#195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso, or four energy drinks before or during the show, so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th.
A billion hours ago, Neanderthals were making spearheads in the Stone Age. A billion hours from now, it'll be the year 116,174 AD.
With a billion hours to play with, you could make roughly 13,000 round trips to Alpha Centauri at the speed of light, or you could spend it all playing Sid Meier's Civilization, so I'm told.
One billion hours is the sort of number that is humbling to the point of incomprehensibility, and it is a wildly conservative estimate at that.
The game distribution service, Steam, only began collecting player data in earnest within the last decade, and one billion is actually the number of hours played on Civilization V from its release in 2010 up through 2016
A six-year window into one game in a series that spans 29 years and 12 editions, not to mention the expansion packs.
To imagine the hours devoted to all the incarnations of Civilization since 1991 is, well, incomprehensible. I wouldn't want to try. What's more, any fair assessment of Civilization's success would have to include all the other games I've crafted along the way, including titles like Pirates and Railroad Tycoon, which were popular series in their own right, but also overlooked projects that started strong but fizzled early, because sometimes it takes a misstep to figure out where you should be headed.
Each game taught me something. Each game was both painful and gratifying in its own way, and each game contributed to what came after it.
What follows is a largely chronological examination of all the games I've produced over my lifetime, from the wildly successful to the completely unheard of.
Whether they took a billion lines of code or less than a hundred, there is one thing every game in this book has in common.
They are fundamentally comprised, as all games are, of a series of interesting decisions.
We are surrounded by decisions, and therefore games, in everything we do.
Interesting might be subject to personal taste, to some degree, but the gift of agency, that is the ability of players to exert free will over their surroundings rather than obediently following a narrative, is what sets games apart from other media.
Without a player's input, there can be no game.
I'm often asked in interviews when I got interested in games, usually with the implied hope that I'll identify a moment in my childhood when I suddenly knew I was a game designer.
But from my perspective, there was no turning point. I never made the conscious decision to embrace gaming, because as far as I can tell, gaming already is the default, straightforward path.
Not only does it span a billion hours of history, ancient Sumerians were throwing dice as early as 5000 BC, and Cruders games almost certainly go back as far as the Neanderthals, but it's a deeply embedded human instinct.
Everyone starts out life as a gamer, and I was no different.
First, I laughed at peekaboo, then I lined up toy soldiers, then I played board games, then I made fun computer programs. To me, it seems like the most logical progression in the world. The question when did you start would be better framed as why didn't you stop? But even then, I won't have a good answer. I find it mind-boggling that a life spent dedicated to gaming is the exception rather than the rule.
If my gravestone reads, Sid Meier, creator of civilization and nothing else, I'll be fine with that.