YouSaid · the spoken record

Sid Meier

lines on the record: 59
first: 2021-07-31
most recent: 2021-07-31
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“A new idea. And Corinne operated arcades. We're engaging in microtransactions long before their current wave of popularity And finally, I'll close on it with a few parting words of wisdom from Sid. So many of our wildest dreams have turned out to be laughably conservative that it's hard to write off anything as impossible. Making games is simply the best job in the world, and I think that in life, as in game design, you have to find the fun. There is joy out there waiting to be discovered, but it might not be where you expect it. You can't decide what something's going to be before you embark on it, and you shouldn't stick with a bad idea just because you're fond of it. Take action as quickly and repeatedly as possible. Take advantage of what you already know, and take liberties with tradition, but most importantly take the time to appreciate the possibilities and make sure all of your decisions are interesting.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First, use it as a Hail Mary pass for an online server that was about to be shut down for lack of subscribers. Membership predictably skyrocketed once the game was free, but more importantly, the new microtransactions dwarfed previous subscription sales, not only saving the game, but increasing the total corporate revenue by sixteen percent in one year. So he's going to talk about really what he's referencing here is the difference between stated and revealed preference. They state they don't like it, but they end up spending a lot more money the other way, right? A full 70% of candy crush users have never paid a dime for the game, yet it still brings in several million dollars a day. When we say we hate it, but the balance sheet proves otherwise, I do think the idea of a free demo with the option to purchase the entire game is a fair one. And he talks about it also.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So then he talks about the pricing model of games and how it's changed over time. And I think this is really where studying the gaming industry is really beneficial because it's also mentioned a lot in the Masters of Doom book. So he's talking about this is now in the modern era, right? We had to decide whether to charge a one upfront premium for the game, as was traditional, or try out the trendy new model of downloadable content in which a limited version of the game would be given away for free, and then subsequent levels would have to be individually purchased. So a lot of mobile games are using this, obviously. I mean, computer games are using it, not just mobile games, but he's going to reference a mobile game here. But this is also the Doom model, the model that they came up with, I think, in the early 90s. If you ask a group of gamers their opinion on these so-called microtransactions, most would probably respond with a string of rude words. But their revenues tell a different story.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can imagine there's tons of people wanting to break into the industry, younger people to ask sit for advice. So this is his advice on how to get started. The best way to prove your idea is a good one is to prove it. Now with words but with actions. Sit in the programmer chair until you have something playable. Then sit in the artist chair until you have something crudely recognizable. Then sit in the tester chair and be honest with yourself about what's fun and what's not. You don't need to be perfect at any one job. You just need to be good enough to prove your point and inspire others to join you.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About treating your life as like you're playing a video game. One of the metaphors that Tim uses, Tim Urban uses to describe Elon Musk's approach to life is Grand Theft life. That section is worth reading and rereading over and over again because it's very fascinating. So few people use that, I guess, metaphor, that philosophy. This is Sid talking about the benefit of being obsessive. I think having a slightly obsessive personality is a useful thing. It keeps me focused on the quality of my work. It provides critical sources of outside inspiration, which often contribute in surprising ways. Whatever it is you want to be good at, you have to make sure you continue to read and learn and seek joy elsewhere, because you never know where inspiration will strike.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With us, and they can't end with us either. So he's talking about game design in this next section, but again, there's so many things where he's talking about game design that feel applies to real life too. He's talking about how to like the beginning of what do you want your game to be? Let's say, okay, what do you want your life to be? Who's having the most fun? That's who you want your player to be. The person with the most power, living the most exciting life. In the history of civilization, it's the king. On the Spanish main being the pirates, it's the captain of the pirate ship. In war, it's the general, and in the transportation industry it's the tycoon. So just think about that, not who's your player, not your life, right? Who is having the most fun? That's who you want your player to be. That really echoes an idea from a long time ago when I did that three-part series on Elon Musk, Tim Urban of Way by Y did an Elon Musk blog series. You can read it for free online by going to his website, but I bought the e-book or the Kindle version rather, and it's like 60,000 pages. But anyways, that whole idea.