
Sid Meier: “I don’t think I could make Civilisation today” - danso
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/games/sid-meier-interview-civilisation-memoir-autobiography-b404968.html
======
safog
Crux of it seems to be:

> It asks a lot of the player, and takes a while to work it out. You have to
> play it once in order to understand what's going on. You have to be willing
> to spend time with it, and that’s not where most gamers are these days.

However, there's plenty of games like this being made today. Paradox games all
require hundreds of hours of playtime before you feel even barely competent at
the game. Stellaris is one of the best games in recent memory for me. CK3 just
came out and is pretty popular.

I don't think gamers today are more / less patient than gamers 30 years ago.
You just have a larger, more varied audience but the type of people that are
attracted to strategy gaming still exist in good numbers.

~~~
an_opabinia
> Paradox games

One brand!

Look at Jon Shafer's experience with At the Gates. A Civilization designer.
Changed too much, and got 3/5 star averages. A one-man show, a literal indie
game, comparable in resources to Civilization 1. This is what Meier is talking
about. Tossed out of Paradox, for that matter.

Firaxis's Beyond Earth has barely 1 person who played at least 1 minute for
every 10 that bought the game. 9/10 buyers just handed over money out of
nostalgia, never playing a minute, nostalgia was and remained the only
compelling association with that product.

Okay, was it a bad game? Who knows, hardly anyone played it. _That 's_ the
crux of what he's saying.

We've barely covered just Civilization-adjacent products.

Anyway, it's preposterous - that Sid Meier has never heard of Paradox, that
he's unaware of their success, and that he hasn't contemplated it. It isn't
about strategy games as a whole, it's about new games, about new experiences
and changing 30% of the formula every year instead of 3% of it.

~~~
KTallguy
> Firaxis's Beyond Earth has barely 1 person who played at least 1 minute for
> every 10 that bought the game. 9/10 buyers just handed over money out of
> nostalgia, never playing a minute, nostalgia was and remained the only
> compelling association with that product.

I bought Beyond Earth for full price at launch out of nostalgia for Alpha
Centauri (of course).

Unfortunately it had many flaws: \- Much less interesting art direction and
characters than Alpha Centauri. \- Gameplay was very one note, with little
meaningful deviation from a few defined paths. \- On release, when you
finished the game it showed a "finish game" button which unceremoniously
dumped you back to the title screen. No opportunity to see stats or review
your empire.

My impression was that it was rushed and had a limited budget, and I never
felt like revisiting it. As sibling comments note, there is a sizable niche of
mostly PC gamers looking for meaty experiences, and I believe Beyond Earth
failed on its own merits.

------
paxys
I don't really buy the argument in the title. The demand for complex video
games hasn't gone anywhere. The recent Civ games have all done well, along
with dozens of other titles in the same genre as well as grand strategy, role
playing, MOBA and more. Yes online shooters are popular, but the gaming market
as a whole has grown substantially. Just look at the player numbers for EVE
Online, Dota 2, X-COM, Starcraft, Crusader Kings, Total War series, Europa
Universalis. Civ is comparatively pretty straightforward.

Kinda related, but "you couldn't make [XYZ] today" is for some reason a very
frequent quote from artists, directors, authors, comedians etc., despite the
fact that works far more brazen/offensive than what they did are being
released every day, and there's definitely a market for it.

~~~
onion2k
Back in the 90s when Civ was released for the Amiga 500 _everyone_ played it.
I was at school at the time, and almost everyone who had a computer had a
copy. It was phenomenally popular.

For comparison, EVE Online has 300,000 monthly active players. Call of Duty
has 30 million. That _implies_ that about 1% of gamers are interested in the
sort of games Sid Meier is talking about. The demand for "complex video games"
absolutely has diminished dramatically as a proportion of the gaming industry.

~~~
paxys
The first Civilization game sold 1.5 million copies across all platforms.
Super Mario World, which released in the same year, sold over 20 million. So
things really haven’t changed all that much. Casual gaming will always have a
larger addressable market.

Even otherwise, the crux is that the entire gaming pie has grown
substantially. There are lots of new genes and platforms which have become
popular, but demand for games like Civ has grown as well.

~~~
onion2k
_The first Civilization game sold 1.5 million copies across all platforms._

There were about 50 people in my year at school playing pirated copies taken
from one original. The kid with an external disk drive and a copy of Cyclone
was very popular.

