The History of The Sims

The Sims was just a natural extension of ideas Will Wright had been playing with since the first Sim City game in 1989. Having incorporated social behavioural models into Sim Ant, and created rudimentary Sims to populate the streets for the otherwise forgettable 1996 effort Sim Copter, crafting a game based around the actions of simulated virtual people was a logical next step.

But while the concept seemed obvious to Wright, it didn't exactly catch the imagination of his fellow Maxis developers, corporate overlords Electronic Arts or even the general public.