Transcription
Sid Meyer inhabits a rarified strata of video game developers and is one of the greatest names in the medium. Starting at MicroProse in 1982, he established the turn-based strategy genre and has done it compellingly and successfully all the way until now. In 2013, we had a rare opportunity to sit down and talk about his legacy, his philosophy, and why he so steadfastly maintains this one particular genre. [Music]
Thank you so much for your time. Um, let's let's start at the beginning. Um, you grew up in Canada, went to school at the University of Michigan. At at this point, are you already sort of aware—I mean, games on computers was not all that pervasive. You know, the Atari system had been out; we had stuff in arcades. I mean, was were you already formulating, you know, your path of really developing sophisticated games for the PC?
Uh, not that particular path probably, but I've been a gamer since I was, you know, this this high. Um, I remember covering the living room floor with uh, toy soldiers and things and whatever. So I've been playing games for a long time. Um, and uh, at the University, I got interested in computers. Uh, this was mainframes and decks of cards, 80-column cards, and the the the bad old days—not the good old days, the bad days. Um, um, and and I actually made a few games in in that in in that place. I did like a tic-tac-toe game, you know, um, but it was shortly after I got out of college that the Atari 800 came out, and that was really what coalesced my interest in gaming and computers. And I saw the opportunity to put those two cool things together and become a game designer. And in those days, to become a game designer, you just kind of sat down in front of your computer and started typing code into the machine, and uh, you know, that was all it that was all it took. So my first game was a ripoff of uh, Space Invaders, which I wrote in assembly—hand-assembled in a 6502 Assembly Language—uh, on a cassette tape. Um, those were still the bad old days; we hadn't gotten to the good old days quite yet.
Yeah. Um, but I wonder how much of our audience is understanding—they don't know what a cassette tape is, much less you can actually use it with a computer.
Yes, you don't want to know about that. Um, and I went to like a local electronic store with about 10 of these in a baggie, and um, and they bought them, and I was on my way. So that was kind of how I got started as a game designer. I I I I love how you mentioned that, you know, you always sort of play with toy soldiers on the floor, and it kind of, you know, I think it's important because when you were starting out, there wasn't an established sort of logic for game design, for for how just the game structure was built on. So what were your influences in how you looked at games? Granted, Space Invaders was out, but you were looking at doing something far more sophisticated down the line.
I I think so. I mean, I'd played uh, board game strategy games, things like that, Avalon Hill, SBI, those those games. Um, and I think that, you know, you're exactly right; it was uh, Space Invaders was cool, fun, but it it really kind of showed the way to the potential of, you know, what games could really be, and that was what was kind of fired my imagination—was was taking this technology and doing, you know, more strategy, more more sophisticated, deeper games. Um, and uh, you know, again, we didn't have a road map at that point; we didn't have these genres that we had to stick to, you know, we could just make whatever game we felt like. And you know, with a game like Pirates, we combined some role-playing and some action and some strategy, and and it was those were the good old days when we could kind of, you know, basically say, "Let's let's make a game," and uh, whatever, you know, whatever topic hasn't been covered yet. And uh, and growing up, I I, you know, I I did play all these games, but I also kind of developed an interest in history and things like that. I remember reading—my dad gave me a cool big book about the Civil War—and I remember reading through that and saying, "You know, this will make a cool game someday." Uh, and that I think that's um, one of the things that the people ask me, you know, "How do I become a game designer? You know, what courses should I take, etc." And there's a lot of technical courses and things like that that are useful, but I really encourage people to have an interest outside of games. You know, games have to be about something; they can't be about other games necessarily. So, you know, I hope people have an interest in history or science or music or whatever it is that they can bring their own interest to gaming and expand what we do—not just make games about games that have already been made.
Now, if you look at the very early years of MicroProse, which I believe started in 1982,
Yeah, I think that's correct.
Yeah, and um, prior to Pirates, you're still looking at games that are, I guess, for for a lack of a better word, grounded in some semblance of reality—that they're they're not indulging the sci-fi or the fantasy elements all that heavily. And then, you know, there's that transition into Pirates, which yet again is not the most fantastical representation of piracy back in the 17th century. Was were you always kind of committed to just finding the adventure in real life?