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's going to bring up the idea that everybody's constantly building on the work of others all the time. That is not to say my version of civilization had no outside influences. Far from it. Aside from the general creating not destroying concept, I'd first encountered in SimCity, there were two games that I very much respected and blatantly took ideas from to use for my own purposes. So it's a game called Seven Cities of Gold. And it says the game was a cloud parting shackle removing mind-blowing masterpiece for me. And there were elements of it in nearly every game I made thereafter. And he's got a great line to summarize this section. The ideas didn't start with us, and they can't end with us either. So he talks about it. You know, I was influenced by tons of people. And so when I see somebody doing influences by a game like Pirates or Railroad Tycoon or Civilization, like, I love that. I love seeing further improvements. The ideas didn't start.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The further apart you are, the more you can offer each other. I know where my own talents are, and I find that sharing those duties usually fall somewhere between inefficient and frustrating. I want to combine other people's unique expertise with mine and create something that none of us could have made alone, not compromise on the same task.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Separately is probably how I would work best with everyone. I'm an introvert who likes people. I want to collaborate on the whole, but I want to do my part individually. There are so many things in the world to be good at, and I get a thrill every time I come across someone who excels in their field. The dichotomy between someone else's talent and your own is a cause for celebration, because the further apart you are, the more you can offer each other, the further apart you are, the more you can offer each other. So he's talking about, hey, at the beginning, he did everything. He's making the game, he's designing the game, he's doing the audio for the game, slowly but surely he's got people say, hey, I can design for you. So he's like, oh, I don't know, maybe Ken. Then he looks at the designs like, oh, they're better than me. So, okay, I'm going to grab that guy. I can do audio. Does the audio better than me? So I'm going to grab that person. So that's what he's talking about. It's like, yeah, stick to what is your edge and then find the people that can fill in the gaps. Same thing with Bill, his first partner. Bill can sell. I don't want to sell.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So to some degree he becomes like, what is it, a prisoner of your own success? And this is, again, we're just going to echo, he just wants to make games. Like, it doesn't have to be complicated, right? We love to overcomplicate things. Just like John Cormack just want to make games. I was frustrated. I didn't like doing licenses, and I didn't like the corporate structure that I've been slowly but surely building up around me for years. I just wanted to make games. Many other early folks had moved on as well, and it was time for me to do the same. So once the company grows big and unwieldly, it has its like own momentum of itself. He winds up believing starting a tiny, well, I shouldn't say tiny, but it starts out small, but it's going to grow too. Just another design studio where he's like, okay, I'm going to start. It's just going to be us three, and then we'll build up from there. And this is how it tied into his decision about wanting to go back to the basics, to a smaller team, is this is Sid describing how he likes.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I thought they were tearing the house down, when in fact they were only remodelling because they liked the neighborhood and wanted to stay. Fortunately, Brian had the wisdom to give away the construction materials. To save fans ran with it would be an understatement.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Putting ourselves out of a job. Either way, I knew that modding was a great way to ensure that civilization never saw a third installment. I was so wrong on all counts. The strength of the modding community is instead the very reason this series survived at all. Our audience had been clamoring to modify the game since the first fan letter. What I didn't see at the time is that imagination never diminishes reality. It only heightens it. So the next two paragraphs, I'm going to read that again. The next two paragraphs are really his key insight here, and the reason I'm reading this whole section to you is because I think it applies to other things. It's very, very wise of him. What I didn't see at the time is that imagination never diminishes reality. It only heightens it. Just like a fantasy can awaken you to new possibilities in the real world, letting the fans play in the sandbox with us only brought them closer to the universe we had created, the one that had made their fantasy possible.