Ben Bell gave a small keynote on The Sims 3 at the DICE 2009 Convention.  IGN covered what he had to say:

He opened up by stressing that previous successes of a franchise are a blessing and not a curse. While living up to gamers’ expectations can be difficult, already knowing that you have an audience and that the franchise has been established makes it much easier to jump in and work on the important stuff rather than trying to figure out how to cater it to an unknown audience.

Bell went on to talk about how players use the game in very different way. Some folks will play it as it was designed, some use it only to create houses or items, and some use it to tell stories that they then share with others.

Next up was an overview of the Creator’s Camp that EA held a little while back. The studio brought in some of the top content creators from all over the globe to get a taste of The Sims 3 and to be able to dabble with its creation tools. Bell says that this was very inspirational to the team as they got to see feedback from their biggest fans.

Read what else Ben has to say over at IGN