Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com either and welcome to text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickler. We are now going to conclude our
Speaker 1: two part epic series on Sid Meyer, the man who
Speaker 1: changed computer games forever, like by being one of the
Speaker 1: people who made them first. He made them good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he made them good. Or of course side Meyer's just
Speaker 1: one name among many instrumental programmers who really helped define
Speaker 1: what video games were all about in those early computer
Speaker 1: game days to the point where you would you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that Meyer likes to talk about
Speaker 1: if you ever listen to interviews or read an interview
Speaker 1: with him, he he talks about these nostalgic early days
Speaker 1: of computer programming, back before there were genres of computer
Speaker 1: games right right, and and all of the constraints of
Speaker 1: trying to make something that worked and worked well when
Speaker 1: the equipment that you had and the amount of memory
Speaker 1: that you had to play with were so limited limited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and the fact that you know, back then you
Speaker 1: could just make whatever you thought would make a good game.
Speaker 1: And his philosophy was if it's fun, put it in,
Speaker 1: and if it's not fun, take it out. And that
Speaker 1: would find the fun. Yeah, that was I mean, you
Speaker 1: see this phrase over and over and over again. Find
Speaker 1: the fun, give the players interesting choices. Those were two
Speaker 1: of the main things he would stress over and over again.
Speaker 1: And uh and it worked really well for him. So
Speaker 1: when we left off at the end of the last episode,
Speaker 1: he had just left the company that he had co founded, Micropros. Right.
Speaker 1: Um and and I we should mention as If two
Speaker 1: came out that year as well, which had been designed
Speaker 1: by Brian Reynolds, who who was a young programmer who
Speaker 1: had started working with sid Meyer. Yep, so Civilization to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sid Meyer had input on Civilization too. Mainly
Speaker 1: it was he was a playtester. He would play it
Speaker 1: and give feedback to Brian Reynolds. In fact, that's really
Speaker 1: how sid Meyer likes to design games as well. He
Speaker 1: likes to build something he then we'll hand it off
Speaker 1: to someone he really trusts to play it, get feedback
Speaker 1: from that person, say what was fun, what wasn't fun?
Speaker 1: Did you find anything confusing? And then tweak it based
Speaker 1: on their feedback. Yeah, and then sometimes and then continue
Speaker 1: that cycle. Sometimes this would take a course over like
Speaker 1: a day. He would hand over a game a person
Speaker 1: would play it, they'd hand it back at the end
Speaker 1: of the day and say all right, well, here are
Speaker 1: the things I have to tell you, and then sid
Speaker 1: Meyer would go home, reprogram the game, and come back
Speaker 1: the next morning and say here's the new version, and
Speaker 1: it would start all over again. It's kind of crazy,
Speaker 1: but that's sort of how Sidmyer likes to work. And
Speaker 1: he doesn't tend to do things like draw up a
Speaker 1: detailed plan of what a game is supposed to be
Speaker 1: and then try and follow the blueprint. Instead, he builds, tests,
Speaker 1: rebuilds right. And part of why he left Micropros was
Speaker 1: that it was becoming that kind of corporate environment where
Speaker 1: I think, you know, they were asking him to do
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and he was like, that's not
Speaker 1: how I work, not really. I do this because I
Speaker 1: love to make games. I don't do it so then
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to create franchises so much as I'm
Speaker 1: trying to create compelling games. And the two are not
Speaker 1: necessarily uh separate. But I don't want to be pigeoned
Speaker 1: like I don't want to be I don't want to
Speaker 1: be framed in this this context where I only create
Speaker 1: civilization games from now on because Civilization one sold so well. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Meyer, Brian Reynolds, and Jeff Briggs all leave Micropros
Speaker 1: and um uh start up a new company called for
Speaker 1: Access Games. Right, so for Access Games. That's um that
Speaker 1: that company name comes from a fusion of two words, right,
Speaker 1: fiery and access even like for Tree. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna I'm not gonna argue that
Speaker 1: they can do what they want. However, they like this
Speaker 1: is still in the Baltimore area. Um, they occasionally like
Speaker 1: to say, you know, we we like to think of
Speaker 1: it as Silicon Valley East, or or we like to
Speaker 1: think of Silicon Valleys, um Valley West. Nice, I like
Speaker 1: to think of it as John Waters Computer Development. Anyway.
Speaker 1: So so Sidmyer his his title at for Access is
Speaker 1: director of Creative Development. You might ask, what does director
Speaker 1: of creative development mean? What is what's his actual job responsibility?
Speaker 1: And it's to do what Sidmyer does, to do what
Speaker 1: he wants. Yeah. He he essentially has a job where
Speaker 1: he gets to concentrate on the projects that interest and
Speaker 1: excite him. Because, as it turns out, if Sid Meyer
Speaker 1: is excited and interested in something, a lot of gamers
Speaker 1: tend to be interested and excited about it too. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of this philosophy of if you let the
Speaker 1: game designer who is really looking at creating a fun
Speaker 1: experience do his or her thing, you end up with
Speaker 1: a very marketable product. This is not always the case, obviously,
Speaker 1: if you're if your game designer is not really good
Speaker 1: at judging what is fun, then clearly that's a very
Speaker 1: poor decision. But in this particular case, uh and and
Speaker 1: the company was really started out very small. It was
Speaker 1: only ten to fifteen people. Um and uh Meyer said
Speaker 1: of the company at the time, the convicts are running
Speaker 1: the asylum. It's great fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he knows.
Speaker 1: Also that year awarded a US patent for a quote
Speaker 1: system for real time music composition and synthesis end quote.
Speaker 1: Al Right, that was that? That was that a CPU
Speaker 1: bach that I mentioned in the previous episode. Yes, so
Speaker 1: cpu Bok was a program that would allow you to
Speaker 1: compose your own music, which I think is an amazing idea.
Speaker 1: It did not do well. It wasn't a commercial success
Speaker 1: at all, Um, but but it also um said, Meyer
Speaker 1: is deeply interested in music. He Um has has gone
Speaker 1: on record saying that he Guitar Hero is one of
Speaker 1: the games that he just really wishes he had thought
Speaker 1: of first, and that he's fascinated by its ability to
Speaker 1: bring people who aren't familiar with music into that world. Right,
Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen him say that he has two regrets.