I think so. What our our idea was really that you could you could come to our games with kind of what you already knew about flying or or pirates or history or or whatever—that they there was something cool about those topics that that you would kind of already bring in your imagination because your imagination was a key component in a game that had four colors and uh, you know, 320-resolution screen. You had to add a lot in your mind to bring that to life. Now, um, our approach was to kind of uh, find the fun—what what are the cool parts um, of this topic—and bring them to life. I mean, a game like Pirates, we avoided things like scurvy and you know, six-month-long voyages and you know, kind of the not-so-much-fun part and uh, tried to, you know, it was kind of a combination of the the swashbuckling movie approach and uh, enough of the historical accuracy to kind of ground it in the real world. Um, we've heard stories from people that kind of learned their geography of the Caribbean from playing Pirates. Uh, so that was accurate to that extent. And you know, there's a kid that kind of has a sixth-grade geography teacher was amazed that he knew all the the the ports in the Caribbean 'cause he played Pirates. Um, but in those days, we we actually did a lot of our research uh, by getting children's picture books of the topic because that would really highlight, you know, kind of what what's the uh, the common currency of this topic, you know, what's what are the cool things, and that would give us some visual ideas but also kind of tell us what what to highlight in the game. And uh, so we would do our initial research uh, picking up a few children's books about the topic, and later on we'd, you know, we'd write a 60-page manual about the whatever it was, but that that really wasn't the foundation of our games.
Pirates was kind of the big transitional moment, you know. It was the first um, game that had your name above the title, but more importantly, it really was the first establishment of the turn-based type of gameplay that that that you're so well known for. Now, what what was sort of what what was it—technology that allowed you to do that? What what was that turning point?
Um, you're right; we had been doing essentially military simulation games. We had done Silent Service—we're a submarine, a couple airplane games, etc. Um, those were fun; I enjoyed those. Um, but uh, you know, as a designer, you want to break out a little bit and do something new. And actually, one of our um, one of our producers had this idea, you know, "Why don't we do a pirates game? It would be would be cool." And it kind of sparked some ideas in my mind about how we could do things a little differently. Um, we also developed um, a technology—this is really hardcore—but on the Commodore 64, uh, one of the ways you could bring to do art was by folding it into a font. And uh, we had this cool tool uh, where the artist could actually draw a a picture, a beautiful picture, and then you press a button, and it would fold it into a font, which was a very efficient way to store it. So um, we had this way of bringing the game to to life in a series of kind of pictures and and text—almost like a literary—is for the time uh, approach. So um, we we combined that technology with the idea of um, "What if there was an adventure game that uh, wasn't about uh, picking up every object in the room and going north, south, east, and west, but kind of had the a movie quality about it—where what are the key plot moments—and you just kind of make a decision of what port do I go to, where do I visit?" Uh, anyway, it's kind of a fast-moving adventure type of game, and then combine that with some action and role-playing and all sorts of other things. Um, we said, "Yeah, let's do that." Um, you know, we had no uh, we had no fear in those days, apparently.
Not I mean, what you're describing there is kind of what is still considered to be most valuable in games now, which is that sense of player agency and ownership over their own decisions, which yes, it's feasible now, but it still takes quite a while back then. I'm I'm I'm I'm actually having a hard time understanding how you guys a could just sort of map out how it's designed and then B make it work on the existing technology.
Those were two challenges, but again, we had no fear. Uh, we wanted this open-world game. I think that's one of the things people really responded to in Pirates—that it had one of the first games that had this open-world feel that you could go wherever you wanted. Um, sail here, sail there. You know, "I'm going to be allied with the British for a while; no, I think I'll go with the French or the Dutch," or you know, it had this uh, "write your own story" quality that uh, turned out to be uh, I think one of the things that people really remembered from that game and and kind of uh, uh, you know, is one of their fond memories. Um, we didn't we didn't know why we couldn't do that, so we just we just did it. Um, we were young and fearless, and and it it worked out, so happy.