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Community that sustained it for multiple decades, they'll actually change the game and reskin it and change things about it to make it more essentially customizing it to their own liking, right? And he thought this was a terrible idea. And so one of the next civilization designers is actually the one that pushed him in this direction. He's like, Brian, you're insane. You shouldn't be doing this. And he talks about the realization he has when he comes, when he figures out he was wrong. I thought it was valuable. So I'm going to read that to you in a minute. Brian unlocked the back end even further. He made it possible for players to alter graphics, replace sound effects, modify rules, and basically created an entirely new game from themselves around the skeleton of our code. I could not be convinced this was a good idea. This idea of handling everything over to the players was just baffling. They would probably be terrible at it, I thought, and blame us for their uninspired creations, and if by chance they did happen to be good at it, then all we were doing was”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so he takes a break for a while. He starts working on other completely different games. He makes that music composer game he wanted. It winds up flopping. Later on, he says civilization, the titles where there was always different lead designers because that's something you have to do when you're young and full of energy because it's just so comprehensive. It's such a large project. I do want to pull out one sentence here that Sid's realization that is going to be something that we've seen over and over again in this book. It says good games don't get made by committee. So good products don't get made by committee. That's something Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, George Lucas, David Oglevy, Charles Ketering. They are all agreeing with Sid here. That's something that pops up over and over again. Good products don't get made by committee. You need that formidable individual that's leading it. So this is interesting. He talks about where he made mistakes. So civilization has this huge modding.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were interacting with the game as a tool rather than an experience And what happens is it's a slow burn, but it starts spreading by word amount. So even years later, he's saying this is like two or three years after the game was released, new fans were discovering the game every day. I had poured everything I had into civilization, and I was honestly ready to think about something else for a while. So now he's completely burned out, and it says achievement unlocked. This is the gamification of the book. It says midlife crisis. Woohoo! We're halfway there.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So after a lot of time and effort he winds up finishing civilization and conventional wisdom winds up being wrong again. Civilization starts resonating with players. So as a conventional wisdom said a strategy title would never make big money. So the company, and I've skipped over a bunch of like the weird people leave ownership changes, all this other stuff, but they didn't put a lot of marketing dollars at the beginning behind civilization because they said, you know, conventional wisdom says you're not going to make big money. So why would we make a huge investment in marketing? They hadn't put a big marketing push behind it. So like most of my recent games, it started as a slow burn. Then they realized, okay, we've resonated with something. When the first fan litters trickled in a few weeks after the games released, they had a decidedly different tone than we were used to. Some of the letters were several pages long and included phone numbers in the hopes that we could discuss things in greater depth. We had gotten players thinking on a deeper level.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The point is there are bad things in my games, at least until I manage to pin them down, but I don't let the possibility of mistakes hold me back. I won't ponder for hours whether a feature would be a good idea. I just throwed in the game and find out for sure. If it's clunky, I cut it back out again. There is no map before you have explored the wilderness and no overriding artistic vision on day one. There's just a hard, consistent work of making something a little better each day, and being as efficient as possible in your discovery of what it's going to turn out to be.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Less than a month before civilization was published, I cut the size of the map in half. It turned out that the size wasn't as important as the sense of relentless progress. With a smaller map, the game moved faster, and that in turn made the map feel more epic than when it was twice as big.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then he's got some advice on how to make progress faster. It's like a series of iterations. Don't just essentially sit around and overthink things. Just make a demo, see how it goes. And if it doesn't work back, roll it back. So he also has this idea of like you need to double what you're doing or cut it in half. So let me just read this to you and hopefully it makes sense. Mistakes are a given. And the important thing is to catch as many as you can, as fast as you can. Ideally, you'll reevaluate your creation every single day. And each iteration is an opportunity not to pat yourself on the back, but to figure out where you've already gone wrong. Efficiency is the goal, and one of my big rules has always been double it or cut it in half. Don't waste your time adjusting something by 5%, then another 5%, then another 5%. Just double it and see if it even had the effect you thought it was going to have. You just saved yourself a dozen iterations inching up 5% at a time. Less than a month before the end of the odd, then you can move in the other direction too.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anything it's grown in relevance since back then, when we at least had limited computing resources to restrain us. These days the easiest thing in the world to do is more. And if we're not careful, we can end up with three or four games all jammed into one, deciding what doesn't go into the game is sometimes more important than deciding what does.