April 11, 2008 6:00 AMGamesIndustry.biz recently published a new article which takes readers behind-the -scenes to learn about the development of The Sims 3, the next installment in the successful series. EA's Rob Humble discusses the team's design philosophy and some of the unusual ideas considered for the game. "The one thing that I walked into the room with as a mandate was 'No More Hamster Cage'," he says rather cryptically. "That came from a phrase Matt [Brown, design lead] used - during The Sims 2, they referred to the Sims as hamsters with jobs. There's a little hamster cage, and they have a little job..." "I always thought that was incredibly limiting," Humble continues. "We needed an open world. You're not going to get where this game can go unless you can literally walk across the street and see the neighbour's kids playing in the opposite yard. You're not going to get to the next place you want to be unless you can buy a house at the top of a mountain and look down on a town. That's incredibly important, and that was job one." So, at least one aspect of The Sims 3's design was firm from the very first meeting. As for everything else... Well, not so much. "The next step was to ask what was wrong with the Sims themselves, and how that could be improved," Humble says. "That was the initial thought - and then, frankly, our thoughts just wandered. We deliberately went blue-sky." Head over to the site below to read the rest of the interview.GamesIndustry.biz: Prototyping The Sims

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