So so from Pirates, I believe the next title—maybe not the exactly next one, but the next major title—was Railroad Tycoon. Um, I think once again, in in the modern era of games, I think walking into an office with executives saying, "Hey, we're going to do a railroad simulator," and they're not—you're probably not going to get the most positive responses. What was kind of the impetus to do something that I guess, on some level philosophically, it was similar to Pirates, but it it very much was sort of a a a heavy simulation of a business business practice that has since gone extinct in in the United States?
Uh, once again, we were fearless. Uh, it actually Railroad Tycoon actually started as a model railroading game, um, because model railroads are are cool, but they take an incredibly long time to make, and you spend more time working on them than actually running the railroad. So so we thought, "Hey, you know, if we could do it on the computer, you can do it really quickly and have the fun of actually running your railroad and and less of the pain of actually building." So that that was kind of the, you know, step one—was make a model railroad simulator—and then as well as long as we got this, "Why don't we, you know, show make some money and have a reason to run your trains?" Okay. Uh, well, let's make it historical and add, you know, the history of trains and those cool old trains and then modern diesels and and make it uh, you know, the the East Coast, and then, well, let's add the West, and well, Europe has some cool trains too, so let's make a European scenario. And actually, towards the end, we said said, "Well, this would be more exciting if there were other railroads competing against you," so you had some real incentive to do really well. So we added that. Um, kind of it was it was pretty shaky, but um, it was—as many of our games—they they grow incrementally, you know. You kind of say, "We start with a um, what are those core fun things and get them in there," but then, "Oh, you know, we got to add this, and we need some of this," and and you you also identify what the holes are in your game. You know, "It's it's not so much fun over here, but it would be more fun, you know, if we added competition—really give me an incentive to to uh, you know, to to make my railroad run as efficiently as possible," or um, you know, "I get kind of bored, so I'm going to need later engines and more and more. I need I need the sense of progress," you know. So you kind of identify what the problems are in the game and and find the solutions from from those history books or whatever, you know, that that kind of makes the game a full experience. And that happened with the with Railroad Tycoon, which I think was a far more effective and far more enjoyable way of learning about the role of the railroads in American history than reading that book, *The Octopus*, which is really really kind of tiring old.
Well, that I think, you know, you've hit on really the key to most of our games and many games is that they they give you the opportunity to tell your own story as opposed to, you know, reading somebody else's story. And um, in that process, you're actually learning something. And um, uh, you we're often asked about our games, you know, "Are they educational? You know, are they shouldn't they be used in a school curriculum?" Um, yes, they should, but um, but we're not uh, setting out to be educational. Um, but people enjoy learning, and that that kind of joy is learning is is is is hidden in there.
Well, it's because of the systems, I think. Once you sort of see how it all works together, there's a sense of discovery and invention that that that that goes along with it.
Yeah, and you and you can sense that, "Oh, I'm better at this than I was last week or two weeks ago," you know. You get that feeling of progress and understanding things better and and and wanting to try, you know, get even better or try a different uh, strategy or something like that, and that keeps you coming coming back to play over and over again.
So Pirates, the railroad industry, and then it's like, yeah, let's just do Civilization. Um, I mean, I'm I'm assuming you're about to tell me you're rather fearless in this regard as well, but I mean, that is still—I mean, I I don't know—I almost want to say was it was was it audacious to take on something so massive?
Yes, I guess it was. Uh, we we did actually say almost exactly what you, you know, we did railroads; what's bigger than railroads? You know, we liked the uh, the kind of God game paradigm where you start very small and build something of your own design. We like the um, the interaction of systems—like the operation, the finances, the competition. Uh, we like the way those all kind of work together. Um, so what's a topic that's bigger than than railroads but can kind of have this quality of starting small and growing over time, having a number of different aspects and considerations that that interact with each other in an interesting way? And um, we said Civilization. Um, there it it just felt like the next step, you know, taking that kind of empire-building concept of railroads and cranking it up a little bit. And I mean, it it was quite diverse in terms of, you know, it it had that core that was in Pirates that was in Railroad Tycoon of, you know, you you have a lot of player agency and how you build your civilization. It was based on sort of the logic of how civilizations were, you know, established.