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Successful, but it burns them out for extremely long period of time. And again, I just think that's something that's mentioned over and over again where people are looking back like, hey, if I knew how hard that was going to be, I would have when I started it, I wouldn't have done it. So there is some kind of benefit to ignorant bliss or naivete, whatever you want to call it. This is Sid really saying you need to know your edge. We simply can't compete with the panorama of a movie or the length of a novel or the acoustics of an album. And prioritizing these features over gameplay, which is his edge, will always lead to disappointments. The time has come for us to outgrow Hollywood envy. I think there's another game designer or a game publisher. Sid Meyer makes a pathetic Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he makes a magnificent Sid Meyer. Okay, so pull.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agreed, we should do another one. Something bigger. What's bigger than the history of railroads, the entire history of human civilization? We laughed at the absurd truth of that statement, but as soon as it was said out loud, I don't think either of us could have settled for anything less. We were not the type to turn down an interesting challenge. At the age of twenty eight, I had declared in my very first instruction manual that I would one day write the ultimate strategy game. Now at 36, I figured I was ready. Age and experience may bring wisdom, but sometimes it's useful to be a young person who hasn't learned how to doubt himself yet, so you have an idea as to why as he's saying that. Agent experience may bring wisdom. Sometimes it's useful, however, sometimes it's useful for a young person who hasn't learned how to doubt himself yet. He did not know how hard making civilization was going to be and he's going to wind up putting everything into it. And it's fantastic.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sid, I don't think Sid has any violence in its games. It's like one of his philosophies. You have to blow things up. He's like, no, why don't people just might be interested in just constantly building and making progress. And so what he's learning on SimCity on Railway Tycoon, he then will also apply to civilization, this idea of just perpetual progress and not just the destruction of things. And before I get into this conversation where they realize, okay, now's the time to build civilization. One sentence for you. Never forget the why. Never forget why people are using your product. People play games to feel good about themselves. So I just listened to a talk that Sid did like six years ago. In about an hour and a half, he lays out all his gaming philosophy. It's on YouTube if you want to watch it. He talks about it over and over again. People play games to feel good about themselves. So don't make decisions as a game designer that go against why they're playing your particular game. So this is where he realizes it's time for civilization. That was a pretty fun game to make, Bruce said.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think that's another thing about Sid that you see if you read the book over and over again. He's smart enough to learn from the experience of others. It's like, all right, I'm going to avoid. I don't want to have to just learn through my own experience, right? That's too expensive. I'm going to learn from other people's experiences. This conversation I have with Tom, I'm not going to forget it, make sure I don't get taken advantage like this. I'm going to bring you up to state of the business in 1990. As a company, we're now releasing three or four games a year and generating around $15 million in revenue. So over and over again in the book, Sid talks about being inspired by the success and the work of others. He'll quote authors, musicians, fellow game designers. And this is an example of SimCity. This is a game I played when I was a kid. I love this game. It was actually SimCity was the inspiration behind Sid's game railroad tycoon, which winds up being one of his most successful games ever. And the railroad tycoon title inspired all kinds of, like there was a whole genre of tycoon.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“to command a prints, the history of business, especially in the entertainment industries, people being taken advantage of. I'd always had a distaste for business deals in general, simply because it's not the kind of thing I want to spend my time.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“in the intervening months he had been kind to him that the intervening months had been kind to him financially, but not so kind emotionally as he was forced to adapt to fame and the complications that come along with it. Tom was especially troubled by ongoing contractual issues with his first book and the fear that he might never again own the rights to his own character. Again, this is what Sid avoided, right? And later on, when he starts making civilization, I skipped over a lot of this part, but there's a lot of weird other people buy Sid's creations too because it's unowned under corporate umbrella. It's really, really confusing. There's more details on the book, but he does eventually get back all control. The conversation was eye-opening for me, first in discovering a kindred creative spirit underneath that alpha male persona that Tom Clancy had, and also in the revelation that even someone of his stature could be taken advantage of through poor business arrangements. They took advantage of Tom Clancy, when Superfame.