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The Armchair Empire has posted a chat with Chris Trotter, designer for Maxis on The Sims and currently helping on the development and updating of The Sims Online. Having worked in close conjunction with famous Sim creator Will Wright and the rest of the Maxis team on development of both products, she is able to give her insight on marketing of The Sims, conceptualization of their products, and where Maxis plans to take the venerable Sim franchise from here.

As a woman on The Sims development team, what feminine touches have your fingerprints all over it that the men on the development team might not had thought of (like possibly romantic elements, for instance; you know how bad most men are with romance).

Well, first off, two of the three designers on The Sims Online are female. And the same was true of The Sims. And the majority of our producers have been female. On The Sims Online, the women were the ones who generated ideas for theater-supporting objects, wedding props, costuming trunks, a vast array of dancing, more satisfying decorative objects, etc. And on the Sims, the women were the ones who pushed very hard for developing the character of The Sims and giving them a greater variety of social interactions with one another. I could go on and on. But at a certain point, we don't really keep track of whose idea was whose. I think the "feminine touches" are just a natural by-product of having women on the team, not a conscious effort to address female players.

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