Was when you started out, did you foresee it being as ambitious as it would end up being?
It was actually more ambitious. Uh, we we we actually had to do more paring down and uh, then we did adding in that game. I mean, the topic is so rich that um, the problem we had was what not to put in the game, really. And um, we we kind of came upon this idea of the tech tree fairly early, and that became kind of the core of the game—that that really controlled the the rate and the and the the extent to which it got more complicated and more interesting. Um, it gave us a tool—kind of a rational tool—to um, start with a with a fairly small set of options and and choices and then make that grow over time at a rate that the player kind of controlled. I think they said, "Oh, I want to research, you know, iron working next, and that's going to allow me to build some of these things," you know. So we weren't imposing complexity on the player; we were allowing them to uh, generate their own complexity and their own growth uh, through the game.
You—in my mind, frankly, Civilization is a pretty simple game. It um, the individual systems themselves are are, you know, very straightforward. The you have a a bucket, and if you fill it with food, another, you know, your population grows. You know, have another bucket; if you fill it with hammers, then a, you know, spearman appears or whatever. Those are, you know, very very simple things. My my guy can move two squares per per turn, you know. I mean, the the fundamentals of that game are very straightforward and and you know, comprehensible, but you bring to the game your idea of Napoleon or your your ideas about Gandhi and and how that person should how Gandhi should react and and why is Gandhi threatening me with nuclear weapons? You know, it's so you're you're adding to the game a lot of your own imagination, and that's what makes I think it helps it to feel um, huge and and you know, and and and fun. It's large—Civilization, right?
Exactly.
Um, how many people worked on that game?
I'd say about eight, 8 to 10, um, you know, directly. Uh, I did—I believe I I did almost all the programming on that game. We might have had some graphics tools. Um, I apologize to anybody that I'm slighting. Um, but I think the point being—much smaller than what teams you make these days.
Yes. I I wrote the AI and the gameplay code. Um, we had four or five artists uh, doing different parts. Actually, a lot of the map graphics that ended up in the final game, especially on the four-color version, are one are the graphics that I created really initially for the prototype. Uh, so yeah, it was a very very very different uh, team structure in those days than than uh, than some of our games are today. You know, we're we're probably going to talk about that, but we're kind of getting back in some ways to that that model again. But yeah, it was a it was a small team, uh, probably under a year of development time, um, and um, those were the those were the good old days.
So I mean, probably not just them, but not long afterwards, we start to see sort of the new transitions of what's happening in in in video games. We're getting into the era of Doom and Quake, you know, and and the action game graphics. You know, suddenly there's there's graphics accelerators, but you decided to sort of stick with what you did. I mean, I I I like to think that, you know, that that turn-based strategy was also—it was predicated on the fact that you really couldn't do something that that was real-time with the technology that was at hand, but even when the technology had shifted, you know, you really wanted to sort of stick with what what you did. So well, and it worked out for you, but I'm curious if you had started to flirt with the ideas of, "Hey, maybe we need to kind of keep pace with the Joneses."
That was something that we we certainly talked about, but um, um, it was really our feeling that turn-based um, was not just because we couldn't do real-time; it was a a a genre that made sense uh, you know, regardless—because of the uh, the kind of play control over the the uh, the pace of decision-making—that that that allowed a lot of people to play who might not be comfortable in a turn a real-time game. And it also allowed us to present deeper decisions. You know, if if you have enough time—as much time as you want—to to make decisions, they can be more complicated and and and kind of involve different different things. Um, you know, we loved the Age of Empires series; you know, those were very fun games, and those were kind of, you know, in a way Civilization made real-time, and um, you get you know, you get some things for that, and you have to give up some things for that. Um, so you know, we we were able to cover this whole span of history and um, you know, this epic story um, at maybe a lower level of intensity, whereas you know, Age of Empires is a lot of fun; it's it's a very intense game; things are moving quickly. Um, so you know, those are really two different games; they're just two different approaches that are driven in large part, I think, by the turn-based versus real-time uh, you know, core that they have. Um, and so yeah, we we felt that uh, uh, turn-based was a just a a genre that that lent itself to the kind of game that we wanted to to present with Civilization, and so we've stuck with it uh, through the years, which is—thank you for that.