Speaker 1: That he's not the one who invented Tetris and he's
Speaker 1: not the one who invented Guitar Hero. He also supposedly
Speaker 1: um he's um very involved in one of his local
Speaker 1: churches and writes, composes music for the choir, and plays
Speaker 1: the organ. Yeah. Um. Speaking of his personal life, Fraxis
Speaker 1: hired a woman named Susan Brickensum, who had previously worked
Speaker 1: for the U. S. Navy in the Department of Defense,
Speaker 1: UM to be the head of human resources. And this
Speaker 1: would be important in a couple of years when she
Speaker 1: and sid Meier got married and and and these days
Speaker 1: she refers to her title as Master of Miscellaneous, Right,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I mean it was an important hire at
Speaker 1: the time anyway, because she was a terrific she was
Speaker 1: she was very good at personnel and very good with people,
Speaker 1: and and still is is pretty instrumental in the company. Again,
Speaker 1: when you talk about like interviews with sid Meyer, a
Speaker 1: lot of them mentioned that she, Susan is hanging out
Speaker 1: right and and she she serves as sort of an
Speaker 1: additional memory for Meyer, who has done a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: but Meyer tends to he's a very affable kind of guy,
Speaker 1: and Susan wild chime in and say what he's really saying. Well, actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: by the way, shout out to all you act Accutron
Speaker 1: tweeter you see all are great. Yeah, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see the will Actually he's about this episode ven MicroProse.
Speaker 1: You know, this is after Meyer has already left. But
Speaker 1: Micropros publishes Magic the Gathering, which reportedly was the last
Speaker 1: game title at Micropros that sid Meyer had personally worked
Speaker 1: on in some capacity before he had left, So at
Speaker 1: that point, moving forward, the Micropros games that would come
Speaker 1: out did not have sid Meyer's involvement. Moving ahead, a
Speaker 1: couple of years in, sid Meyer was inducted into the
Speaker 1: Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame for
Speaker 1: Lifetime Achievement. He was only the second person to ever
Speaker 1: receive that award. The first one was she get a
Speaker 1: Minamoto big which name who you might know from doing
Speaker 1: like Mario and Donkey Kong and Legend of Zelda and
Speaker 1: numerous other games. So Sidney or not not not bad,
Speaker 1: you know, not bad to be number two when that's
Speaker 1: number one. He also launched, not literally, I guess, sid
Speaker 1: Meyer's Alpha Centauri game, which was was it kind of
Speaker 1: spinoff of Civilization? Yeah, it's sort of like, well, you
Speaker 1: know how at the end of Civilization, if you've if
Speaker 1: you followed the future tech pathway to trying to win,
Speaker 1: you launched that that face colony out to Alpha Centauri. Well,
Speaker 1: now we're starting you in Alpha Centauri. Yeah. Interesting little
Speaker 1: side note, did you know? Oh well, never mind, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna leave that for the trivia at the end of
Speaker 1: this podcast. There's there's a fun little side note about
Speaker 1: Alpha Centauri, but we'll talk about that at the trivia section.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand, sid Meyer proposes a dinosaur themed game.
Speaker 1: I've seen this. I've seen this refer to as um
Speaker 1: uh sid Meyer's version of the white Whale. Yes, it's his,
Speaker 1: it's his albatross, it's his white whale. It's his metaphor
Speaker 1: for the things that he wanted to do that he
Speaker 1: never quite got right. Um and it's not that he
Speaker 1: launched a game that did poorly. No, he never launched
Speaker 1: a game. He started to really think that a diasaur
Speaker 1: based game has the potential for being really fun, but
Speaker 1: he tried different approaches and none of them seemed to
Speaker 1: be quite fun enough to him to merit an actual game.
Speaker 1: He tried a real time version, he tried to turn
Speaker 1: based version more like Civilization, and even tried a card
Speaker 1: based game something like Magic the Gathering, but he never
Speaker 1: felt it was quite good enough. Yeah, he was. He
Speaker 1: was kind of obsessed with that. He made UM Jake Solomon,
Speaker 1: who was the third person from that Katako interview whose
Speaker 1: name I had completely forgotten at the top of the
Speaker 1: previous podcast, UM play a version of this during his interview,
Speaker 1: Like like Jake was trying to interview and Meyer was like,
Speaker 1: can you play this game? What did you think about
Speaker 1: the game? And Solomon got very the idea that this
Speaker 1: wasn't part of the interview because it was just Meyer
Speaker 1: going like, I really want feedback. Yeah. He said that
Speaker 1: maybe Meyer was looking at for personality traits based upon
Speaker 1: my responses, but I think he really just wanted to
Speaker 1: know what I thought about the game. Um, he thought
Speaker 1: Solomon also reported related to to this, and and also
Speaker 1: some other stuff that that Meyer once said playing games
Speaker 1: is a series of interesting decisions, but making games is
Speaker 1: a series of heartbreaking disappointments. Right. So, Meyer, sad that
Speaker 1: he can't get this dinosaur game to work, goes home,
Speaker 1: and he stays home for about two weeks and employees
Speaker 1: wonder what the heck is up with Meyer. Meyer comes
Speaker 1: back and they says, Okay, I've got a pro type
Speaker 1: game to show you, guys. It's totally different. And they're like, what, Like,
Speaker 1: you were gone for two weeks. We thought you were
Speaker 1: all depressed. Like yeah, He's like, yeah, I made sim Golf.
Speaker 1: So he showed off sim Golf, which was actually, you know,
Speaker 1: it is a game that allows you to create your
Speaker 1: own golf courses along the lines of railroad Tycoon again. Right,
Speaker 1: So he he shows this off and uh and they say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we could sell this, this is a marketable game, and uh.
Speaker 1: It kind of again shows that he creates games by
Speaker 1: just diving in and building them rather than planning them
Speaker 1: out in advance. It's not that he had planned on
Speaker 1: making sim golf. He was still thinking about that dinosaur
Speaker 1: game and then came up with a totally different approach
Speaker 1: and uh so again that was just a pro type.
Speaker 1: Obviously he would go in and refine it before it
Speaker 1: would be marketed as sim Golf. But that's how it
Speaker 1: was born. Now, in two thousand one a company from
Speaker 1: France called Info Grams and I almost I always want
Speaker 1: to drop the R out of it, constantly info Games.
Speaker 1: But info Grams comes in and purchases from Hasbro a
Speaker 1: a subsidiary, the Hasbro Interactive subsidiary. Why is this important
Speaker 1: because that because Hasbro had purchased micro Prose a couple
Speaker 1: of years previous. So um that was that was Sid
Speaker 1: Meier's old company was micro Prose, and it had been
Speaker 1: acquired by Hasbro. Hasbro could not really make their interactive
Speaker 1: division work very well. This was I remember actually following
Speaker 1: this news while it was happening and seeing that it
Speaker 1: was really frustrating because it had Hasbro Interactive involved more
Speaker 1: than just Micropros, that they had swept up a few companies,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of frustration that Hasbro had
Speaker 1: bought up a lot of talent, or at least brands
Speaker 1: that were very recognizable and didn't really manage to do
Speaker 1: much with them. So anyway, Since Info Grames bought Hasbro Interactive,
Speaker 1: it also meant that they got the rights to the
Speaker 1: Civilization franchise and the name Micropros and the rights to
Speaker 1: the Atari brand were also purchased in this acquisition. So
Speaker 1: at this point Micropros as a distinct entity ceased to be.