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The upside. All right, so he talks about sitting down and essentially they're going to have a conversation. I skipped ahead, but they built a friendship of some sorts, or at least a relationship. And really, the whole summary of the section, this conversation that Tom Clancy and Sid Meyer are about to have is maintain control so you can avoid shady business deals. Business is full of shady, scummy, terrible people. I always think the best way to describe this is when it's a quote from Charlie Munger. He says, wise people want to avoid other people who are just total rat poison. And there are a lot of them. So business is full of them. One way to avoid people taking advantage of you is to maintain control. Since that night we sat up late together expounding the nature of art, sources of inspiration. Remember, he's a writer, fancy he's a writer, and in some ways sit is as well. Sources of inspiration and the inevitable connection we develop with our creations. He revealed that”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's go back to that. And we're going to substitute Pirates' career, your career. Your career will last about 40 years between childhood and old age. And your goal was to accomplish as much as you could in that window, to have an adventurous life with no regrets. As in real life, success could only be measured as a combination of your exploits and how much value you put on those particular exploits yourself in a scorecard, idea you and I have talked about over and over again. Life is not a steady progression of objectively increasing value, and when you fail, you don't just reload the mission again. You knock the wet sand off your breaches and return to the high seas for new adventures. If you happen to get marooned on a desert island a few times, well, that makes for a good story too. I just love that we can summarize that whole section there. Have an adventurous life with no regrets.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So one of his most popular games was Sid Meyer's Pirates. And I'm just going to read, I'm going to skip over all the development. I just want to hit some what he realized his key insight. And what I wrote, the note I left myself on this page is, holy shit, this applies for real life, not just the design of a pirate game. A pirate's career would last about 40 years between childhood and old age, just like ours, right? And his goal, this is so important. And his goal was to accomplish as much as he could in that window, to have an adventurous life with no regrets.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sid was a little reluctant to do that, but then he says Robin Williams told me to do it. It's a pretty good defense for almost anything. So I thought that was really interesting. Then he talks about the beginning of industry is not like a lot, there's not like best practices. And so how do I make these decisions? And this is something we've seen over and over again. Let's just start with the customer work backwards. All I could do was keep asking myself, would I want to play this game as long as the answer was yes, the idea stayed in. Always put himself in the role of his customer, in the role of the player, not just saying, hey, I can design a game because it's easier for me. No, would the customer actually like what I'm doing?”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's insane. Another common theme that we see over and over again in these biographies you're going to be misunderstood by the outside world when he starts doing this, if you say I'm going to be game designers today, it's like, oh, that makes plenty of sense. That makes a lot of sense, right? Massive industry growing rapidly. It's insane. But it says, but at Sid's time, it wasn't like that at all. It wasn't that gaming was looked down on by the rest of the world necessarily, but it was sometimes glanced at sideways and confusion. I don't think any of us could have imagined back then the kind of cultural domination that gaming would someday achieve.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so I'm fast forwarding the story. Obviously, if you want the whole story, you got to read the book. But there is, he's making more games. And they're selling very, very well. So as the game went over to sell over 250,000 copies, I wish we could sell, and he's talking about he had to fix the game in the development process, but what he's saying here is going to sound very similar to what we just learned from Johnny Ive a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago in his biography. I wish I could sum up how we fixed it, but the math is long, complicated, and boring. The important thing to note is that it wasn't a lightning bolt solution, but dozens of increment, this is so important, not a lightning bolt, dozens of incremental changes, many of which we couldn't take credit for. We had to find ways to do our job better, but we also had to take advantage of other people who were doing their jobs better, new technology, new compression algorithms, new ways to implement standard subroutines.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I'm like, wow, this guy really loved what he did. And reading that book, spending 10 or 15 hours having a one sided conversation with him. Now we're going to go to Trader Joe's. I'm like, wow, I can really appreciate his philosophy and all the work. It took him, what, two decades to finally, or a decade and a half to finally figure out what his company was supposed to be. So I think what Sid's doing here is really smart. He's like, listen, I'm pouring all these game manuals. Yeah, you might not read it, but what Claude said, the more you tell, the more you sell. You've seen this guy clearly cares, and then start with service, and he's talking about, you know, people like, why are you doing this? And one sentence here. We just wanted to be helpful.