Sims 4 Producer, Ryan Vaughan, has announced today on The Sims forums that he will be leaving The Sims Studio after working on Sims games for 8 years.
All the best for the future Ryan and thank you for all of your hard work!
Hey Simmers!
I wanted to share some news with you. After 8 amazing years, from The Sims 2 Castaway all the way through The Sims 4 Get To Work, the time has come for me to leave The Sims Studio. This has been a deeply personal and challenging decision for me, but it’s one that I believe is the best for the future of my family. The commute between home and the studio is crazy long. When you are a young single game developer it’s something you can cope with, but when you have a young family, that 3 hour commute becomes pretty arduous, no matter how much you enjoy your work.
Make no mistake, my love for this game, the people that make it, and you guys – the people that play it with such passion! – is unwavering. Deciding to leave has been one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.
The memories that I’ve made over the last 8 years working in The Sims Studio are ones that I will cherish for the rest of my life, and I wanted to share just a few of my favorite with you!
• Working on my very first video game, The Sims 2 Castaway, was an incredibly eye opening experience. I was blown away by not only the talent of The Sims Studio’s artists and engineers, but their commitment to creating a high quality product. BTW – Castaway is awesome. If you haven’t played it and still have a Wii or PS2, find yourself a copy – it’s a blast!
• Teasing the announcement of The Sims 3 base game. When we put this image up and unveiled the awesome new TS3 plumbob, I got my first taste of how passionate The Sims Community was. You guys went crazy!
• Working on The Sims 3 Ambitions. This was the first pack that I got to be world producer on, and I learned so much overseeing the creation of Twinbrook. Can you guess who my favorite family is? The Bayless family! Why? Because their family description is the best line of text ever written in a Sims game; The origins of the Bayless name are a bit hard to track down. Written records (where legible) even two generations back use the “less,” “liss” and even “lies” suffix varietals. Debt prison records from 1788 list one Phillipe Bai l’Est as a catfish-thief and “chronic renegor” but lineage is circumstantial at best, and like little Chase says, “Why y’all cares ’bout ‘postrophes?”
• The Sims 3 Town Hall – I wasn’t on stage for this event, but I got to go and it was one of the first times I got to meet some of you in person. It was so cool to talking to you and getting to know you.
• Unveiling The Sims 3 Seasons – Admittedly, my delivery during this presentation was a little shaky (my first big presentation!) but it included my most favorite line I have ever said during a live broadcast “Winter is Coming to The Sims 3!”
• The Sims 3 Island Paradise – The pack was by far the most fun I’ve had developing and releasing a Sims Expansion pack. We did quite a few live broadcasts for these. “AQUA SLEDDDDDD!”
• Gamescom 2013 and Sims Camp – Wow. All I can say is wow. This week was by far the most fun week of “work” I have ever had in my life. Game Demos, Live Broadcasts, BOAT RIDES, and of course a little Kolsch!
I could seriously go on forever.
Words cannot express what working in The Sims Studio for the last 8 years has meant to me, both personally and professionally – it has been a truly awesome experience. And I couldn’t be more excited for the future of The Sims Franchise – Get To Work is just the beginning! There is no other studio like this one, no other game franchise like The Sims, and no other fans like you. I can’t stress enough how big of an impact your encouragement (and criticism) actually has on the development of this game. You guys may not realize it but we simply couldn’t do this without you!
It has been a great pleasure creating this game with you over the last 8 years and can’t wait to see where you’ll take it in the future.
Dag Dag Simmers,
SimGuruRyan