Speaker 1: It was just a name, just like Atari ceased to be.
Speaker 1: It became just a name. So dark days for some people.
Speaker 1: As as far as if you were to ask them
Speaker 1: about what what do you feel about how do you
Speaker 1: feel about this? I feel really sad because these these
Speaker 1: were instrumental companies in the early days of video games
Speaker 1: and computer games UM, and now they were just reduced
Speaker 1: to a brand name. There was really no no identity
Speaker 1: behind that. Uh. At two thousand two, Meyer got inducted
Speaker 1: to another Hall of Fame, this time by the Computer Museum.
Speaker 1: So so he's He's in several halls that are famous.
Speaker 1: That was also in some golf was actually released UM
Speaker 1: in a two thousand three Info Grames Info Grames, that's
Speaker 1: my fault. I need a transposition error. It's info Grames.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the same notes that you're looking at,
Speaker 1: and you said it the way I wrote it. So
Speaker 1: I wrote it wrong. That's all excellent, Yes, C three
Speaker 1: C three is the point of this sentence, right. So
Speaker 1: Civilization three comes out from Info Grames, but the development
Speaker 1: of CIV three came from for acxis. So the you know,
Speaker 1: sid Meier of course founded for Access. So the company
Speaker 1: that Sidmire helped found ended up developing Civilization three and
Speaker 1: it was just published by Infogrames. Jeff Briggs was the
Speaker 1: lead game designer for three. And that's when another video
Speaker 1: game designer named Sarn Johnson began to work on this title,
Speaker 1: on Civilization three, or or he had worked on it.
Speaker 1: Now he had joined for Access back in two thousand.
Speaker 1: Before he had joined for Access, he had worked for
Speaker 1: Electronic Arts and uh, and he'll become important later to
Speaker 1: two thousand four is when take two Interactive, which is
Speaker 1: that might be a name that a lot of our
Speaker 1: video game players are familiar with. It's a publishing company. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They they own a rock star in two k UM,
Speaker 1: which which I responsible for, like Grand Theft, Auto Grant.
Speaker 1: The five comes out September sevent waits and like that
Speaker 1: NBA two k and they they buy the rights to
Speaker 1: the Civilization franchise from Info Grames. For twenty two point
Speaker 1: three million dollars. In two thousand five, take to Interact
Speaker 1: of then acquires for Access for twenty six point seven
Speaker 1: million dollars. So once again you have all the components
Speaker 1: that are associated with the Civilization computer game series together
Speaker 1: under one roof. So it took some years that they
Speaker 1: split off and did some crazy splintering stuff, but now
Speaker 1: they're all part of the same company. And I believe
Speaker 1: two thousand four, I'm sorry, two thousand five was also
Speaker 1: the year that CE four was released, and uh, we're
Speaker 1: up to five now as I recall, So two thousand
Speaker 1: seven Civilization five is the current title, is what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to at. But in two thousand seven, Soren Johnson,
Speaker 1: the developer I was talking about earlier, he leaves for
Speaker 1: Access to go back to e A, and he goes
Speaker 1: to work with an old peer of Sid Meyers, Will Write,
Speaker 1: who had made some city. Yeah, so Will Wright has
Speaker 1: his own. We could do our another podcast just on
Speaker 1: will Rap. I'd be great. Yeah, yeah sometime, Well, don't
Speaker 1: worry people who aren't big into video games. Well we'll
Speaker 1: let some time. Yeah, well because breathing room. But he
Speaker 1: goes to work with Will Wright on a game called Spore,
Speaker 1: which had crazy buzz, so much hype, so much hype. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea of this artificially intelligent, super advanced uh component
Speaker 1: to this game, and that I was going to give
Speaker 1: you unprecedented control over the evolution of creatures and you
Speaker 1: could share them with each other and cross breed. And
Speaker 1: the execution was what some would argue somewhat lacking compared
Speaker 1: to the buzz that surrounded it in its early days.
Speaker 1: It was one of those games that got delayed several
Speaker 1: times and it just didn't seem to live up to
Speaker 1: its potential. But that was its interesting that another person
Speaker 1: who had worked with Sidmyer went on to go and
Speaker 1: work with one of Meyer's early peers. Eventually, by the way,
Speaker 1: Sore and Johnson would actually leave e A again. That
Speaker 1: would be the second time he had left Electronic Arts. Uh.
Speaker 1: That would be in and then he goes to join Zinga.
Speaker 1: Oh of um all of the little apps, yeah, the
Speaker 1: platform games, yeah, the apps and the mobile games uh
Speaker 1: and uh and that company it struggled quite a bit recently, yes,
Speaker 1: But in eleven that same year when Sare and Johnson
Speaker 1: had left, that's when Sieve World comes out. Now, this
Speaker 1: was a game that sid Meier was lead developer on.
Speaker 1: Civil World was a flash based game that used Facebook
Speaker 1: as the platform. So you know those games when you
Speaker 1: go on to Facebook you get all those invites from
Speaker 1: your friends who don't like you, who want you to play.
Speaker 1: Was it candy Crush something I I've literally never played
Speaker 1: a Facebook game, so I would not know. I did early, early,
Speaker 1: early on in the days of Facebook, and then decided,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the these these games don't really
Speaker 1: appeal to me. Now, it may have been that I
Speaker 1: was playing poorly developed games, right, But anyways, this was
Speaker 1: sid Meier's approach to getting into this. So they launched
Speaker 1: it inleven, but they shut it down in early It just,
Speaker 1: I guess wasn't working properly. It just didn't align with
Speaker 1: the rest of the company's vision. But anyway, that was
Speaker 1: one of the latest titles that sid Meier had a
Speaker 1: direct hand in developing. For Access was named the number
Speaker 1: one developer of the year by Game Informer magazine. X
Speaker 1: Com had come out that year, a sci fi strategy
Speaker 1: game that hit a lot of critical and popular acclaim right,
Speaker 1: and actually, if you if you look back at the
Speaker 1: history of sid Meyer, you'll see that there's an earlier
Speaker 1: game called X Calm. This was a sort of a
Speaker 1: reimagination of that earlier game. And I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are huge X com fans. I have
Speaker 1: not played it, but all the people I know who
Speaker 1: have played it, they just rent and rave and say
Speaker 1: this is fantastic. Jake Solomon, who I was talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: was the one who directed that one. Got you. So
Speaker 1: that's when the the well, first of all, that's this
Speaker 1: year when we're recording that hill, Welcome to the present.
Speaker 1: I'm reading the notes and I just present when we
Speaker 1: all got our jet packs and all food came in pilform.
