Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games

by Sid Meier

Overview

The life and career of the legendary developer celebrated as the “godfather of computer gaming” and creator of Civilization, featuring his rules of good game design.

"Sid Meier is a foundation of what gaming is for me today." — Phil Spencer, head of Xbox

Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world’s most popular video games, including Sid Meier’s Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier’s Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry. Writing with warmth and ironic humor, Meier describes the genesis of his influential studio, MicroProse, founded in 1982 after a trip to a Las Vegas arcade, and recounts the development of landmark games, from vintage classics like Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon, to Civilization and beyond.

Articulating his philosophy that a video game should be “a series of interesting decisions,” Meier also shares his perspective on the history of the industry, the psychology of gamers, and fascinating insights into the creative process, including his rules of good game design.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393868296
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/07/2021
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	288,869
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Sid Meier, creator of Civilization, has been honored with virtually every award in the video game industry. A member of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame and founder of Firaxis Games, Meier lives in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

Table of Contents

One Billion Hours: An Introduction 1

1 What Happens In Vegas 5

2 Adaptation 16

3 Cruising Altitude 29

4 D-Day 42

5 Collective Effort 57

6 Ahoy! 68

7 And Then Bill Bought An Airplane 80

8 Overt Protraction 94

9 Hang on a Second 104

10 All Aboard 105

11 History of Civilization, Part I 117

12 Turning Points 132

13 If It Ain't Baroque 142

14 Sequel-Ish 154

15 The Dispersing 169

16 Interesting Decisions 178

17 Back To The Future 188

18 Extinction 200

19 Artificial Turf 211

20 Into The Wind 219

21 Higher Education 227

22 Fuzzy Math 236

23 Social Mobility 249

24 Funny Business 258

25 Beyond 267

Special Thanks! 275

Sid Meier's Complete Gameography! 277

Index! 279

Editorial Reviews

"A growing pile of video-game histories…suggest that the medium has always had collective effort at its heart, from its academic beginnings to its ascent into everyday life. In Meier’s memoir, we discover that he was a good game-maker when he fought this essential fact, but that he became great when he learned to embrace it."

The New Yorker - Neima Jahromi

"Any game designer who tries to tell you that he hasn’t taken anything away from a Sid Meier game is akin to a film director saying he has never watched a Hitchcock movie. For Sid is our Hitchcock, our Spielberg, our Ellington."

Gamespot.com

"[A] fascinating look at the legendary designer’s career. It’s full of anecdotes and design principles that Meier has learned over the years."

Bloomberg - Jason Schreier

"[Meier is] the master of turn-based gaming."

Will Wright

"If you ever wished you could stay up all night and hear the most amazing stories from one of the world's most creative people, Sid's memoir is for you. This book is full of incredible tech history and deep insights into what it takes to make a world-class game. But most of all, I loved getting inside Sid’s brain and seeing things from his inventive and wise point of view."

Jane McGonigal

"Sid Meier is a foundation of what gaming is for me today."

Phil Spencer

09/01/2020

Meier is one of the most recognizable names in the computer gaming industry today. He is best known for his 1991 creation and production of Sid Meier's Civilization, a strategic game that has since become a major game franchise, selling millions of copies worldwide. This well-written memoir can not only serve as a detailed autobiography, but can also be viewed as a scholarly, thorough description of the modern gaming industry and its associated culture. Beginning with short reflections of the author's early life and college experiences, the chapters evolve into wonderfully detailed descriptions of his gaming philosophies and the creative processes that went into the development of each of his games up to the present time. He also depicts learning more about his family's Dutch and Swiss heritage; his childhood as a first-generation immigrant in Canada; and being technically Canadian but culturally American. Each chapter concludes with humorous, warm, and thoughtful reflections of learned life lessons. Most notable, however, is the constantly recurring theme that, to be meaningful to someone, a game must contain a "series of interesting decisions." VERDICT This overdue biography will thrill gaming fans, and belongs in all major public and academic library collections.—Steve Dixon, State Univ. of New York, Delhi

Library Journal

2020-07-14
A nostalgic trip down gamer Memory Lane with one of the forefathers of computer game design.

Canadian American programmer Meier, founder of MicroProse and designer of such games as “Spitfire Ace” and the Civilization series, takes readers on a journey to the fledgling gaming industry in the 1980s and early ’90s, when video games were transitioning from simple “Donkey Kong”–like amusements to more intellectually immersive pixelated worlds. Nongamers may not remember many of Meier’s battle-focused titles—e.g., “NATO Commander,” “Conflict in Vietnam,” “F-15 Strike Eagle”—but they were undoubtedly popular before the gaming industry began to embrace Hollywood-style hyperviolence. The author tells the story of how he helped build an international game design business from scratch with parentally friendly concepts for his games. Readers looking for behind-the-scenes dirt on the gaming industry should look elsewhere, as Meier doesn’t dig into anything particularly controversial or salacious. The author does offer some interesting technical insight into an age when video game design was in its infancy and there were few standards or restrictions holding designers back; much of it was seat-of-the pants innovation, of which the author was a major part. Meier is sometimes long-winded—especially in a tangential meditation on his love for classical music, Bach in particular (his music seemed “simultaneously surprising and inevitable”), but he is a genial narrator of the highs and lows of his decadeslong career. The primary issue with the memoir is that unless a reader has firsthand experience with the games that Meier created, they may have a difficult time understanding what these electronic artifacts were actually like and the impact his creations had on the gaming world in general. For readers who miss the video games of the 1980s, though, the narrative is heartfelt and informative enough to maintain interest.

Not for general readers but will appeal to old-school gamers with an appreciation for the history of video games.

Kirkus Reviews