It pains me to recall how crude and primitive it was even a year and a half before the release (check out the awful flamingo and telephone and fish tank graphics, not to mention the characters and animations themselves, like pot-bellied Archie Bunker always holding a cigar in his hand, and the naughty scenario description text @ 40:44) -- a whole lot of content and user interface and tuning was done at the very last moment:
The Sims Steering Committee - June 4 1998. A demo of an early pre-release version of The Sims for The Sims Steering Committee at EA, developed June 4 1998.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC52jE60KjY&ab_channel=DonHo...
Chris Trottier, one of the designers, calls it "Tuned Emergence" and "Design by Accretion":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20772916
Here's an interview with Chris Trottier, one of the designers of The Sims, in which she describes "Tuned Emergence and Design by Accretion".
Sims Designer Chris Trottier on Tuned Emergence and Design by Accretion
https://web.archive.org/web/20110408034710/https://www.donho...
>Chris' honest analysis of how and why "the gameplay didn't come together until the months before the ship" is right on the mark, and that's the secret to the success of games like The Sims and SimCity.
>The essential element that was missing until the last minute was tuning: The approach to game design that Maxis brought to the table is called "Tuned Emergence" and "Design by Accretion". Before it was tuned, The Sims wasn't missing any structure or content, but it just wasn't balanced yet. But it's OK, because that's how it's supposed to work!
>In justifying their approach to The Sims, Maxis had to explain to EA that SimCity 2000 was not fun until 6 weeks before it shipped. But EA was not comfortable with that approach, which went against every rule in their play book. It required Will Wright's tremendous stamina to convince EA not to cancel The Sims, because according to EA's formula, it would never work.
>If a game isn't tuned, it's a drag, and you can't stand to play it for an hour. The Sims and SimCity were "designed by accretion": incrementally assembled together out of "a mass of separate components", like a planet forming out of a cloud of dust orbiting around star. They had to reach critical mass first, before they could even start down the road towards "Tuned Emergence", like life finally taking hold on the planet surface. Even then, they weren't fun until they were carefully tuned just before they shipped, like the renaissance of civilization suddenly developing science and technology. Before it was properly tuned, The Sims was called "the toilet game", for the obvious reason that there wasn't much else to do!