Speaker 1: That's actually the the The latest title that Sidmyer has
Speaker 1: developed came out this year. It's called Ace Patrol and
Speaker 1: it was in fact Sidmyer's first game specifically for mobile platforms,
Speaker 1: meaning you know, smartphones, tablet second thing, and uh, the
Speaker 1: way the game works, it's it's a World War One
Speaker 1: airplane strategy game. So you're you're controlling pilots who are
Speaker 1: flying various types of aircraft and you go into dog fights,
Speaker 1: but you're not controlling the airplanes. It's turn based, so
Speaker 1: you know, you try and have your pilot, takedown other pilots,
Speaker 1: and as you progress through the game, you can upgrade
Speaker 1: your pilot skills and the airplanes capabilities. Um and uh
Speaker 1: so it plays a lot like other strategy games. Uh. Actually,
Speaker 1: just two days before we were recording this, on August
Speaker 1: Ace Patrol was released for PC on Steam. So you
Speaker 1: can play it either on a mobile platform or you
Speaker 1: can play it on on Steam. What it's interesting here
Speaker 1: is it also gives us a little bit of an
Speaker 1: insight into Myer's opinions about some of the ways that
Speaker 1: games are being marketed these days. Um, like freemium games. Now,
Speaker 1: these are the games that are free for you to download,
Speaker 1: but if you want specific items or you want to
Speaker 1: get access to certain levels, you have to pay. Right
Speaker 1: and it's a frequent model for for mobile games. Right
Speaker 1: e A is really big on this, for instance, and
Speaker 1: you know it does a lot of thing it does too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different companies that are trying this.
Speaker 1: And then you're seeing this not just on things like
Speaker 1: mobile platforms, but also in consoles where you can get
Speaker 1: consoles where you end up having the stuff that you
Speaker 1: can pay extra for and get access to, or or
Speaker 1: n PC games a lot of the MMOs and involve
Speaker 1: elements like that. Now, some of these games also allow
Speaker 1: you to eventually earn those items if you play long enough,
Speaker 1: but they're trying to create an incentive for players to
Speaker 1: spend the money to get earlier access to this stuff.
Speaker 1: So Meyer was asked about his opinion on this, and
Speaker 1: he said that building a game like that is about
Speaker 1: designing unhappiness, which that's pretty tough. Yeah. He's essentially saying
Speaker 1: that you your goal when you are designing a freemium
Speaker 1: game where you're trying to give people the incentive to
Speaker 1: buy more stuff, is that you have to design a
Speaker 1: game so not fun that people will pay to make
Speaker 1: it fun. He says that kind of goes against the
Speaker 1: grain of game design. That's, uh, that's a kind of
Speaker 1: harsh and b I think entirely true. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you think of it that way, you're like, that's
Speaker 1: totally not the way the game developers are thinking about
Speaker 1: when they're designing the game. But from a consumer standpoint, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see that saying we won this game to
Speaker 1: be engaging enough so that someone wants to download it,
Speaker 1: but not so engaging that they feel that they fulfilled.
Speaker 1: They have to pay to really get that fulfilling experience,
Speaker 1: and that myers like I don't want to be part
Speaker 1: of that. So with the iOS version of Ace Patrol,
Speaker 1: you could pay five dollars and get the whole game.
Speaker 1: You could try to play it for free, and you
Speaker 1: get the first few levels, but then you would be
Speaker 1: prompted to say, all right, if you enjoyed this, go
Speaker 1: ahead and purchase it. If not, then thank you for
Speaker 1: playing um. And if you only wanted to play one
Speaker 1: of the nationalities in the game, you could pay a
Speaker 1: dollar per nationality, so you could, you know, have had
Speaker 1: a little bit of that freemium thing, but only in
Speaker 1: the sense of kind of this is the trial version.
Speaker 1: Now you can buy the full version, not so much
Speaker 1: of Oh you want your playing to go faster, spend
Speaker 1: a dollar now. Another interesting thing that I read is
Speaker 1: that Meyer says he's no longer involved in Civilization titles,
Speaker 1: but but that that he feels like they're in good hands.
Speaker 1: And the last one, Civilization five, was designed by John Schaefer,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know again, like they'll they'll come to
Speaker 1: Sidmire for input, they'll ask him for his opinions. But
Speaker 1: he says he's no longer actively part of those teams,
Speaker 1: which he's fine with. He he wants to be able
Speaker 1: to concentrate on whatever interests him. And again, he doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to get caught in this trappic like like
Speaker 1: we want you to be a franchise generator. He doesn't
Speaker 1: want that. So I've got some trivia. So here's some
Speaker 1: Sidmyer trivia. And the first bit is that sid Meyer
Speaker 1: appears as a character in the Alien Crossfire expansion pack
Speaker 1: for sid Meier's Alpha Centauri game. So there's a a
Speaker 1: secret hidden faction in the this expansion pack for Alpha Centauri,
Speaker 1: and the secret faction is called the Faraxians. So, uh,
Speaker 1: if you unlocked the Farraxians, you would unlock them either
Speaker 1: with sid Meyer as the leader or Brian Reynolds as
Speaker 1: the leader, and that would appear as the leader for
Speaker 1: the rest of the game. Uh. And then according to
Speaker 1: the two thousand eight Guinness Book of World Records, sid
Speaker 1: Meyer holds the record for most video game awards ever received. Um.
Speaker 1: He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Like we've said, we talked
Speaker 1: about his wife and the fact that her her she
Speaker 1: consider is her new title Master of Miscellaneous that. By
Speaker 1: the way, it's not a formal title, it's not her
Speaker 1: official title. Now, that's just kind of what she's like.
Speaker 1: That's what I consider myself. Uh. And according to his employees,
Speaker 1: like we said, he's a very personal friendly guy. He's
Speaker 1: got like an open door policy. Anyone can come in
Speaker 1: and talk to him. Apparently he's really dedicated to his work.
Speaker 1: If he's really interested in a project, you will find
Speaker 1: him even working on weekends and working long hours if
Speaker 1: he's if he's really excited. It's kind of like the
Speaker 1: way that players play Civilization where they have to take
Speaker 1: that next turn. They can't they can't quit yet, They're
Speaker 1: just gonna do one more turn, just one more turn.
Speaker 1: All right, So we're gonna have another part of this podcast.
Speaker 1: We're gonna really talk about Civilization and its development process
Speaker 1: and it's impact on the industry. But before we get
Speaker 1: into that, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Civilization. This is, of course, the
Speaker 1: biggest title I think you could you could argue that
Speaker 1: Sidmyer has ever produced, while I would a that Pirates
Speaker 1: remains my favorite. Uh. Do you can't deny the fact
Speaker 1: that Civilization has had a huge impact. So did you
Speaker 1: know that the original Civilization was only three megabytes in size?
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, but only because I read the
Speaker 1: same research that you did. Also, Yeah, that would that
Speaker 1: would help. Yeah, that but that's kind of that's kind
Speaker 1: of eye opening. Now, like you a video game being
Speaker 1: like multiple gigs and one of the most successful or
Speaker 1: at least highest critical acclaimed video games ever made only
Speaker 1: free megabytes. Yeah, it was created for the IBM PC UM,
Speaker 1: which at the time only had memory, right, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: so you know you had those limited constraints that we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier. By the way, who was it that
Speaker 1: handled almost all the programming on that first Civilization game?