~~~
wongarsu
As far as I'm aware piracy on PC hasn't decreased.

~~~
onion2k
I was replying the point about Civ selling 1.5m and Mario selling 20m. There
were a lot more people playing Civ than the sales might indicate.

~~~
joveian
Good point, although note that console game rental was also a thing at the
time, it is easy to share cartridges (just not playing at the same time), and
I'd guess there was a larger second hand market in console games as well. So
there would also be more console game players than sales would indicate.

------
eezurr
>"For a long time we were pushing up against the limits of what the computer
could do,” he says. “We were trying to get the most out of the available
hardware and then tap onto the players imagination to provide the rest. That
was the art of game design, to provide that stimulus. You would imagine being
a fighter pilot, or a pirate, or the king of a great civilisation.” Where some
games are more like films, gorgeous to look at but where many of the artistic
decisions have been taken for you, Meier’s games are more like novels,
inviting the reader to fill in the gaps. His maxims."

Leaving the rest up to imagination is the key part IMO. Rollercoaster Tycoon,
Simcity 2 & 4 (never played 3000), Warcraft II (and too some extent, III),
Baldur's Gate I/II.. the graphics are just enough to tell you what's going on,
and your brain fills in the rest of the details. I feel the closer graphics
approach reality, and the more details their are, your brain begins to filter
out those details, and notices the flaws/unpolished pixels, which ends up
taking away from the immersive experience.

~~~
grillvogel
90s PC gaming was a golden era

~~~
sgillen
Feels to me like right now/this last decade is a golden era as well. Factorio,
rimworld, binding of Isaac, dark souls + sekiro, xcom, civ 6, Divinity,
paradox games, Minecraft, subnautica, rocket league. To name a few of my
favorites.

~~~
mywittyname
Today is absolutely the golden age. We stand at the point where making and
selling a game is easier than it has ever been.

I think over the years, people will continue to move away from PCs as a gaming
platform to mobile devices, and shovelware from the casual, pay-to-play game
companies will keep the market so saturated that it will be hard to discover
great indie titles.

PS. your list is missing Disco!

~~~
jointpdf
The term shovelware reminds me of the E.T. incident. A game so bad that Atari
literally got out the shovels:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial)

------
syspec
> "I don’t think I could make Civilisation today,” Meier says. “I’m not sure
> even I would play it. It wouldn’t fit in the zeitgeist. It asks a lot of the
> player, and takes a while to work it out. You have to play it once in order
> to understand what's going on. You have to be willing to spend time with it,
> and that’s not where most gamers are these days. Civ came out at the perfect
> time. The PC had got beefy enough for us to make it, but weren’t inundated
> with so many possibilities. If it had been created two years earlier we’d
> only have had four colours and it would have been much shallower.”

I could agree with that, although on the other hand there are deep simulation
games being released today

~~~
mcv
Well, Civilization 1 certainly wouldn't pass muster today, but that's because
it's too simple, with too many shortcuts. There are far more complex games
today that are doing very well.

------
mbroncano
It’s remarkable they changed the spelling in the title to match the British
customs, one would think this is a proper and not a common name in this
context.

~~~
ChrisSD
Probably just someone running it through a spell checker. Or an over zealous
editor who isn't familiar with the series.

------
smabie
I mean, Crusader Kings 3 seems to be doing well, and it's staggeringly more
complex than Civ. I'm not sure what Sid Meier is talking about. Other
complicated and successful games might include Factorio, Shenzen I/O,
Exapunks, Europa Universalis, or Star Craft.

~~~
hoseja
You can't just "do well"! You have to dive for the lowest common denominator
until you're a unicorn!

------
rvnx
Actual title of the article is: "Sid Meier: ‘I’m not sure I’d play
Civilisation if it was released today’"

~~~
tcgv
The title chosen by the OP is contained in the second half of the article:

