IGN Interview with Ben Bell

Along with the trailer IGN has also posted a brief interview with Ben Bell, which you can read right below!

"The sequel to the PC's most successful franchise of all time ships in a little more than two months, but it doesn't feel like it. We're so used to games getting gigantic marketing pushes months before they release, which is something that EA hasn't started quite yet for The Sims 3. Still, with company is looking to start the fanfare. Below is an exclusive trailer showing off the "devious" aspect of the game; you can create sims that literally steal candy from babies.

The trailer is interesting because it gives us a glimpse at how the larger world in this game works. Since the game models at entire town rather than a single household, there are more possibilities than before. In this case, it appears that the central character in the trailer is surveilling a house remotely, then drives across town, sneaks in, and does the nefarious deed. Some things never change, though, such as the hot French Maid uniforms.


Trailer - Watch or download the video here (HD available).

To learn more, we tried to get some answers out of executive producer Ben Bill.

IGN: It almost seems unreal that The Sims 3 ships early next year. The game itself was only revealed earlier this year, and it hasn't been shown that widely. What's the reasoning for this stealthy development?

Ben Bell: We didn't want to hype the game before we had something to show. If you look at our past appearances, we've almost always shown some form of gameplay, whether it's a video focused on gameplay or an actual producer or designer demo. We wanted to provide something really new and exciting for our players. We were also still making new and cool expansion packs for The Sims 2 and didn't want to detract from their spotlight.

IGN: We know that The Sims 3 is a bigger game than its predecessors. You simulate an entire town rather than a single house. But how big a town are you talking about? How many households and businesses and sims can the game manage?

Ben Bell: It's quite a big town that we think is the perfect fit for a Sims game. There are dozens of families to meet and visit as well as dozens of destinations that feature cool game and storytelling moments. A big focus of our design is approachability, so we wanted to make a town that was big enough to be interesting, but not so big that it scares away our fans.

There's a December-May relationship.

IGN: What's performance like? What sort of systems are you looking to support? Will a PC that ran The Sims 2 run The Sims 3?

Ben Bell: Performance is coming along really well. This is always at the top of our minds as we know that our player base owns a wide range of computers, from the awesome to the old and slightly sluggish. We're doing our best to give everyone a chance to play our game! We want laptop users as well as supercomputers to have a fun and engaging experience.

IGN: The new personality system is pretty interesting as you can create almost any type of behavior. I'm supposed to ask you about deviousness, so what exactly does this mean in The Sims 3?

Ben Bell: It means that players have a game that changes every time they play if they want it to. There are so many combinations, advantages to certain traits, disadvantages to others, that players can tell almost any story and play that game for months and months. We've iterated the traits so many times--we think players will really smile when they play with them.

You can create anyone you can imagine from an evil kleptomaniac that hates kids to a lazy egomaniac that is a great kisser. Each of these traits are displayed throughout the game, giving your sims one-of-a-kind personalities. If you choose to make your sims evil, they will steal candy from babies, as you saw in the video. Kleptomaniacs will steal from their neighbors.

IGN: Will the game ship with a single town, or will it be like The Sims 2 and ship with several pre-made neighborhoods? Will you be able to create your own town, as well?

Ben Bell: We are shipping with a single town that players can modify and tweak. We're not quite ready to discuss our future plans for additional towns and player editing but as always with the Sims you can expect a few surprises!

You can tell she's devious cause she's sneaky.

IGN: What's the online integration looking like? Do you plan to support direct-to-YouTube movie sharing, like Spore does? Do you imagine some kind of social networking functionality, such as MySpace or Facebook?

Ben Bell: We're very proud of our online community. No other game possesses the fan base of The Sims and we're doing everything we can to give them an incredible online community hub. We have supported strong community integration with The Sims and The Sims 2 and players can expect continued support for the Sims 3. As mentioned before, we're always trying to make the game more approachable and useable so we've tried to make some of the elements of sharing or downloading easier. For example, all of your content can easily be managed from your game launcher; a much more seamless experience than ever before.

IGN: What's a cool story of something that happens in The Sims 3 that could never happen in The Sims 2?

Ben Bell: Going on a date to the beach. A picnic with your family in the graveyard, followed by a quick tour of the catacombs! Finding a rare asteroid on the way home from the science lab only to see your husband arrested. There are so many things that can happen in The Sims 3 that players have never seen before."