Game designer 
Will Wright was inspired to create a "virtual doll house" after losing his home during the 
Oakland firestorm of 1991 and subsequently rebuilding his life.
[2][3] Replacing his home and his other possessions made him think about adapting that life experience into a game. When Wright initially took his ideas to the Maxis 
board of directors, they were skeptical and gave little support or financing for the game. The directors at 
Electronic Arts, which bought Maxis in 1997, were more receptive—
SimCity had been a great success for them, and they foresaw the possibility of building a strong 
Sim franchise.
[2]
Wright has stated that 
The Sims was actually meant as a satire of U.S. 
consumer culture.
[4] Wright took ideas from the 1977 architecture and 
urban design book 
A Pattern Language, American psychologist 
Abraham Maslow's 1943 paper 
A Theory of Human Motivation and his 
hierarchy of needs, and 
Charles Hampden-Turner's 
Maps of the Mind to develop a model for the game's 
artificial intelligence.
[2]