Summary
- The Sims made it difficult to keep our characters alive on purpose, so we wouldn’t just sit back and let the AI do the work.
- The AI was originally too smart, meaning it was more optimal to not actually play the game.
- This was changed, and more ways for our Sims to harm themselves were added in.
Sometimes, our Sims can make some truly baffling decisions. This was never truer than in the first game, where our creations wouldn’t even take themselves to the bathroom without our guidance, requiring near-constant micromanagement to keep their needs fulfilled (or as fulfilled as you can, considering how difficult The Sims is).
Now, it turns out that this was all by design, and done to make sure that it was always more optimal to actually pay attention. Original Sims creator Will Wright just revealed this in an interview with the New York Times (thanks, PC Gamer), explaining that an original build of the game accidentally made the Sims too smart, prompting the devs to tone this down – a lot.
It’s Not Just You, Our Sims Are Stupid On Purpose
The AI in the first Sims game leads them to make some very questionable decisions
“In early versions of the game, the autonomy was too good,” says Wright, recalling the first Sims game’s development. “Almost anything the player did was worse than the Sims running on autopilot.”
To combat this, he started to make the game more chaotic. Now, Sims could die in a range of daft, often self-imposed ways. As the New York Times write-up puts it, Wright didn’t want us to feel like gods controlling ants, he wanted us to feel like “ants pretending to be gods”.
As well as the AI not being able to keep our Sims alive and well, they were surrounded by danger in the form of the furniture we bought for them. In fact, Wright refers to all of the possessions we can give our Sims to make them happy as “hidden time bombs”, since appliances would inevitably break – or catch fire. Combine that with the dumber AI, and well… just don’t get too attached to your Sims in the first game.
If you want to see this for yourself, The Sims is on Steam now through the Legacy Collection. However, it is currently sitting at mixed reviews due to the performance issues that some have been experiencing.
The Sims (2000)
- Released
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February 4, 2000
- ESRB
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T
- Developer(s)
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Maxis