A lot of your games have had sequels of one kind or another, but you have
never been the lead designer on one of them. Why is this?
I think they are a fine thing to do in general, especially if they’re done well. I seldom go
back to a topic primarily because I haven’t run out of ideas yet, so I’d rather do a dino-
saur game than go back to an older title. I don’t have a lot of energy to get too involved in
the sequels. Some of them turn out well, some of them turn out not quite so well. As
opposed to letting the topic fade away, I think doing a sequel is often a good idea. In an
ideal world, I’d like to be involved in everything, but I can’t really do that. So I tend to be
more interested in being involved in a new product as opposed to a sequel. It’s certainly
gratifying that people want anotherRailroad TycoonorCivilization, et cetera. I think
that’s great. I’m happy that it can be done. OnCivilization III, since it’s being done
inside of Firaxis, I’m able to take a more direct part in that, which I think is good. I would
have liked to have doneRailroad Tycoon IIand do a newPirates!, et cetera, if I had an
infinite amount of time. But it’s just not feasible.
I hear a lot of people talking about storytelling in games. Usually by storytell-
ing they mean using cut-scenes or branching dialog trees or devices like that.
Your games have never been very concerned with that side of storytelling.
To me, a game ofCiviliza-
tion is an epic story. I
think the kind of stories
I’m interested in are all
about the player and not
so much about the
designer. There are play-
ers that are more
comfortable in situations
where they’re making
small decisions and the
designer’s making the big
decisions. But I think
games are more interest-
ing when the player
makes the big decisions
and the designer makes
the small decisions. I think, in some sense, games are all about telling stories. They
have a story created more by the player and less by the designer, in my mind. I think in
Civilizationthere are fantastic stories in every game, they’re just not in the more tradi-
tional sense of a story. We have, amongst our rules of game design, the three categories
of games. There are games where the designer’s having all the fun, games where the
computer is having all the fun, and games where the player is having all the fun. And we
think we ought to write games where the player is having all the fun. And I think a story
can tend to get to the point where the designer is having all the fun or at least having a
lot of the fun, and the player is left to tidy up a few decisions along the way, but is really
being taken for a ride. And that’s not necessarily bad, but our philosophy is to try to give
Chapter 2: Interview: Sid Meier 37
Civilization