The Sims wasn’t actually planned as a life simulation; instead, the characters were only supposed to have a small role in the game.
What should the Sims be like? Development of The Sims began in 1993, 7 years before the game was released. After the success of SimCity, the creator of both games, Will Wright, actually wanted to create a completely different game. After he showed the world how to build cities, it was time to focus on houses and their furnishings.
As an architecture simulation, Wright first wanted to let players build beautiful houses. The players should then set up the houses.
The Sims themselves were originally supposed to come after the houses were completed, look at the house and then leave a rating based on how good or nice the house was.
The Sims series is getting competition from Korea, here you can see the trailer for InZOI:
“InZOI” gameplay trailer shows realistic graphics of the Sims competitor
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This is how the Sims of today came about
How did you get away from architectural simulation? The inspiration for The Sims is said to have been a 1,171-page book on the theories of architecture. The first idea for the Sims predecessor was probably as dry as the book. But after years of development work had been invested in the project, they didn’t want to just give up.
The developers noticed that the Sims themselves weren’t actually that uninteresting. The idea was modified: The player should first build and furnish the house and then invite the Sims to live instead of evaluating it.
The developers created a simulation system around the Sims, the core of which has remained intact to this day. The need bars that every Sims has are still there today. The house construction and the furnishings of the houses and apartments have also been preserved to this day.
How was The Sims received back then? The developers actually faced a big problem. The computer games market was dominated by over 90% men, much more than it is today. As soon as the game became associated with a “virtual dollhouse,” men no longer wanted to play it.
The Maxis developers therefore chose not to use the name for advertising purposes. Wright himself stopped using the word “until it had sold about a million copies – at which point I felt somewhat comfortable talking about dollhouses in public.”
In 2000, Sims became the best-selling game of all time, with over 6 million main games sold and as many add-ons sold.
Sims has now become an integral part of the video game market and has already received many new parts and expansions, but a Korean life simulation wants to compete with the series: New competition for “The Sims 5” – life simulation looks realistic and focuses on the work