you, if it
happens to be something
that feels like it’s going to
be a very non-linear,
non-intuitive kind of
dynamic. But you still
know that you have a PR issue, that you have to sell the players on the value of the
feature.
Are you working onThe Sims 2currently?
Not really, no. I’m working on something else right now.
It’s curious to me how you could make a sequel to a game as good asThe Sims
without just making the game more complicated but not necessarily better.
Yeah, that’s kind of a sticky point. Any player will look at a game and say, “Oh, that
would be so much cooler if they added this, that, and the other.” And, really, you get to a
great game not by adding a bunch of stuff but by figuring out what to take out. And that’s
the really hard part. On the other hand, the technology has progressed, probably the
players are a little more advanced. You obviously want to do something different with it.
It is a struggle with a high-profile sequel like that because with the firstSimswe were
this little game and the fact that we succeeded was all upside. With something likeThe
Sims 2, it kinda feels like all they can do is fail. There’s all these expectations heaped
upon the project. But I think you have to figure out what the core of the original game
was that people enjoyed and which parts of the original game were irrelevant or tangen-
tial to the success. And those are the areas that you have opportunities to go in and
expand, modify, rethink. And of course technology has progressed, but there are a lot of
considerations that go into it.
Are you glad to be working on something other thanThe Sims?
The very first prototype I made ofThe Simswas in ’93, so it’s been over ten years.
Actually I worked onSimCityabout ten years, from the very first version ofSimCityto
the last one I worked on, which wasSimCity 2000, and ten years is about my limit on
anything. [laughter] And so sinceThe Sims Online,I’ve kind of gone on, and I’m in a
totally different space right now, which is really fun. What I enjoy is finding other
444 Chapter 22: Interview: Will Wright
The Sims Online