‘I like being challenged’: Sims boss Lindsay Pearson ‘delighted’ to see more developers trying to break into the life sim space
The Sims franchise creative vice president Lindsay Pearson isn’t worried about other developers trying to stake a claim on EA’s long-standing life-sim monopoly; rather, she welcomes competition. In a conversation with PC Gamer about the series’ 25th anniversary and the future of The Sims, Pearson delved a little deeper into why she thinks the life simulation genre is such a complex formula for others to figure out.
“I think the reason The Sims continues to be so unique is because we’re able to offer such a wide range of content through DLC and over the years,” she said, adding that such a large volume is “really difficult cover a lot of games because maybe it doesn’t always make sense and there’s a lot to do together.”
Similar to what former Sims head Rod Humble told PC Gamer last year when he was working on the now-cancelled Life by You, Pearson pointed out the sheer complexity that creating something of this scale entails. “How do you make all this push and pull in the simulation make some sense? And there’s a very fine balance between being too smart where your characters don’t need you at all, and not being smart enough where they don’t do anything unpredictable,” she said. “It’s really hard to do right. Even The Sims has changed back and forth over the years, right? For example, you go back and play an old Sims game and it’s hard to keep your Sims alive.
“So there’s a balance to be found here. And I think every team that I’ve ever met that’s been in this space struggles to find it, and that’s partly why they end up choosing this particular niche, because then you can really focus on what whatever the story is, so it’s a really open canvas, which is a little scary.”
But despite the problems other developers have faced—the demise of Life by You, the delay of Inzoi until 2025, and even EA’s own problems with Project Rene—Pearson is ready for new challengers to emerge in the life simulation space. “I’m glad to see more people trying because I think we can learn from each other and we can see what’s happening in space and see what players react to and that’s always great,” she said . “I like to be challenged and try new things.”
I’m glad to see that Pearson is ready to welcome her life sim rivals with open arms, and I hope these contenders really start to shine this year. After all, we already have Inzoi, which will hopefully be released in early access on March 28th, which is probably the closest thing to The Sims we have in terms of scale. There’s also the smaller Paralives, which continues to chug along with the blurry 2025 window, and Sims creator Will Wright’s recent revelation of his new fancy-sounding AI-driven life simulator, Proxi.