For the past 25 years, our team has poured its passion into deep, thoughtful, and authentic experiences that reflect life’s many possibilities (as well as a few fantastical possibilities we wish existed). But life, as it turns out, is pretty darn big, which is why we’re constantly introducing new content and features to expand The Sims universe into a story-telling platform that’s representative of its player community.
As part of our ongoing birthday celebration, we’re talking to our team members about the most meaningful projects they’ve been a part of since joining The Sims family and exploring the ways in which their unique perspectives have informed the features and updates we’ve added over the past 25 years. One of those features – Romantic Boundaries – proved to be particularly meaningful for Senior Game Designer Josh Contreras, who oversaw its development from start to finish.
What was your first role on The Sims, and how has it changed over time?
I've been working with Maxis since August of 2019. A little fun fact is, I was originally hired at EA in January of 2019, but I worked at a different studio right near Maxis, one floor up. I was a part of Command & Conquer Rivals. But then, after about eight or so months, I transitioned to Maxis, and I've been working here ever since – almost six years.
When I first joined Maxis, the design department was actually divided into two fields: system design and technical design. I was a system designer, which is primarily responsible for creating feature sets, whereas technical designers take those feature sets and actually build them into software.
Over time, I would say that has changed quite a bit, partly because of departmental changes, but also just my personal career goals. Some of those goals relate to being a design lead. On the project that we're working on now, that's actually the role that I've stepped into. I'm co-leading the project with another team member, which is my first time doing something like this. It’s been exciting – full of challenges, but a lot of fun as well.
What’s the first thing you worked on?
At the time, the team was working on the Discover University Expansion Pack. I had a hand in helping with the law and engineering careers, as well as Juice Pong – quite opposite things to work on [laughs]. I had only worked maybe about a year and a half or two years out of school before joining EA, so it came full circle. I was going to school, actually doing the thing, and then I ended up having my career where it's like, “Hey, I'm working on school-related things.”
One of the things that I think is very interesting about The Sims is that there is so much content and so much history to the game. I mean, we're celebrating its 25th birthday. In my time here, I feel like I've gotten a much better understanding of just how we operate as a studio and the things that our players want.
What’s the most meaningful thing you’ve worked on and why?
I think the thing that is most meaningful to me is actually a feature called Romantic Boundaries. This released alongside the Love Struck Expansion Pack as a base game update, so anyone who had the game had access to it. I was the feature owner on the design side, so I was working with various other disciplines like gameplay engineers to get this built and put into the game.
It's important to me because it really opened up a whole new dynamic of storytelling that wasn't possible before because the addition of Romantic Boundaries essentially allows players to control what actions cause their Sim to become jealous or not become jealous. Prior to that, players had absolutely no control over that. Whatever systems we had set up that caused jealousy, they simply did so. Empowering players to control those circumstances and dynamics is really powerful because this is ultimately a game about life, and we all interact in different ways. And essentially, this creates another lens for people to tell their particular story.
One of the first places that we got to show this off was actually part of the Love Struck developer livestream. The reception was very positive. I think a lot of that had to do with the care that we took when building it to make sure we were checking all the right boxes and representing these types of behaviors appropriately. We wanted to make sure that type of behavior was represented in the truest, best way possible, so a lot of the work that I did for that was research, talking with others who shared life experiences with this, and working with a consultant.
How does your personal experience help shape your work?
I don't know if there's one single thing that I can sort of point to, but I feel like my experience in life, the makeup of my household, my upbringing, the schools that I went to… all of that is just part of me. It shaped me to be who I am today, and that only gets further multiplied by the other people that we're working with. Everyone's life is just totally different.
My dad is Mexican, so there were a lot of customs and traditions and stuff that we did or that I learned from that side of the family. So, you know, I think I offer something unique in that regard. Again, that's one of the beautiful things about working on a game like The Sims 4: you're coming together with all of these people working on the project to tell their stories and get their life experiences.
How important is it for Maxis to allow players to see themselves in The Sims?
Allowing individuals to express their true authentic selves within The Sims 4 is basically at the heart of everything that we're trying to do with this game. Everyone's life is different, and people have different experiences that make them unique. So it's really neat to be in an environment where you see inclusion in that way. I also think it's really important that we put that power into players’ hands. This is a game about life, and everyone wants to feel seen. Everyone wants to feel heard. So the more tools that we can give our players to tell their stories and make them feel that way… it’s just going to be a big win for what we do.