Will Wright is the brains behind the creation of one of the most popular games ever developed — The Sims. Whether you love or hate the franchise, it is apparent that it has captured the imagination of gamers and non-gamers alike.
What wasn’t known until just recently was that the idea for The Sims almost crashed and burned.
According to an interview given to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Wright said that the higher management at game developer, Maxis, was very antagonistic towards the idea of The Sims and referred to it in derogatory terms.
"It was a battle, the first two years, inside Maxis. It was referred to as ‘The Toilet Game.’ It was the game where you clean the toilet.
"We had a product review meeting at Maxis where we had to decide whether we’d publish this thing or not… an executive said ‘no, let’s do [something else]’."
As they say, the rest is history. So far, The Sims franchise has over 29 million worldwide sales for the main games and expansion packs. Not too shabby, wouldn’t you say?
This turned out to be a pretty lucky break for Maxis, which finally decided to push the project through. As for the executive who turned down the idea of The Sims? We have a feeling that he’s probably sweeping the floors of Maxis right now — on a part-time basis.
Even Wright admits to the Sims idea, at the time, being a total success or failure. He said, "I thought the game would either do a million units or… 50. I thought a million would be a hit. It would be a hit or a total dog."
At the moment, Wright is working on his most ambitious project yet — an open ended evolution inspired Sim game–Spore. It’s been delayed several times already, probably due to its complexity, but knowing Will Wright, it shouldn’t be much of a discouragement for the man who pushed through the idea of The Sims.
"If you really believe in what you’re doing, don’t be discouraged easily. Otherwise you’re in the wrong industry."
[via eurogamer.com]