Speaker 1: Do you know? I do not know? It's Sid Meyer.
Speaker 1: He did all the programming himself, pretty much. He said that,
Speaker 1: you know, essentially all the coding was due to him.
Speaker 1: He was the one who was coding everything for Civilization.
Speaker 1: He said that he did some of the art design
Speaker 1: as well, and a few of his art designs may
Speaker 1: have made it into the final game, but he's not sure. Um,
Speaker 1: he was working very closely with a specific person. Bruce
Speaker 1: Campbell Show Bruce Campbell, Shelley, thank you um and and
Speaker 1: and that was that was they were called within the company,
Speaker 1: the A team supposedly and um and Like like Jonathan
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, Shelley would play test, Meyer would
Speaker 1: tweak the game and just rinse, repeat, Yeah. They would
Speaker 1: just do this over and over again. Shelley would be like,
Speaker 1: this game is great, but here's the stuff that I
Speaker 1: thought needed a little work. And Meyer would go back
Speaker 1: and tweak it and bring it back the next morning
Speaker 1: and say try it again. And they would just do
Speaker 1: this several times in order to kind of refine the game.
Speaker 1: Now here's some interesting background here. So Bruce Campbell Shelley
Speaker 1: came to micro Pros. This is back in the acroprose days.
Speaker 1: He came to Micropros from another company called Avalon Hill. Right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: now now Avalon Hill had um what was a board
Speaker 1: game company. Yeah, they would publish board games. And one
Speaker 1: of the board games they published was originally published by
Speaker 1: another company in England and designed by Francis Tresham. This
Speaker 1: was called Civilization. Yeah, so Civilization the board game. Francis
Speaker 1: Francis Tresham was the guy who designed it. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it was published in written When it came over to America.
Speaker 1: Avalon Hill purchased the license to publish it in the
Speaker 1: United States. So Avalon Hills not the company that that
Speaker 1: ultimately owned Civilization, They just had a license for it
Speaker 1: in the un right. So that's one connection between the
Speaker 1: board game Civilization and the computer game Civilization. That would
Speaker 1: be Shelley who he did not work on the board
Speaker 1: game conversion for Civilization, but he did work on another
Speaker 1: game that Tresham had developed called eighteen twenty nine that
Speaker 1: was a real road designing game board game. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they when they brought over to America, they changed the
Speaker 1: title it was no longer but anyway, again it was
Speaker 1: a railroad. It was a railroad kind of a railroad
Speaker 1: empire game, all right, much like Railroad Tycoon, which Shelley
Speaker 1: also worked on, right, so they now Now, they did
Speaker 1: say that things like these board games served as inspiration,
Speaker 1: but when you look at the actual mechanics and the
Speaker 1: way the actual games play out there, really the similarities
Speaker 1: are mainly on a surface level. They don't go very
Speaker 1: deeply like and once you get into game mechanics it
Speaker 1: separates out quite a bit, right, right, Um, And you know,
Speaker 1: like the board game Civilization for example, Um didn't really
Speaker 1: go into anywhere near modern or futuristic technology. It stopped
Speaker 1: and kind of the Middle Ages, ancient to Middle Ages.
Speaker 1: That was pretty much the domain of the original board game.
Speaker 1: And you know, Meyer has said that he was certainly
Speaker 1: aware of the board game, that he had a copy
Speaker 1: that he had looked through, but it that he hadn't
Speaker 1: actually played it until after he finished building Civilization. Shelley
Speaker 1: says that he had played the board game, obviously having
Speaker 1: worked for Avalon Hill, but that that Meyer. He also says,
Speaker 1: you know, Meyer hadn't played it until after he had
Speaker 1: finished the development of the actual Civilization video game. But
Speaker 1: this is where, you know, one of the things we
Speaker 1: can talk about, along with the developmental issues of trying
Speaker 1: to get this game actually to to publish in the
Speaker 1: environment that was micropros at that time, is the issues
Speaker 1: with this game. Now. They didn't want to encounter any
Speaker 1: legal problems with this this computer game once they decided
Speaker 1: they were going to call it Civilization, so they licensed
Speaker 1: the name Civilization from Avalon Hill, which again was the
Speaker 1: u S publisher for the game. Right So um the
Speaker 1: the by the way, the British company that published it
Speaker 1: originally was called Heartland trefoil, and I'm sure I'm saying
Speaker 1: trefoil wrong because the way the UK works, they'd say,
Speaker 1: oh it's spelled tref oil, but it's now throat wobbler mangrove. So, um,
Speaker 1: I apologize, that's a money Python reference. I apologize if
Speaker 1: I am, you know, if if all the UK fans
Speaker 1: out there are just wincing every time I try and
Speaker 1: say this. So getting back into the actual development of Civilization,
Speaker 1: this was not a smooth process. We mentioned it in
Speaker 1: the previous podcast that they were experiencing some reluctance on
Speaker 1: the part of Micropros because Steely, who was the president
Speaker 1: of Micropros, he was really focused on those combat signulations
Speaker 1: and he reportedly just didn't get Civilization. He just didn't
Speaker 1: see where the appeal was. He didn't think it was
Speaker 1: going to be successful. Also, because Meyer had moved away
Speaker 1: from being a direct employee of Micropros, he was no
Speaker 1: longer head of development. The new VP of Development did
Speaker 1: not have any incentive to promote Sidmyer games because he
Speaker 1: did not receive any sort of bonus from those games.
Speaker 1: He would receive bonuses from any games developed internally by
Speaker 1: micro a Prose employees, so he would focus on those
Speaker 1: and push those out ahead of anything else. So, uh,
Speaker 1: while Siedmyer would get a budget from Micropros to work
Speaker 1: on games, he would get an upfront budget, he didn't
Speaker 1: get a lot of other support. And he and Shelly
Speaker 1: have both said that that meant the development for Civilization
Speaker 1: stretched out longer than it was supposed to, and in fact,
Speaker 1: the game ended up slipping its its original ship date.
Speaker 1: And this is a real kicker. Apparently that meant that
Speaker 1: their own personal bonuses were affected. Meyer and Shelly their
Speaker 1: bonuses were and and their team. There was more than
Speaker 1: just the two of them working on this. They had
Speaker 1: a team of people, right, I think it was about
Speaker 1: about ten eight to ten depending upon the source you read.
