Gamasutra has another article worth reading, "Keeping Up with the Sims". It's about the problems of managing the production of the enormous amount of content when producing expansion packs for the Sims. Eletronic Arts outsources the production of sprite art for the Sims to New Pencil. It's interesting to read how they deal with the production of a vast number of images that all have to fit in with the style of the Sims game.