Q&A w/ Sid Meier: Civ, next-gen, and portable

The PC scene and strategy fans will be intimately familiar with Sid Meier. The mind behind such legendary games as the Civilization series and the open-world classic Pirates! bares that mind to Gamespot in an interview that asks him to look to the future – his future.

And dang if that future ain’t reasonably bright, if the dev he co-founded, Firaxis Games, was purchased by Take-Two Interactive earlier. Yeah, it means a loss of some degree of independence, Meier admits. He’s positive about this though.

If you take the time to build strong relationships with decision makers in the parent company, then you become part of the team of people making business decisions, and that will ultimately lead to good things.

One consequence of the Take-Two purchase was that Take-Two thought it wise to release the Civilization Chronicles, a compilation of ALL the Meier-sanctioned Civs (main games AND expansions) in one box, the DVD making of Civ IV, a book featuring the history of the Civ series, AND a Civ tabletop card game. Big as it is, that’s still looking to the past. Civ V?

Well, we just released Warlords, the first expansion pack for Civ IV, and fans have been pretty happy with it. Our view has always been that if fans of the game want more Civ then we’ll give them more Civ. Civ fans are very vocal and we like to listen–as long as they keep asking for more we’ll deliver.

Next question: could the team also deliver to the next-gen consoles? “I think the latest consoles have the processing power to deliver fun experiences with the bigger strategy games.” Seems like no definite plans, though, but Meier says he’ll keep his fans updated. A console Civ, hmm… (Go for it, Sid!)

But let’s not think that the portables are going to miss out on the action. The update of Pirates!, after all, will be yo-ho-hoing the waters of the PSP (another consequence of Take-Two). And the DS? “Our goal is to deliver Civilization on any game platform that makes sense. If we can deliver a fun experience to the players on the DS, then we’ll do it.”

The PC scene and strategy fans will be intimately familiar with Sid Meier. The mind behind such legendary games as the Civilization series and the open-world classic Pirates! bares that mind to Gamespot in an interview that asks him to look to the future – his future.

And dang if that future ain’t reasonably bright, if the dev he co-founded, Firaxis Games, was purchased by Take-Two Interactive earlier. Yeah, it means a loss of some degree of independence, Meier admits. He’s positive about this though.

If you take the time to build strong relationships with decision makers in the parent company, then you become part of the team of people making business decisions, and that will ultimately lead to good things.

One consequence of the Take-Two purchase was that Take-Two thought it wise to release the Civilization Chronicles, a compilation of ALL the Meier-sanctioned Civs (main games AND expansions) in one box, the DVD making of Civ IV, a book featuring the history of the Civ series, AND a Civ tabletop card game. Big as it is, that’s still looking to the past. Civ V?

Well, we just released Warlords, the first expansion pack for Civ IV, and fans have been pretty happy with it. Our view has always been that if fans of the game want more Civ then we’ll give them more Civ. Civ fans are very vocal and we like to listen–as long as they keep asking for more we’ll deliver.

Next question: could the team also deliver to the next-gen consoles? “I think the latest consoles have the processing power to deliver fun experiences with the bigger strategy games.” Seems like no definite plans, though, but Meier says he’ll keep his fans updated. A console Civ, hmm… (Go for it, Sid!)

But let’s not think that the portables are going to miss out on the action. The update of Pirates!, after all, will be yo-ho-hoing the waters of the PSP (another consequence of Take-Two). And the DS? “Our goal is to deliver Civilization on any game platform that makes sense. If we can deliver a fun experience to the players on the DS, then we’ll do it.”