When Sid Meier’s Civilization VII was announced, I remembered a story I had heard a long time ago: its creator never actually wanted to name this or any other game after him. Wait, what do you mean by his name? Indeed, Sid Meier is the name of a Canadian programmer and designer. Born in 1954, he was one of the most important creatives of his time and has worked as a producer, developer, consultant, etc. on very diverse projects for more than 30 years.
But no, it was not his idea to put Sid Meier on the games he created himself. It all started in 1980 when both he and his partner Bill Stealey decided to found their own company. The initial idea was to launch different simulators on the market. The truth is that they did quite well because only between 1982 and 1983 they launched some such as Formula 1 Racing, Spitfire Ace, Silent Service, or F-15 Strike Eagle. Immediately, Sid Meier’s name became relatively famous, and many associated it with a seal of quality. That is to say, if the game was his, it would be good.
The origin of Sid Meier’s
However, in 1987, both Sid Meier and Bill proposed a change of direction. This is what Polygon tells us, a medium that had the pleasure of chatting at length with Meier himself in an interview he gave them in 2016. That’s when we discovered that, in reality, putting “Sid Meier’s” before the name of the game was not It was his idea. It happened in 1987, with Sid Meier’s Pirates!, today recognized in certain instances as Pirates! to dry. The origin of all this goes back to the comedian and actor Robin Williams. Or that’s what Stealey, Sid’s former partner, has said on other occasions, as reported by Kotaku.
They met the actor during a dinner, although Sid Meier does not remember it in the same way. “I don’t remember it that way, but I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened. I remember telling Bill that I wanted to work on a pirate game that I thought would be cool. So he said, Well, okay, but we’ll put it on.’ your name so that all those who have played your simulation jobs know that you are the same person and do not leave MicroProse completely.
It was the first step. The game worked well, and since the formula seemed a success, Stanley kept it in other projects, and the marketing tasks were his responsibility. With this idea already fixed, in 1990 and 1991, Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon and Sid Meier’s Civilization came out, respectively. It was the latter that caused its name to become something more powerful since its staging marked the first step of one of the greatest strategy and simulation sagas in history.
It was the success of Civilization that made Bill Stealy decide to keep Sid Meier’s before each game since it was too attractive an attraction to pass up. The funny thing is that Sid never actually intended to do it. It’s cool that it applies to a group of games that I’m proud of, and that I’ve participated in. But it’s not… that wasn’t the goal. It wasn’t like, Okay, someday. I’ll put my name in a lot of games and then I’ll be happy.
He doesn’t even identify with the person who names his games. I guess I think of Sid Meier as another person. He’s another person I occasionally run into in places like this [Civilization]. He’s not. I don’t identify with that person too much,” he also explained to Polygon. This is how, as a result of the meeting between a comedian and an actor, a video game developer and a marketing specialist, one of the most widespread concepts in the history of the video game industry was born.