Speaker 1: So I have about ten people working on this game,
Speaker 1: and their bonuses are affected by the fact that the
Speaker 1: game did not ship on time. However, Shelly points out
Speaker 1: in interviews, he says, look, the reason why our game
Speaker 1: didn't ship on time is because Micropros was dragging their
Speaker 1: feet and that it was a man They kept putting
Speaker 1: us on other projects and therefore we couldn't There was
Speaker 1: no way for us to ship on time because they
Speaker 1: would pull us off of the work we needed to
Speaker 1: do to get the game finished. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: management would make decisions that affected our work and then
Speaker 1: punish us when the work wasn't being done. And so
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, it's a terrible catch twenty two
Speaker 1: to share, and it's kind of easy to see after
Speaker 1: after this process, why a lot of these people started ditching, yes, sorry,
Speaker 1: to leave the company and go somewhere else, and why
Speaker 1: ultimately Meyer and two of his fellow designers would leave
Speaker 1: and found for Access. So they eventually, despite all odds
Speaker 1: against them, finished Civilization, and it of course publishes in
Speaker 1: ninety one, I believe, and it ends up not getting
Speaker 1: a whole lot of support from micropros. The marketing department
Speaker 1: doesn't spend a lot of money, so they have to
Speaker 1: rely upon gamers who purchased is the game to go
Speaker 1: out and tell all their gaming buddies, Hey, you guys
Speaker 1: have got to try this. This game is amazing, which
Speaker 1: fortunately they did. Yeah and uh, and this game was
Speaker 1: a huge leap from those early games sid Meuyer made
Speaker 1: back in the day when sid Meyer made a game
Speaker 1: that was in a ziploc bag with a Zerox piece
Speaker 1: of paper that had the game art on one side
Speaker 1: and the instructions on the other. Civilization shipped with a
Speaker 1: manual that was probably around two hundred pages in length.
Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember that one of the things
Speaker 1: that that Shelley did. Sid Meyer says the most important
Speaker 1: thing that Shelley did was play the game. He says
Speaker 1: that was the most important thing that Shelley did because
Speaker 1: he played the game and would tell sid Meyer which
Speaker 1: things were working in which weren't. But if he had
Speaker 1: to say what the second most important thing was, Shelley
Speaker 1: took it upon himself to do two things. He helped
Speaker 1: write the manual and he wrote the civil Opedia, now
Speaker 1: the civil Opedia for any one who has not played Civilization.
Speaker 1: The Civilipedia is an in game reference that gives you
Speaker 1: more information about everything in the game, every single unit,
Speaker 1: every military unit. It tells you more about them, gives
Speaker 1: you a historical context. It tells you about all the
Speaker 1: different buildings you can build. Uh. There are wonders of
Speaker 1: the world that you can design in Civilization, and they
Speaker 1: are based off the actual amazing things that humans have created,
Speaker 1: things like the pyramids and you know, the hanging gardens
Speaker 1: of babble on that kind of thing. Ah, so he
Speaker 1: rode up entries for all of the stuff. I get that,
Speaker 1: I've gotten the feeling that Chili is a tiny bit
Speaker 1: of a history. Nerd um And and Sidmyer too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although they both said that they didn't do a whole
Speaker 1: lot of research when they first started working on Civilization.
Speaker 1: They just wanted it to be a fun game, right,
Speaker 1: and so so that most of the you know, knowledge
Speaker 1: that's in there is kind of elementary level. Although I
Speaker 1: have seen reports about three in particular being used in
Speaker 1: classroom settings, and I can imagine that. I mean, and
Speaker 1: when you look at the actual game mechanics, because we've
Speaker 1: talked a lot about thing is like you know, developing
Speaker 1: your your your social abilities, or developing the wonders of
Speaker 1: the world or future technology or trying to conquer it
Speaker 1: gets so much more complex than that, right. You've got
Speaker 1: the different nationalities, each of which have their own abilities
Speaker 1: or you know pros and cons when you first start off,
Speaker 1: like I remember when I would play Sief two and
Speaker 1: I would play as the Germans. For some reason, I
Speaker 1: would end up with two settlers instead of one, which
Speaker 1: gave me an amazing advantage because I could use one
Speaker 1: set of settlers to build a city, and the second
Speaker 1: set of settlers could irrigate around the city and make
Speaker 1: it a more viable location. Other nations might start with
Speaker 1: only one settler, but they get more technology bonuses at
Speaker 1: the very beginning of the game. Then you would have
Speaker 1: things like what sort of government your civilization used, like
Speaker 1: is it a despotic system, is it capitalism, is it communism, socialism?
Speaker 1: And that would affect gameplay from that point forward. So
Speaker 1: it was the game and can when you would start off,
Speaker 1: would be very simple, This is pure sid Meier approach,
Speaker 1: very simple, and you would add levels of complexity as
Speaker 1: the game would go on until you get to a
Speaker 1: point where if you were to jump into that game
Speaker 1: maybe two turns in and that's how the game started,
Speaker 1: you think there's no way I can play this. This
Speaker 1: is way too complicated, right right you you learned with
Speaker 1: the game and UM and that was something That's two
Speaker 1: really built on as well. They started adding a lot
Speaker 1: of the concepts they had wanted to incorporate and to
Speaker 1: save one but UM but just felt like they were
Speaker 1: over complicating things right now. In the earliest days of civilization,
Speaker 1: when they were developing it. I meant to mention this earlier,
Speaker 1: but I I definitely think it's important. It's it's interesting
Speaker 1: that it was not a turn based game when they
Speaker 1: first started developing it, right, it was. It was originally
Speaker 1: um like sim City, which Sidmire has has referenced as
Speaker 1: being one of the big influences of the game. The
Speaker 1: three big ones are sim City, Risk and Railroad Tycoon.
Speaker 1: Right right, um uh, but yes, he was saying that
Speaker 1: it was it was real time, right, everything was passing
Speaker 1: and so and so things, things were happening, um, you know,
Speaker 1: as you would kind of build something and let your
Speaker 1: settlers do their thing, and and he found that this
Speaker 1: was very dull and reduced the player to a viewer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you became it was a more passive experience. You weren't
Speaker 1: taking an active role. And that's when he made the decision.
Speaker 1: And this this was he was well into the development
Speaker 1: of the game, and he said that, you know, if
Speaker 1: you figure out six months into the development of a
Speaker 1: game that's not working, you have to have to change
Speaker 1: change it. And so he went from real time to
Speaker 1: turn based, and by turn based, it meant that you
Speaker 1: could control the passage of time. Because it wasn't until
Speaker 1: you ended a turn that the clock would move forward, right,
Speaker 1: that that the you know, whatever you have implemented would
Speaker 1: go into effect, right right, and or that even that
Speaker 1: you would be able to take another turn. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, civilization is based on whatever year it is,
Speaker 1: so uh, in early stages of the game, time passes
Speaker 1: much more quickly. I think I can't remember if it's
Speaker 1: by decade or even by century when you first start off,
Speaker 1: but by the time you get toward the end game,
Speaker 1: it's going year by year. So the the idea being
Speaker 1: that progress is much more rapid later on in the game,
Speaker 1: so you have to divide up the time into smaller
Speaker 1: increments for that to be reflected. So uh, those are
Speaker 1: big changes. Yeah. Yeah, and this this would wind up
Speaker 1: being um really really integral to to what the game
Speaker 1: was like. Um it's it's a lot of people talk
Speaker 1: about about being addictive, and and even even Meyer himself
Speaker 1: has said that he's been late to meetings because he
Speaker 1: was playing the game totally forgot he fell victim to
Speaker 1: his own trap. Yeah. No, I knew a lot of
Speaker 1: people who, especially in college. I knew a lot of
Speaker 1: kids in college who who were a little bleary eyed
Speaker 1: because they had been playing Civilization the night before and
Speaker 1: it just was one of those things where they're like,
Speaker 1: I totally missed. Yeah, I got to bed at four
Speaker 1: am and got up at seven. Let's be serious, they
Speaker 1: got up at like two minutes before the class started.