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That he influenced other people like David Ogarby later on, but the more you tell, the more you sell. And number two, start with service. And there's just two quick sentences. And it's about, you really see Sid's love for what he's doing. So it says one of the things that micro prose was famous was for our game manuals, which over time became as long and informative as textbooks, the manual for the game, the more he sells, the more he tells. He's putting all kinds of information in the game, again, some people won't read it. Maybe a lot of people won't read it. But the people that do read it will have a fundamentally deeper appreciation for your game. Just like with me, as I started reading these biographies and autobiographies of people, if their company is still around, I find myself more likely to spend money at their company. I've been ever since I did Trader Joe's. I've always shot the Trader Joe's, but now I don't know if I've been to another grocery store since I've done that book.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Few pages later, this one sentence what I call one sentence story. And again, another illustration of that idea of find work that feels like play. All that mattered to me was that I got to make games for a living. So I want to go back and reference Masters of Doom, podcast number 21. How do you have two partners, a small company making tons of money? Two partners are running it as John Romero, John Carmack. They wind up breaking up. Why are they breaking up? Because Sid John Carmack was very similar to what Sid says here. What did Sid say? All that mattered to me was that I got to make games for a living. There's a quote from Masters of Doom that I never forgot. As Carmac put it shortly after their breakup, Romero wants an empire. I just want to make good programs because Carmack found work that felt like play. I just want to say just wants to make video games. Carmac just wants to make video games. I don't need to have an empire. And in that case, I mean, he has almost...”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so this pays off. They wind up selling a boatload of solo flight. And it says a few months after signing the solo flight deal, Bill said the words I've been waiting to hear. Sid, we're making enough money. You can quit your day job. Which started out as a labor of love, now finally qualified as a legitimate labor that we all happen to love. Remember, this is something me and you have been talking about over and over again. Find work that feels like play. Work that feels like play. No one can compete with you. What you're doing today feels like play to you and it feels like work to them. And this is the most important part of this entire section. Quality. Quality content in this case his games quality was the driving force behind it all.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I gave Bill the only advice I had to offer if this is so important. If you believe you have something special, then you should treat it that way. If you believe you have something special, then you should treat it that way. I heard you shouldn't sell the family jewels, I said. It turned out to be the right decision. And so when I got to that section, there's two examples that one of already covered on the podcast, one I will cover in the future. Aquillo Marita, founder of Sony, and Ralph Lauren both did the same thing that Sid did here. Keo Marita, his dream is like I'm going to build a company that not only is Sony going to be world renowned, but it's going to, at the time, Japan had a reputation for making crappy products. And so he put his mission not to make Sony, he picked a mission bigger in his company. So it's not like, I don't want to just make Sony successful. I want to make the reputation for Japanese products better. And so he winds up in the early days of Sony. I forgot.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“51 million copies, and all the upside goes to the person that bought it, right? So he wants to avoid that. Partnership was not the same as ownership. And Bill and I had been clear about staying on our side of the equation. Rather than a stake in the company in the company, being buy into micropros, or ongoing royalties, however, there's this company called He's Wear. He's wear wanted to pay us a flat $250,000 to buy the game in its entirety and then sell it as their own. On one hand, long-term sales of solo flight, that's the game, might surpass his wear's offer, especially now that we had distributor deals on the table. On the other hand, we were still running on a very tight budget, and with me not even able to work full time, so he turned down this deal and he's not even working full-time. This is really, really hard to do, but really smart move. A large injection of cat because they're going to wind up selling hundreds of thousands of copies. A large injection of cash would help us significantly and keep us afloat if the game turned out to be a bad.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say Sid's more cautious, but it was a little wild. Bill decided it was time for him to leave General Instrument and work full-time at Microprose. There was no realistic way for him to increase his efforts at the company otherwise, but I was more cautious about giving up my steady paycheck and still not convinced that this dream was going to last. Our philosophy had always been to avoid loans and venture capital, and it would only take a couple months of slow sales to drag us under. I decided it would be more prudent for me to go halftime, spending two days a week at the new microprose office space and three days a week at my day job. So he finds a way to compromise. I have a safety net, but I can also dedicate it more hours of my week to making this company successful. Let me skip ahead to how they wind up. They wind up analyzing the retail game market, which is starting to grow little by little at this time. And they're like, okay, well, how can we rapidly accelerate sales instead of, you know, I'm just calling.