ArtVandelayImporters

The Run With Scissors Playset remains my favourite Sims item to this day. The look of pure joy on their faces as they run around like loons, right up until the point of death... gets me every time.

Though I remember a lot of players at the time didn't get the joke and would complain that their Sims died "for no reason". Their loss. I thought it was great.

If you're still around, I've got a question about your role on The Sims 4, if you don't mind. :)

According to your site, you were responsible for the "game vision" of The Sims 4. I'm really curious about what that game vision actually consisted of, compared to previous Sims titles. Was there a mission statement that Maxis used? And if so, what was it?

I can't speak for jitterydecaf, but I did notice a shift towards a younger demographic as far back as TS2. Things like tween pop stars like Hilary Duff doing promos for TS2 Pets, or the many Twilight and Vampire Diaries references in TS3 Supernatural that seemed tailored towards teen girls. Then there were the fairies, unicorns and mermaids.

TS4 also seems "happier" than previous games, and less punishing, which makes it seem like it's directed more towards casual players rather than longtime fans. It's very difficult to get things to go wrong (eg. house fires), and when they do, your Sim will be fine more often than not. A good example is how you need to get electrocuted twice before dying of electrocution in TS4.

Compare that to TS1 or TS2, where anything that could go wrong very well might, for no reason whatsoever. In the elevator? It could crash. Cloudgazing? Meteorite. Making breakfast? House burns down and your 10th generation legacy Sim dies before the fire department gets there. Not to mention the lack of burglars in TS4.

That's not to say I dislike TS4 (in fact I like it far more than TS3), but it does seem to be overall less prone to throwing a spanner in the works.

I saw a tweet to the Sims team just today that had something similar. Cracks me up.

Also I don't know what it is, but Maxis devs seem to be the only people on Reddit who actually get my username. I'm picturing Seinfeld-watching marathons used as team-building exercises, or maybe the interview room for new employees is designed to resemble the Merv Griffin Show set, or maybe an EA executive who rambles on and on like Mr. Steinbrenner.