But as as time has gone on, I mean, it it's well, they resonate. I mean, what in your mind is—you know, we we we talked a bit about the player agency—but what is that core gameplay element that you've never sort of, you know, taken out in in in various iterations of Civilization or Pirates or or other games out there that just seems to hit the sweet spot with so many players out there?
I think it's the player owns the story that they write in in those games. Um, you know, one of our philosophies is the player is the star uh, of of your game—of the game—and um, I think every Civ player has a moment or two that they remember of when this happened or when that happened um, because they were so invested in the story that they were creating by playing the game. And also knowing that um, each story is different. I think you you know, when you play Civ, that this story is only going to be told once, and it's only being told to you, and and it's a unique story that you that you own. And that you know that's why people tell other people what happened because they know that something else happened in your game that happened in my game, and you know, you're not going to have seen this cool thing that happened in my game. So there, you know, it's uh, it's something worth telling other people about because you can appreciate it, but you you know, you you didn't experience it, or it's kind of a surprise to you. So I think people feel this ownership in these these stories that um, that they feel are unique to them—that brings them back to play again because it's like, "Well, what's this next story going to be like?" Because they again, they know the world is different; enough is going to be different that it's a brand it's a brand new story that's going to be told. Um, and I think in in in all of our games, we try to have this idea that um, you're controlling the the direction and path of the game; it's it's unique to you. If you win, you can take total ownership over that that win.
If you win the world, right?
Right. And that you know that that's satisfying, I think, and and you know, that's that's the core to Civilization, and I think all the games that we make that that we want the player to feel that the game is empowering them to do these cool things as opposed to, you know, just trying to figure out how the game works or what does it want me to do and and follow that path.
So the Sid Meyer who is making a tic-tac-toe game with computer cards—I mean, could you even conceive of where you would be personally, where the industry would be, and where sort of your nascent ideas would actually find themselves in the hands of millions and millions of people? I mean, if if if if it didn't occur to you, then when did you think, "Hey, I might be on to something here?"
Uh, definitely had no idea at that point. Uh, there were there were a couple of of watersheds, I think, going you know, through the through the career. There was a point at which I could quit my day job. Uh, for for quite a while, I was I had a a regular job, and then, you know, at at night, I was making these games. Um, and that's part of the whole MicroProse story where Bill Stealey and I got together, and you know, at some point he said, "Sid, I think we're making enough money that you can uh, you know, quit your day job and and and do this full-time." That was three or four games into the whole history of MicroProse. Um, I think there was a moment with Civilization where um, it kind of broke through; it actually took a couple of months for that game to develop some traction. Um, but at that point, uh, we were getting this kind of great feedback from uh, from our players uh, through the mail—in in those days—uh, so that took a while, and uh, it kind of um, uh, was a validation of our approach to games and and and how we were you know, how we were making games. Um, so there were there were a few points at which new opportunities arose, and it you know, it felt um, at one point it felt like, you know, "I could maybe do this for the rest of my life, you know, this this could be a real career, not just a hobby," and and um, and the you know, but it definitely in the early days it was uh, we had no idea what we're you know, what the possibilities were; it was just fun for the moment, and you know, and that really continues to drive us—is are we having fun making this game? Uh, you know, and and that's the best sign to us that it's going to be a fun game for for our players. So it's still part of our philosophy—is to have fun when we make games.
All right, well, I'm I'm just so glad that you were fearless 'cause I'm having a lot of fun right now as a result of it.
Thanks. Thank you so much for your time.
You're welcome. Thanks for [Music] Oh my [Music] God.