Speaker 1: But anyway, uh yeah, So getting into more of the
Speaker 1: difficulty with Civilization, some of it, some of the really
Speaker 1: messy stuff happened after sid Meyer had left micropros um.
Speaker 1: But one of the interesting things is that in Avalon Hill,
Speaker 1: the company the publisher for the Civilization board game, actually
Speaker 1: published Advanced Civilization, which was a computer version of the
Speaker 1: board game Civilization. So this if you were a fan
Speaker 1: of the old Civilization board game, you could buy this
Speaker 1: one and that would be the official one. Also, it
Speaker 1: should be noted that sid Meier's Civilization is now a
Speaker 1: board game too, so that even more complicated. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: edited the House to Works article about this, so I
Speaker 1: learned way too much about it. It was done by
Speaker 1: Kevin Wilson, who also did Arkham Horror, which is which
Speaker 1: is pretty popular title it's in was published by Fantasy Flight,
Speaker 1: which is uh, you know, the kids who do a
Speaker 1: other video game board games like World Warcraft and StarCraft.
Speaker 1: And they're also the current publishers of Talisman. Oh man, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have. I haven't thought of that in years. Oh
Speaker 1: I've I've I play it basically every year. That's one
Speaker 1: of one of my group favorites. I think it might
Speaker 1: have been the nineties when I last played Talisman. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of the nineties, in ven, that's when the proverbial
Speaker 1: crep hits, the proverbial rotating oscillating thing. Yeah, so we've
Speaker 1: got an That's when Activision gets involved. So Activision purchases
Speaker 1: the rights to the Civilization name from Avalon Hill. Now
Speaker 1: remember Avalon Hill is the publishing company that had the
Speaker 1: rights to publish the Civilization board game in the United States. Meanwhile, uh,
Speaker 1: Activision then creates a computer game called Civilization Call to Power.
Speaker 1: This was in no way connected to this admirer franchise games, right,
Speaker 1: So it's it's really just it's got the name Civilization,
Speaker 1: but other than that, and it is a it's an
Speaker 1: empire building type game, but other than that, it is
Speaker 1: not a it's not an entry into the Civilization franchise.
Speaker 1: But then Activision goes on to sue Micropros over trademark
Speaker 1: infringement because now they own the name Civilization because they
Speaker 1: licensed it from Avalon Hill. Right. Meanwhile, Micropros had bought
Speaker 1: Heartland Trefoil, which was the original publisher before Avalon Hill
Speaker 1: of the Civilization board game. Right, this was the company
Speaker 1: that was founded by the guy who created the Civilization
Speaker 1: board game. So essentially what here's here's all this works out.
Speaker 1: Activision goes out and buys the buys the rights to
Speaker 1: use Civilization according to the US publisher of this board game,
Speaker 1: sus Micropros. Micropros goes out and buys the original company
Speaker 1: to make the board game, and then sues Activision and says,
Speaker 1: you can't sue us for trademark infringement. We own the
Speaker 1: company that made the thing that you were claiming you
Speaker 1: were suing you. Yeah, so we're suing you instead in
Speaker 1: your face. I think that might have actually been in
Speaker 1: the deposition. Uh So, Yeah, we've got this crazy lawsuit
Speaker 1: going on. Not keep in mind sid Meyer's not a
Speaker 1: part of this. He's just off on his own making
Speaker 1: his games, probably lulls a tiny man, probably thinking it's
Speaker 1: a little amusing. Yeah, the company has wound up settling
Speaker 1: all of this out of court. But that's the point
Speaker 1: when Hasbro comes in and buys Avalon Hill and then
Speaker 1: buys Micropros. So now Avalon Hill and Micropros are both
Speaker 1: under the same umbrella now there, which is hence why
Speaker 1: they probably settled it. Yeah now now that now it
Speaker 1: doesn't even matter anymore because both parties in this trademark
Speaker 1: infringement spat are belonging to the same company. But as
Speaker 1: we learned, Hasbro Interactive did not last that long. They
Speaker 1: ended up selling that off to Infogrames and uh and
Speaker 1: that is the end of the the massive Civilization crazy story.
Speaker 1: Worry when it comes to just the name of the game.
Speaker 1: I just I love the idea that you can go
Speaker 1: out and buy a company that made a product, uh
Speaker 1: and you know, years and years ago, and then someone
Speaker 1: else had made a product also years ago that had
Speaker 1: the same name and retroactively say I own that I'm
Speaker 1: suing you for trademark infringement for this thing that you
Speaker 1: made before I bought this company. That's our legal system, folks.
Speaker 1: It makes my nose bleed, yes, um, but so yeah,
Speaker 1: so Civilization um kind of kind of big. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: would say that it really created a true genre now
Speaker 1: itself is often referred to as one of the God games,
Speaker 1: which became popular right around that time that Civilization came out.
Speaker 1: Other games like Populus or SimCity are are similar games
Speaker 1: where you are given the ability to create these massive things.
Speaker 1: It's not you taking on the role of a single character,
Speaker 1: but rather being the guiding force behind the creation of something.
Speaker 1: And I think that that creation element is what's really
Speaker 1: key to all of this, and you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me that's admire Um is so bent
Speaker 1: on these creative games and was less interested in the
Speaker 1: destructive elements of of the of the more violent military
Speaker 1: simulation he He admits that there is a component of
Speaker 1: violence in many of his games, but it tends to
Speaker 1: be violence in the abstract, right, So like there's there's
Speaker 1: never any gore or blood. Right. If you have two
Speaker 1: units in Civilization fighting one another, it's essentially two tiles
Speaker 1: and one of the you know, they do a little
Speaker 1: statistical analysis and some randomization to figure out which tile
Speaker 1: wins and the other toile goes away, and that's the
Speaker 1: extent of your violence. So he feels that the violent
Speaker 1: parts are not necessary to make a fun, compelling game.
