The Sims 5 might have a Competitive Mode

More news regarding the development of the next Sims Game, or as we call The Sims 5, have surfaced on the official website for Maxis Careers.

3 new job positions have opened up in EA Redwood, EA Austin and EA Canada all looking for a Backend Software Enginner who will help develop features and prototypes for an upcoming Sims game. In the listing they’ve stated that they’re looking for software engineers who are capable of developing massively scalable and reliable web services that will support millions of players, as well as other responsibilites during the game’s development.

In the listing they’ve mentioned a particularly interesting task regarding web services and “cheating prevention”:

• Develop responsive, resilient, massively scalable, and globally available web services that support millions of players
• Creatively blend security best practices and original techniques to keep user data secure and prevent cheating

In case you’re out of the loop in regards of other competitive video games, cheating is something that video game companies are battling with in their competitive, multiplayer and online video game franchises. There are plenty of 3rd party tools out there that illegally allow players to advance and “cheat” in their game and developers are always looking for new solutions and updates that will prevent players from doing so.

This isn’t the first time that “competitive” features have been mentioned for the next Sims game. Andrew Wilson, EA’s CEO has stated in the beginnning of 2020 that they’re actively thinking about bringing competition features to the next Sims game, inspired by the features of The Sims Online that was present in early 2000s.

As Maxis continues to think about The Sims for a new generation – cross-platforms and a cloud of a neighborhood world, you should imagine while we will always stay true to our inspiration, escape, creation, self-improvement, motivations – that this notion of social interactions and competition like the kind of things that were actually present in The Sims Online many many years ago – that they will start to become a part of The Sims experience in the years to come.

We are very excited. This is a game that really doesn’t have any competition in its category for delivering and fulfilling these motivations for players and we think of the tremendous growth opportunities for us for many many years to come.

There’s plenty of more clues and information regarding the development of the next Sims Game. You can catch up on that information in our The Sims 5 News Category!

You can find the full requirements and information for future Backend Software Enginners for the next Sims Game down below:

Job Summary

At Maxis, we’re looking for a software engineer to work on cloud web services to help us bring exciting new features to life. You will work with an experienced team that has collectively built Maxis games for more than two decades. You will work with multiple designers, producers, and client engineers prototyping and shipping features that expand the gameplay possibilities of The Sims. You will report to a Development Director for the backend services team and the bulk of your work will be done in Java and Kotlin, using the Spring Boot framework, deployed to Kubernetes in the Google Cloud Platform.

As a Backend Software Engineer at Maxis, you will

• Develop responsive, resilient, massively scalable, and globally available web services that support millions of players
• Creatively blend security best practices and original techniques to keep user data secure and prevent cheating
• Apply and improve service deployment and troubleshooting strategies that maximize uptime
• Drive design and implementation of APIs and protocols that are consistent, formalized, and testable
• Demonstrate excellent technical problem-solving skills under iteratively changing requirements during game development
• Author and review technical design documents and API specifications detailing software requirements
• Maintain a suite of automated tests that validate the correctness of backend services

Qualifications

Please note that you do not need to qualify for all requirements to be considered. We encourage you to apply if you can meet most of the requirements and are comfortable opening a dialog to be considered

• Bachelor/Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related field.
• 3+ years of job experience in a hands on coding role
• You’ve shipped and supported scalable web services hosted in the cloud
• You own large systems and features from design to deployment, including live service support
• You develop high-quality, testable software
• You have a desire to work with client engineers and designers to iteratively add features and improve APIs
• You develop APIs for products that release new updates with zero downtime strategies and tools
• You have experience with load testing, troubleshooting, and optimizing performance of web services
• You work on software that requires developing and optimizing queries and database access patterns
• You’re willing to iterate quickly and develop multiple short-lived prototypes
• You have excellent written and verbal communication skills
• You’re a motivated self-starter; able to operate with autonomy
• You have a desire to teach and learn from your peers