Will Wright
In an online community, there's this kind of social economy between the community members. Some people have status because they make cool skins or that's a good website that's visited a lot, but there's no real gameplay there.
I'm not saying we purposely introduced bugs or anything, but this is kind of a natural result of any complexities of software... that you can't fully test it.
I typically go overboard when I research new projects.
I think the idea of having a game based on reality is compelling right off the bat because everyone has some experience with the subject of the game.
I think for most people, their kind of general aesthetic with games is that the more I control this experience, the better the game is.
I think by exploring the bad side you're really just mapping the envelope of the system... you're getting a sense of how far off you can go.
I find it refreshing to unplug from it for a while. You kind of forget how deeply you get embedded in it.
I definitely enjoy the research the most.
For me, what's a more important question is how we get at least the option of more diverse experiences in this media.
Everybody has a different definition of the good side.
But the themes our games are about, almost everyone brings their own experience to.
Because now it's the fans out there that are entertaining us, the developers, with their creations!
And so from that, I've always been fascinated with the idea that complexity can come out of such simplicity.
And every now and then people find the bugs, and they interpret those as cool failures in the Sims terms. For them it's like a treasure hunt, you know.
Also, after people play these Sim games, it tends to change their perception of the world around them, so they see their city, house or family in a slightly different way after playing.
Actually, many years ago, we had a company-wide vote for our informal company-wide mascot, and the choices came down to the Boston tree fern, beef tape worm and a llama. And somehow the llama won the vote!
A lot of the interesting issues and dynamics within a city occur over things such as socio-economic issues or ethnic issues. But they require a much more elaborate model of human behavior.