Speaker 1: He doesn't find that appealing to personally, so that that's
Speaker 1: not part of what he does when he makes his games. Right,
Speaker 1: there has been some some criticism um lobbied against Civilization
Speaker 1: due to um like like, for example, they they left
Speaker 1: out slavery from the games, and that's a pretty big
Speaker 1: historical emission from multiple eras. Oh sure, sure, and and
Speaker 1: you know said sid Meier kind of said, like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not really pleasant. I don't really want to think
Speaker 1: about it. That's not really fun. Yeah, exactly. A game.
Speaker 1: In my view, a game's primary function is to be fun.
Speaker 1: So it's not that I'm setting out to make the definitive,
Speaker 1: historically accurate empire building game. I'm out there to make
Speaker 1: something that is fun and challenging so that players have
Speaker 1: a good time when they're sitting down to play this
Speaker 1: title and see that. It's another interesting thing because not
Speaker 1: all video game developers have this same philosophy. There's some
Speaker 1: who want to make a very compelling experience fun, right,
Speaker 1: or some who want to tell a very particular story,
Speaker 1: like like something like BioShock, which I think is a
Speaker 1: terrific story. Um but um, but it's not like you
Speaker 1: have a lot of a hand in it right. So
Speaker 1: it's obviously there are different philosophies. It's just it's very
Speaker 1: it's kind of refreshing to talk about someone who his
Speaker 1: whole focus was just let's make the most fun game
Speaker 1: we can. That's that's the only real thing that we
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind. It doesn't need to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, be genre defining. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: the start of a franchise. We just want to make
Speaker 1: something that when people loaded up, they're gonna have a
Speaker 1: good time. When they play, they're gonna want to keep
Speaker 1: playing it. Yeah. Um and he he did. Um. He
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Civilization development team did address
Speaker 1: some of the other concerns that people had a Um,
Speaker 1: in future games, you could play as many other different societies. Um,
Speaker 1: it was pretty Western centric the first one. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: actually says, yeah, Yeah, I would say that first Civilizization
Speaker 1: game was very much Western centric because I made it,
Speaker 1: and that's I made it based upon my own my
Speaker 1: own experience and education. He also joked that that the
Speaker 1: reason that there were only six in um, different nationalities
Speaker 1: that you could play as was because they were at
Speaker 1: the end of the sixteen color e g A graphics.
Speaker 1: We don't have any other That's all we could do, right,
Speaker 1: otherwise you're going to be confused. Actually, and the interesting
Speaker 1: thing I found in the later Civilization games was that
Speaker 1: the game itself would adapt to your play style, and
Speaker 1: if you were doing incredibly well early on, in order
Speaker 1: for it to become more challenging, it would start to
Speaker 1: not like stack the deck against you, which is the
Speaker 1: way some games work, and that I find very frustrating.
Speaker 1: Like anyone who's played any racing games where you get
Speaker 1: way in the lead and then there's this rubber band
Speaker 1: effect where suddenly there's someone right behind. Yeah, like, how
Speaker 1: did that happen? I left everyone in the dust? Um,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you. Burnout anyway, he the Civilization games. Instead,
Speaker 1: Let's say that you're playing and you're you're getting really
Speaker 1: militaristic very early on in the game, and so you're
Speaker 1: you're hitting cities before they have a real defense mounted up. Uh,
Speaker 1: you could defeat a civilization, and normally you'd be playing
Speaker 1: against you know, a certain number, but it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: all the civilizations in the game. It would be a
Speaker 1: limited number of them. So maybe half of the civilizations
Speaker 1: that are in the game are active at one time.
Speaker 1: It would then populate part of the map with a
Speaker 1: new civilization. Uh, so I'd be starting from scratch. It's
Speaker 1: not like the civilization would suddenly be on par with yours,
Speaker 1: come on with nuclear warheads, but it would mean that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't immediately conquered the world within you know, twenty
Speaker 1: turns or something. Right. So yeah, it's and I also
Speaker 1: thought it was really interesting then the first Civilization, as
Speaker 1: they were developing it, they decided to cut the world's
Speaker 1: map in half because it was too big and uh
Speaker 1: and to also reduce the complexity of the technology tree,
Speaker 1: which had a two different trees originally, right, which which
Speaker 1: they wound up putting some of that insive too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because then they were like, well, once people got involved
Speaker 1: with Civilization one and they really liked it, we figured,
Speaker 1: well now we can put that stuff civilization too, because
Speaker 1: now everyone knows how to play right, Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: kind of funny. Yeah. So, um, I I had a
Speaker 1: couple of quotes from from Meyer that I thought kind
Speaker 1: of rounded out all of this. Um. One of them
Speaker 1: was was from that Kataku interview UM in which he said,
Speaker 1: upon him being asked about retirement, I kind of feel like,
Speaker 1: I am retired, I'm doing what I want to do.
Speaker 1: I've been retired for a long time. I still love
Speaker 1: making games. So I've never really thought of that. Um
Speaker 1: And and the second one isn't a quote, it's more
Speaker 1: of a summarized statement. But upon being asked whether he
Speaker 1: keeps track of his high score and civilization, he said that, um,
Speaker 1: he he doesn't because he knows it's just a number
Speaker 1: he can patch. Um, So he doesn't really see the value. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's too easy to cheat. And and
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good summary of his overall just statement on the world.
Speaker 1: You know, like like he's not he's not keeping score. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. That's just the Again, he gets
Speaker 1: the satisfaction out of creating something that other people enjoy.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I can certainly identify with that. A lot
Speaker 1: of my job satisfaction comes from when you, listeners, get
Speaker 1: in touch with us and let's know what you think. Hey, listeners,
Speaker 1: you should get in touch with us and let us
Speaker 1: know what you think. That's the segue gets all the
Speaker 1: more smooth the more we pointed out. Uh so, guys,
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: whether it's about someone who is fundamental in technology or
Speaker 1: a particular company, or just how something works. Let us know,
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Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter are handled. There's tech stuff hs W.
Speaker 1: And uh wait, there's something else, right, Lauren. Yes, we
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, Jonathan started up a Tumbler account. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally forgot I did that, and so I have
Speaker 1: revived it. We are tumbling, Yes, I do it on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. And I'm not even on the tumbler
Speaker 1: at on the new I just fall over. But no,
Speaker 1: we really do have a Tumbler account. It is active.
Speaker 1: Lauren is the keeper of all things Tumbler, and she's
Speaker 1: doing an amazing job. You guys can keep up with
Speaker 1: stuff that we're doing and also just cool things that
Speaker 1: Lauren finds about the world of technology. Then yeah, and
Speaker 1: and I actually actually cephalopods. Sephalopods are my big tumbler
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, all the time, So you should check
Speaker 1: that out. Um, where can they find that? That is
Speaker 1: also at tech stuff hswum excellent, so find us tech
Speaker 1: stuff hsw We will be looking for you. We really
Speaker 1: really will be, all right, So that wraps us up.
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed it, and Lauren and I will
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