How the groundbreaking video game Civilization shows us who we really are
’It may not teach players about history, it does teach us about who we think we are in the present’
Though Civilization may not teach players about global history, it does teach us about who we think we are in the present.- Kanishk Tharoor, writer and critic
Sid Meier got his start creating airplane and war games, which led to his founding the company MicroProse in the mid-80s. Realizing that games could encompass more than just war, he began to explore the idea of "simulation" games, where a world is created and the player guide its population. He started small until he created the seminal game series Civilization, which would go through 5 sequels and sell over 33 million copies. It is a simplified version of the history of the modern world, as the player controls various cultural civilizations to try and become the world greatest superpower. Civilization's addictiveness is legendary. So much so that it even has a name: the "one more turn" phenomenon.
Watch the full episode.
I really do believe that games have worldviews that they communicate whether we realize it or not. If you're playing The Sims, for example, you're living in a capitalist society, if you're in Civilization, you're trying to colonize and rule the entire world.- Tracy Fullerton, Chair, Interactive Media & Games, University of Southern California
Sid Meier was a technological wiz-kid when he met Bill Stealey at a company retreat in Las Vegas. Stealey was a management consultant who held a side career as a fighter pilot in the US Air Force reserve. The two hit it off almost instantly, and after Meier was able to beat Stealey in a fighter jet arcade game, Meier boasted that he could design something better. Stealey was intrigued, took Meier up on his offer and the two of them went on to form MicroProse, a highly successful game company in the 80s that specialized in war-based flight and driving simulations.
He was obviously not trying to be a historian. I think he wanted people to be able to write their own stories within this context of history, because everyone wants to feel like they have an influence on history.- Chris Garcia, video game historian
However, Meier's heart lied in grander ambitions for the games that he created. He began to be captivated by the idea of creating entire worlds and playing around with the concept of time and history. After a supposed chance encounter with comedian Robin Williams who suggested that Meier should start putting his name above his titles, he did just that with the well-received Pirates! in 1987. But once again, Meier had bigger ideas.
Each civilization is given innate characteristics: The Americans were friendly and cooperative, the Russians were aggressive and militaristic, the Zulus were just aggressive. That game was made at the end of the Cold War. After 9/11, the game took on religion as a factor. As a designer of a game that is playing with the world, you cannot keep the world out of the game.- Kanishk Tharoor, writer and critic
In early 1990, Meier began coding the beginnings of Civilization completely by himself, hand off versions for Bruce Shelley to review and then the two would further iterate the game for months on end. Once the war simulation heavy board of MicroProse got wind of what the two were working on, it became a real fight to get the game off the ground and completed, but Meier knew he had something special. He used history as a gameplay mechanic, but wasn't beholden to it, the game would follow the path of the entire course of humanity, but in an imminently playable form. He also added the idea of a technology tree, branching technological advances that would be used to help your own civilization advance through the ages.
What happens if I make a civilization and I'm Genghis Khan but all I make is art?- Cindy Poremba, Founder Kokoromi Collective
After a slow burn, Civilization took off due to an incredibly strong word-of-mouth. Within a very short amount of time, it was soaking up "Strategy Game of the Year" awards and breaking sales records. MicroProse invested heavily in the arcade market which was beginning its collapse in the mid-90s and started bleeding cash. It was sold for a fraction of its value to a competing distributor and Meier was already off the sinking ship. He landed at Firaxis games where he still is today and just recently released Civilization VI to great acclaim. The Civilization series has gone down as one of the greatest strategy games of all-time.
Watch all ten episodes of The Artists now, a new CBC Arts series about the video game designers who changed the world.