Neat

In fact, the game was originally designed as an architecture simulation alone, with the Sims there only to evaluate the houses. During development it was decided that the Sims were more interesting than the houses, and a legacy was born. (This is a common trait in Maxis games. SimCity was originally designed as a method for developers to create cities to include in a bomber game that Wright was creating and SimTower was originally designed to reverse-engineer real world elevator algorithms.)
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims

At a certain point, he's actually going to try to make a simulation game and come out with an award winning first person shooter.