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Next step as Bill saw it was to broaden our audience by porting all of our games onto other systems. That we technically doubled our workforce because they're reporting to other systems, micro pros was still a nights and weekends operation out of our homes Now Bill sees the potential before Sid does. That's very fascinating. And he's also”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm going to do this. Gaming had its hooks embedded in me. I now believed that I myself could be a game designer. According to my short autobiography at the end of Formula One Racing Manual, this is a book that he did, this enterprising 28-year-old with exactly one professional title under his belt had two dreams in life. So now he's going back as a mid-60s man and looking back what his 28-year-old self wrote in the manual for his first game. One, I want to develop a music composition system, which I eventually did, and it flopped. And number two, the other was to write the ultimate strategy game. That is civilization, that is the one that sells 51 million copies. Okay, so they have some success selling these games, and it says Bill and I were almost selling 500 games a month. I had just churned out my fourth title.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, another way you can think about that sentence he just said. So identifying as weaknesses, right? So it's like, okay, I'm not boisterous salesman. I'm not a self-promoter. I'm kind of the guy in the background. I'm the craftsman in the background, right? I had useful knowledge that others didn't have, and I would have to rely on those who had knowledge of my knowledge, who could be my link to the nonprogramming world. People like my future partner Bill. And again, I know I repeated that. I think it's very important. Identify the weaknesses. And then, hey, if I can't strengthen those weaknesses, find people that already have that, your weaknesses, their strength. Bill is going to sell, he's a master salesman. Sid is not. Let me just team up with this guy and we can actually build a company together. Fast forwarding in the story, but again, I want to hit on this part that small initial success can cause you to believe it is possible. You can't accomplish anything until you actually think it's possible. That's the first step. And so the fact that he's having these people are playing his games, his mom's freaking out, his coworkers are freaking out, Bill selling 500 copies a month. He's like, all right.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This medium struck me as both fascinating and enticing. But then he's talking about this. I want to do this, but where are the people who got paid for making games? Could I be one of those people? I knew by now that I was a person who could make games, probably for the rest of my life. But it never occurred to me that it could be a source of income. If that were true, then being a game designer seemed like the ideal job, and so he still talks about the fact that, you know, when he's invited to give talks, you know, people always want to talk about the past and he's very thankful for that. But he's like, I still make games today. It's like, I'm going to do this till I die. And so he talks about the difficulty, you know, I'll never top civilization. I can sell 50 million copies of whatever game I'm doing now, but I do still like to do this. And I would like your attention on that. I thought that was interesting that he brings that up. I was neither a boisterous salesman nor a self-promoter. And though I knew it was counter, even though I knew that was counterproductive to my own goals.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are crying and laughing. If you have a product that evokes emotion, those products win, right? And Louis understood that 100 years ago. And so we see the same thing. We see Sids coming to the same realization here. Because his mom's flipping out at this game. She's not even a gamer. She starts playing this game and she's getting so tense because suddenly she dropped the controller and turned her face away. She told me she couldn't play anymore. Her heart was racing and it was all too much. I never forgot that moment. My mother had become emotionally invested in this little game, so profoundly that she had to abandon it entirely. Games were not just a diversion, I realized. Games could make you feel, and I love how he compares gaming to other things like movies and novels and everything else. And so he says, if great literature could wield its power through nothing but black squiggles on a page, how much more could be done with movement, sound, and color? The potential for emotional interaction through”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ban with pride it was an objective measure of how good the game must have been. It did leave me with a problem, however. My appetite for making games was growing stronger, but if I couldn't program in the office anymore, where could I do it? And he had good timing because not only as at the same time his appetite for making games is growing, he gets kicked out of being able to develop in the office Atari, which way back on founders number 36, Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, and the mentor of Steve Jobs. He actually hired an 18 or 19-year-old Steve Jobs to work at Atari. That book that he wrote, The