It's rewarding to be able to change people's perceptions of reality, ... They just see their environment in a different way. They have a kind of different-colored glasses that they can see their world in. To me, that's really cool - when games can change you.
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.
Computer and video games represent one of the most important new media developments of this generation. Unlike many other forms of entertainment they offer players the opportunity to explore, be creative, learn through interaction and express themselves to others. It is vitally important that we protect and nurture this new art form so that it can reach its full potential. Like most new forms of artistic expression that have come before (music, novels, movies), the primary critics of video games are the people that do not play them.
No game designer ever went wrong by overestimating the narcissism of their players.
And so from that, I've always been fascinated with the idea that complexity can come out of such simplicity.
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.
Players like to know that they've discovered things that even the designers didn't know were in the game.
Because now it's the fans out there that are entertaining us, the developers, with their creations!
The big thing is that we have five percent or less of the hardcore players actively entertaining the other ninety-five percent.
Everybody has a different definition of the good side.
Somebody asked me what I thought next generation meant and what about the PlayStation 3 was next generation. The only next gen system I've seen is the Wii - the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement.
It used to be that you knew your neighbors and maybe your coworkers - the people in your physical vicinity.
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.
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.
Yes... well, I used to have a pilot's license.
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 find it refreshing to unplug from it for a while. You kind of forget how deeply you get embedded in it.
The new generation of consoles has as much power to do the kind of games that we do as the PC does.
Television is a very different thing from video games. It's kind of hard for me to compare.
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.
Well, I think the camera freedom is something that we've resisted for a long time and feels like probably the biggest stretch. But it has some huge benefits.
We have spent quite a bit of time considering a good space game, and I can't really say anything at this point, but we are definitely still interested in that area.
The console games, as they come out with this new generation, will have a temporary advantage in price performance, but there are still many things you can do on a PC, more conveniently than you can do on a console machine.
