Will Wright, designer of The Sims and SimCity, has been interviewed again. This time at GameStudies. It's a long interview, with many, many questions. Here's a small highlight:

"In The Sims people tend to veer off in a different direction. Some people go off into the storytelling thing. So eventually the metaphor becomes that of a director on a set. Youre trying to coerce these actors into doing what you want them to do, but theyre busy leading their own lives. And so you get this weird conflict going on between you and The Sims where youre trying to tell a story with the game but they want to go off and eat, and watch TV, and do whatever."

So that's why we're always shouting at our game when the Sims don't do what we want them to do? Anyway, the whole interview doesn't discuss just The Sims, but also some of Will's other hobbies: robotics and board games, especially the game Go. It also mentions The Sims Online and SimCity. The whole interview can be read here.

Update: Apparently, this interview is nearly a year old (5 Sept 2001) and has slipped through as new news somehow. Nevertheless it's still worth the mention. Thanks to Sumit for noticing.