Could be one of the few lines of source code survived, as an small office fire in 2001 caused troubles.
Basically the predecessor of The Sims was SimTown (also by Maxis). It was a smaller scale SimCity meets The Sims gameplay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTown
Later SimsVille was meant to evolve the gameplay in the same direction again, though it go canceled (source code lost due office fire). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimsVille
Almost all the [Maxis] games development data was lost during a small office server room fire [in 2001], that resulted in most of the game being developed again from scratch, according to this source: https://www.unseen64.net/tag/maxis/
Basically the predecessor of The Sims was SimTown (also by Maxis). It was a smaller scale SimCity meets The Sims gameplay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTown
Later SimsVille was meant to evolve the gameplay in the same direction again, though it go canceled (source code lost due office fire). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimsVille
Almost all the [Maxis] games development data was lost during a small office server room fire [in 2001], that resulted in most of the game being developed again from scratch, according to this source: https://www.unseen64.net/tag/maxis/