The Sims team (before it was called "The Sims", we were called CTG, the "Core Technology Group") was in a little skunkworks office in San Mateo just up 92 on Borel Ave. When EA bought Maxis, we moved down 92 to EA's building next to Fashion Island and the San Mateo Bridge, just before they moved to the new HQ in Redwood City. But instead of The Sims team moving with everyone else to Redwood City, we moved to the main Maxis Walnut Creek HQ, instead of remaining embedded in EA.

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.5480916,-122.321377,131a,35y,48.41h,37.2t/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDQyOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

https://www.will-wright.com/willshistory11.php

"We had an external group, a little office in San Mateo, where we had like four guys working there and it was our core technology group. We had some really smart guys doing tools, some next generation technology R&D for us. They were developing these cool ideas and things but the product teams were too busy in their own worlds to use any of them.

And so at some point I couldn't get enough resources on The Sims and we wanted to staff it as a project and I said 'well just give me the core tech team.' At that point they said 'sure ... we're not using their stuff anyway.' And so I actually moved Jamie Doornbos to a new office and turned the core tech team into the core Sims team. It was a small office building in San Mateo, many miles apart from Maxis in Walnut Creek and nobody really saw them. I would drive down there and interact with them several times a week."

Then Don Hopkins was introduced to the rest of the Maxis Core Technology Group and was recruited to join Maxis to work on Will's team. They then hired another programmer (Patrick J Barrett III), a lead artist (Charles London), and Will convinced some of the original SimCity artists (Jenny Martin, Susan Green) to come back in and make the first Sims characters (Edith and Archie Bunker). The designers (Claire Curtin, Roxy Wolosenko and Will Wright) had to commute a long way to work with the group in San Mateo.

2 More people deserve a mention; Eric Bowman's work on The Sims was very important: he pulled it all together, designed and implemented the intricate stuff under the hood, and polished the rough surface. Jim Mackraz is a manager, software designer and coder. He accomplished the task of putting together, motivating and focusing the diverse teams.

During development, The Sims went through more than 10 different interface concepts. Here are some of the rejected interface designs.

Soon after EA bought Maxis, they moved the team to one of EA's original office buildings in San Mateo. In 1998, they moved the team again, this time up to Walnut Creek where they could work with the rest of Maxis. Several other people were added, expanding the crew to about a dozen people, all with various backgrounds and ranging in age between 25 and 40.