> “I don’t think I could make Civilisation today,” Meier says. “I’m not sure
> even I would play it. It wouldn’t fit in the zeitgeist. It asks a lot of the
> player, and takes a while to work it out. You have to play it once in order
> to understand what's going on. You have to be willing to spend time with it,
> and that’s not where most gamers are these days. Civ came out at the perfect
> time. The PC had got beefy enough for us to make it, but weren’t inundated
> with so many possibilities. If it had been created two years earlier we’d
> only have had four colours and it would have been much shallower.”

~~~
agumonkey
It also represents a change in the mystery of computers and games. It was
esoteric and fascinating to see stuff even happen on screen. This made people
want to try and dive in.

I think this issue is even larger, the web also suffers from this. It's all
streamlined and a commercial endpoint.. very very different from the
beginnings.

------
swiley
To the complex game authors of the world: we love what you write! Don’t stop!
Some of us may be busy but we haven’t stopped taking the time to play in the
universes you’ve created!

------
haspok
Civ1 is one of those old games which I can still get lost in, almost 30 (!)
years later (yes, I played it in 1991, I'm that old).

Interestingly, one of the things that puts me off playing anything even
remotely modern is the graphics. Around the mid-90s it was decided that
everything has to be 3D, everything should require the latest, most powerful
graphics card, etc.

In contrast, what kind of a graphics card do you need to play chess? I think
that Civ1 is a bit like chess, albeit more accessible, maybe a bit shallower,
but endlessly fun. I can watch a fancy animation once maybe, then I no longer
care. The gameplay, the balance, the complexity is what it is about for me.

~~~
mercer
You might be missing out on a lot of great games if you feel 'modern' games
are ruined by graphics!

There are tons of pixel-art/2D/retro style games that rival the best of the
oldies, but with 'modern' gameplay (or refined old-skool gameplay).

------
p1necone
The market for these types of games is just as big as it was in the 80s. The
existence of a bigger fish in the mobile market doesn't mean you have to make
soulless crap.

------
justinzollars
I probably owe my interest in programming to this man. Civ 1 was one of the
first games I played as a kid. What an imagination!

------
mcv
Just above the line that everybody else is quoting, the article says:

> _" Despite its near-infinite replayability, Civ is not as easy to pick up
> and learn as many of today’s popular phone or console games. In the book,
> Meier reminds us that the bestselling games of 1998 were Civ 2, Warcraft II,
> Myst, Command & Conquer and Duke Nukem 3D. Aside from the last, all require
> more thought and engagement than the Candy Crushes or Fortnites that
> dominate gaming today."_

I'm not so sure this is true. When my dad bought Civilization in 1992 (just at
the start of my exams; great timing), I jumped straight in and learned
everything while playing the game. My son plays Fortnite, and he sets up
explicit training scenarios to practice certain skills he's decided he needs
improvement in. There's plenty of engagement in modern games.

~~~
koheripbal
Games like Factorio demonstrate that there is still an audience for games that
require thought - not just those we use to numb our brains.

...but at the same time, the gaming market has grown to the general populace,
whereas in 1992, it was more niche. So maybe that niche group remained the
same size, and the general population's craving for addictive numbing games
has just dwarfed it.

------
dylanz
I’ve been watching Potato McWhiskey on YouTube (his games, not streams). He
plays Civ6 and talks about all his moves as he plays. It’s almost more fun to
watch him play than it is to play myself. After watching his videos I pretty
much know every mechanic in the game and it all makes sense now.

Without his videos however, I’d be clicking through and reading the Civopedia
for hours.

Having a virtual mentor via video can turn impossible games into possible
games, and the path to getting there is really fun.

------
christkv
When talking about complexity I was fascinated with this interview of one of
the dwarf fortress developers explaining how the cats kept dying from alcohol
poisoning due to emergent behavior caused by a bug
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VAhHkJQ3KgY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VAhHkJQ3KgY)

~~~
mercer
I played quite a bit but gave up because of the inscrutable UI and ASCII
graphics, so I'm quite excited about the recent developments. Can't wait to
play Dwarf Fortress again once it has actual 'graphics' and (ideally) a better
UI!

------
dehrmann
> ...Meier reminds us that the bestselling games of 1998 were Civ 2, Warcraft
> II, Myst, Command & Conquer and Duke Nukem 3D. Aside from the last, all
> require more thought and engagement than the Candy Crushes or Fortnites that
> dominate gaming today.

It's no Myst, but Candy Crush?!