autobiography, is called Finding the Next Steve Jobs. But Atari makes a game. They just released a computer that is made so you can make games on. So he winds up, Sid winds up buying that and then starts producing a lot of games. He lets his”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With Sid's first game in 1982. Now, he's eventually going to build large games, but he says even towards the end of the book that he's at his heart and soul, he still prefers indie development. But civilization, that multiple part 25, 30-year game that they kept adding, kept extending rather. He says, it might not even be an exaggeration. There might be a billion lines of code in there. It's a massive. It winds up turning into a massive endeavor with all kinds of programmers and designers and everything else because of the popularity, but he does have a soul of an indie developer. And at the very beginning, they're very happy just to sell a couple hundred games a month, which is the next section I'm going to read to. In the beginning, the sales calls, bills made were based mostly on convenience. If he had a business trip out of town, he'd walk from the train to the nearest computer store and try to sell a few copies.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That covers the first 30 years of his life. He talks about hey, you know, I became super famous in this industry. It was hard to find people that gave me honest feedback. They're like, hey, you're great. But essentially he's saying you got to be wary of having a bunch of yes men, right? That he's mentoring all these people. They're especially helping them with the quality of the game. But they kind of like idolize him where he works best with people that give him honest feedback. They're not trying to hurt his feelings. They're saying, hey, this could be better. And so you can think about that the same way that Arnold says, hey, constantly identify your weaknesses and improve them. And so that's what Bill's doing here at the very, they don't even have a company yet. This is the very beginning. That was when I knew the partnership could really go somewhere. Bill wasn't looking to make a quick buck on something he didn't understand. He was as invested in the game quality as I was. And this is the beginning. So with $1,500 in savings, we bought a stack of floppy disks, a package of label stickers, and a box of plastic baggies to put them in. That's how you sold games at this time. This was standard packaging back then, even for professional.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Start with his name. So his name he talks about the difference between hey, I'm Sid Meyer as a person, but then there's Sid Myers a brand. And so what winds up happening is he creates such great games. They start putting his name on all the games so people know, oh, wait, I played Pirates. I like that. I'll play civilization or I'll play this game. And so not only, again, he wants professional pride to be his work to be admired. Other people, his peers and everybody else say, hey, he's really good at what he does. But then it becomes almost like an obligation because all the games start with his name. So it has to have a certain level of quality. When I finally decided the game was ready as it could be, I handed it over to Bill, and this is an important part too. And a day later, he returned it to me with a list of bugs and military inaccuracies. That was when I knew that this partnership could really go somewhere. What an interesting surprise, right? Some people don't like criticism. We just saw, last episode, two episodes ago. I can't remember the Arnold Schwarzenegger autobiography like that.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bill held me to it, said, Hey, can you do it? I'll sell it. And then he talks about really thinking of himself as he was extremely important to him to build work, to build, to use Steve Jobs' word, insanely great products. And so he's looking at all the other fighter simulation fighter pilot games at the time. And he says there's a pretty big gulf between better and best. Remember, he says I could design a better game in two weeks, right? There's a gulf between better and best. And I always wanted to be on the far side of it. He wanted to make the very best games, not only for his own personal pride, but he wanted other people to say, hey, Sid's games are fantastic. And that's another thing. It's going to blow your mind because I didn't, Robin Williams is going to make a cameo in this book. But all of Sid's games, almost all of them are, they...”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What he's about to say here. All right, so he says, The big moments rarely feel like life changing at the time, okay? And the danger of retroactive mythologizing is that it makes people want to hold out for something dramatic rather than throwing themselves into every opportunity. So that is what Sid did. He threw himself into every opportunity. Again, what he wound up dedicating his career to didn't even exist when he was a kid when he was in college, when you're thinking about, hey, what do you want to do with my life? He just trusted the fact that, hey, if I could throw myself in every opportunity, I'm a lifelong learner. He talks about that over and over again, and then just trust that the path will reveal itself. The reality is I've been fiddling around with game programming for years by then. And then I double underline this next sentence. The first step is almost always to sit down and start working. And so now he goes into the process, okay, well, I just said I could do a better game.”
2021-07-31 · Founders · #195 Sid Meier (Computer game designer) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source