Celebrating 25 Years of The Sims: Ash Wait

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. For associate producer Ash Wait, the update that immediately jumps to mind is the team’s recent Everyday Pride release, which was a true labor of love for her and many others. Read all about Ash and her passion for base game updates below!

What was your first role on The Sims, and how has it changed over time?

Officially I joined Maxis in 2021. I actually started working on Spark’d – the Sims reality TV show – before that, but that technically wasn't part of Maxis. I was a tagging producer for the first seven or eight months, and then I came onto the kits team. I actually took on Kits Lead for a little while. It was way out of my experience range, but I'd already been hanging out with the kits team and doing a lot with them, which really helped me. I got to learn a whole lot about being a producer. Then we hired for the Kits Lead position, and I got to move to working on what I do now, which is the base game.

I really love it because I get to focus on things that enhance the entire experience. Like our recent birthday release – it added around 70 Build Mode and Create-A-Sim assets to modernize the base game. Players were really excited about that. I also get to focus on ways to bring content into our base game that helps players feel seen and play in ways that represent who they are as people. 

What’s the first thing you worked on?

When I first joined, I was the tagging producer, so I organized everything in the game, basically. If it's a decoration or a hat or a certain kind of lot, the tagging producer does everything on the backend to make sure that you know where to find things and that you can search by color or style, anything like that. They also get to do a lot with the styled rooms and styled looks. 

I knew the game really well and I had a lot of really great ideas for the role, but coming in and working with people that I had loved for so long, I felt like I had a lot on my shoulders. I was a Game Changer before I came on with The Sims, so I got a lot of access that a regular player wouldn't get. That in itself was amazing. So being here for this long and getting to do the work that I do is just… I still go, “Oh, my God, I work on The Sims. This is so weird.” 

But I really enjoyed the role, and I really got to do a lot of different things with it. I also get a lot of pleasure out of organizing things, so that helped, too. And now, being able to help make the base game even stronger and inclusive is just the cherry on top of everything else.

What’s the most meaningful thing you’ve worked on and why?

Definitely the Everyday Pride release. We're really lucky. We got to work with GLAAD as our consultants on that, but also a number of the people who worked on it are part of the LGBTQ+ community. I'm part of it. It was really personal to us, and we really wanted it to be a heartfelt and authentic release, especially since they’re a huge portion of our community. I think it's important for them to get a little bit of love from us, though it was also really personally special to be able to work on.

We really just wanted it to be stuff that you would find at a small business or from your local LGBTQ+ creator, you know? You might have gotten a wall hanging from a festival, something like that. We wanted it to be stuff that you could carry from home to home or your Sim could wear to a festival or in the everyday. We hope that players see the love that went into the release.

How does your personal experience help shape your work?

I've played The Sims since it came out. I even played SimTown and SimFarm, which came out before The Sims. I've also been really active in the community. I had a Tumblr, and I streamed the Sims on Twitch. I got to do a lot of stuff with The Sims before I even came on. It's been a really big part of my history and just my life lore, and I think that knowledge of and familiarity with the game itself has given me a deep understanding of the personality of the Sims franchise. I love that Sims perkiness.

Being familiar with the game and then being in the trenches and seeing what players love and what they want to see in the game, it just kind of gives me a bag full of ideas that I can pull out at any time. And it really goes straight into our releases. Even before we start conceiving things, I'm outlining, like, “These are things that players love” or “This is how players would love to see it.”

How important is it for Maxis to allow players to see themselves in The Sims?

It’s vitally important that players are able to make themselves later in life, or, you know, experience who they want to be outside of wherever they're living, even if it's another road in life. Like, even if they're an adult but they wanted to be an artist or something, they can still go and do that. We’re always working to add more ways to live as a Sim and represent yourself or people in your life. As a Simmer, it means so much to me that representation is such a big part of what The Sims is, and that we're continuously encouraged to find more ways to add to it. I can't wait to see what else we can bring to players!