Success in the videogame industry is cyclical and capricious. Like empires, the great genres rise and fall, often collapsing into dust or years of stasis. The strategy simulation, so dominant in the early ’90s, fell away with the arrival of the firstperson shooter – and even that mercurial genre has seen plenty of casualties. 3D Realms, id and Parallax Software, the godfathers of the immersive blaster, have all floundered. Now strategy is back, with Dota 2, StarCraft II and Crusader Kings. Everything flows.
But somehow the Civilization series has remained, and with it the game’s creator, Sid Meier. Although now more of a behind-the-scenes figure at his studio Firaxis, Meier is still designing, prototyping and providing input on every iteration of the series that cemented his fame. “We’ve been safe in our little niche. We always had a connection with strategy gamers, so there was no need for us to do what other studios were doing. We weren’t ever the hot new thing, but we had the best game in its genre.”
Ironically, though, when Edge launched in 1993, Meier had temporarily moved on to a music generation program called CPU Bach. “Civ had gone out and we were exhausted,” he explains. “We put everything we could think of into that game. We said, ‘Let’s not try to top that right away – let’s do something a little bit different’.” The hiatus from strategy didn’t last long. Colonization came next, then Civilization started calling once more. “It was the kind of game where people would write to us with suggestions and ideas about how we could improve it,” he shrugs. “It took on a life of its own.”
Twenty years ago, Meier was still at Microprose, the simulation specialist he set up with ‘Wild Bill’ Stealey in 1982. Thanks to hit franchises such as F-15 Strike Eagle and Silent Service, the company became a giant of its era with offices around the world and ambitions on new genres. But a mid-’90s corporate buyout by Spectrum HoloByte led to hubris, staff cuts and uncertainty. Meier left in 1996 to form Firaxis. “It was the right decision,” he says today. “We were able to refocus on design with fewer corporate distractions. Microprose was a big company, and that brings a lot of pressure – what we enjoy doing is making games.”
How does the modern industry compare? “Back then, we were pretty much shifting hardware every two years,” he says. “We’d moved from the Atari as our main development platform, to the Commodore 64 and then a little diversion to the Amiga; then we moved over to the PC. And CD-ROMs were just happening: Civ originally went out on about ten floppy disks. Also, there were big changes in graphics and audio – Civ started out in 16 colours, with one speaker sound… The industry is a lot more stable these days. But that’s not to say it isn’t interesting.”
After a few years in the specialist wilderness, strategy games are back. With XCOM, Firaxis made one of the most critically acclaimed titles of 2012, and elsewhere Clash Of Clans is proving that deeper tactical experiences are possible on smartphones. “What’s interesting about strategy games is that the audience seems to stick with them for a long time,” says Meier of the genre’s hardiness. “We have a community of Civ players that have been around for 20 years, and they continue to come up with ideas and energise the game. I think the strategy genre has a part to play in whatever direction the industry goes, whether that’s online all the time, or more about indie games, or these new consoles. Are we going to wear augmented-reality technology? I don’t know, but our job is to go in whatever new direction the industry takes.”
We talk a little about what Meier likes to play. Of course, he has explored strategy titles such as Age Of Empires and StarCraft, but he has also dabbled in firstperson shooters, surprisingly namechecking Call Of Duty as well as racing games such as Gran Turismo. He has watched the rise of the indie scene with interest. “Five or six years ago, you felt you needed a huge budget and there was a very limited pipeline – only a few people got to design and make games,” he says. “Now there are so many distribution channels, so many places to find games; and the tools available are leading to this real explosion of creativity. There are so many more games than you could ever play. The problem now is finding them and finding the time to play them.”
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it’s Minecraft that he’s been playing the most. We suggest there are interesting parallels with Civilization: both games are about providing the player with a creative landscape they must master. “It would be wonderful if we had anything to do with inspiring Minecraft,” Meier laughs. “It was SimCity originally that introduced the whole paradigm that it’s the player building the world. It’s a very powerful idea. Games like Civ and Minecraft [make] the player the star, and what they end up with is unique to them. You don’t get that watching a movie. In these games it’s your own ideas, your own thoughts. Games that emphasise that are really taking advantage of this medium.”
Meier is so amiable, so contented, that it’s difficult to coax him into negativity or reproach. The closest we get is when we ask about how Zynga repurposed some of the key compulsion loops of the strategy genre into its Ville titles. “It did not really resonate with me,” he says. “When I heard about the metrics and the compulsion loops – scientifically taking apart the psychology of gameplay – I can’t relate to that. It’s not where I start when I make a game.” Where does he begin? “I take a topic I think is fun and exciting, and think of a way to give the player a sense of ownership over that topic – give them interesting things to do. I don’t claim it’s the right approach but it’s the only one that works for me.”
We ask about the future of gaming: where’s it all heading? “I don’t know! There’s a sense that something big is going to happen; I wish I knew what that was going to be. Yes, we have all these different platforms, we have all this technology, we’re constantly plugged in. Just about anyone can play games these days. So, do we all become game makers and stop being game players – is that what’s going to happen? Does our life become a game? We’re at an interesting crossroads.”
Finally, would you still make Civ if you were a young designer right now? For a moment there is silence. “I see a lot of games out there today with hints and traces of Civilization,” Meier says finally. “If I were just starting out as a designer today and Civilization didn’t exist, I would have to make it… It still makes sense.”
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