He adds: “And I said that I could make a better game in two weeks. Bill challenged me to do just that and so began our game development company. We started MicroProse Software in 1980 and I’ve had my dream career ever since.”

Finding His Way

Born in 1954, Meier spent his childhood like many kids do, playing board and card games and reading books about history, airplanes, railroads, and other subjects, many of which have made their way into his games. “I caught the computer bug in college and realized it could offer us a new way to play games,” he says. “From there, my two passions seemed to just flow together. I started prototyping games in college, but still never thought I could make a career out of it.”

The result of Stealey’s dare was Spitfire Ace, a World War II aerial combat game that established Meier as a preeminent game designer. The two published several more flight simulators through MicroProse during the 1980s, interspersed occasionally with titles in other genres, such as 1987’s Pirates!.

A watershed occurred in 1990 and 1991, however, when MicroProse published Meier’s Railroad Tycoon and Civilization — the latter proved to be his signature effort, growing by 2008 to encompass four main entries and seven expansion packs. “The creative spark behind Civilization is my love of history,” Meier explains. “It’s such a robust and fascinating subject that offers endless topics for new ideas and game features. I also very much admire Will Wright’s work on SimCity, which was released in 1989, and that helped fuel some of the game design ideas in Civilization.”

Meier had found his niche, which he expanded with the release of Colonization in 1994 (a remake that uses the Civilization IV engine is available) and Civilization II in 1996. Meanwhile, Stealey’s love of flight simulators led him to find his own place in the industry, and he took that passion with him when he left MicroProse in 1994. Meier did the same two years later and co-founded Firaxis Games with fellow game designer Jeff Briggs.

Establishing a Legacy

At Firaxis, Meier continued the Civilization series with the third and fourth installments, in addition to heading into outer space for Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, sailing the high seas for Sid Meier’s Pirates! (a remake of the MicroProse release), and even hitting the links with Sid Meier’s SimGolf. He reveals that a game which never made it past the prototype stage was one starring dinosaurs. “It’s a great concept for a game,” he admits, “and it’s based on a topic that I find really interesting, but we couldn’t find the right design to really bring it to life and make it fun. We don’t currently have plans to resurrect it, but you never know.”

He adds: “Interestingly enough, another game that we shelved during the first development attempt was the original Civilization. Again, we just couldn’t figure out how to make it really fun, so we shelved it, made another game, and then came back to it with some fresh ideas. The rest, as they say, is history.” Meier smiles at the pun.

Given the lack of a fun factor pushing both efforts into limbo, it’s not a surprise that Meier puts the concept front-and-center when embarking on a new project. “Our only hard-and-fast game design philosophy is to find the fun first,” he says. “We don’t make big game design documents, rather, we start by creating a playable prototype and play with it for a while to make sure we’ve nailed the fun factor.

“From there, we take an iterative approach to development, in which we play and improve, play and improve for as long as it takes to make a great game. We also focus on making the player the center of the game experience by letting them determine the course of action through the interesting choices they make. We put them in control and give them the chance to do or become something great.”

Looking Ahead

Much like filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock — who codified his own concepts, such as the McGuffin (the thing that everyone pursues during a story) — Meier pops in for cameos during many of his games, appearing as the science advisor in Civilization III and sometimes replacing the mysterious trader in the taverns found in Sid Meier’s Pirates!, among others. In 1999, he was also immortalized as the second person inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame, after famous Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, and 2008 brought him a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developer’s Conference.

Meier never rests on his laurels, however, having recently finished up work on Civilization Revolution, “a whole new Civ experience we built from the ground up [for consoles],” he says. As for the future, Meier can only drop this hint: “I’m very interested in MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games) and have been thinking about how to bring the Civ experience to that arena. We’ll keep you posted.”

“Our only hard-and-fast game design philosophy is to find the fun first.”

- Sid Meier

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