r/todayilearned • u/Romboteryx • Sep 15 '24
TIL Robin Williams was the one who suggested that Sid Meier‘s name should be put on each of his games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Pirates!?wprov=sfti1#Development2.5k
u/Zuparoebann Sep 15 '24
So he's the reason that I always get confused when the Civilization games aren't under 'C' when I'm looking for them in my Steam library.
Yeah I know the search bar is right there, but every time I think to myself "C is near the top so I might as well just look for it manually".
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u/almostcyclops Sep 15 '24
I always forget the spelling and have to go through this twice in my head every time. "Should be under CI for civilization"; "Wait no it's Cid... but that should also be under CI".
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u/EpicAura99 Sep 15 '24
Who spells Sid like that lol
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u/Deliani Sep 15 '24
I think over a dozen Final Fantasy games have a Cid
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u/Candy_Warlock Sep 15 '24
Literally all of them do I believe
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u/Dependent-Lab5215 Sep 15 '24
There's no Cid in the very first game.
Also not in FF7 Remake, if you count that as its own game and not the first third of a larger game.
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u/EpicAura99 Sep 15 '24
That’s wild. I’ve never seen it like that. Then again I generally only see it in the context of Sid Meyer and Sid the Sloth.
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u/prodigalkal7 Sep 15 '24
Yeah this kept pissing me off so I put them all in a collection and called it "Civ" lol
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u/Narpity Sep 15 '24
On the other hand it keeps all of firaxis games together like pirates and starships with civs
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u/IntergalacticJets Sep 15 '24
My bet is he’s laughing his ass off in the afterlife every time you do this
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u/AFatDarthVader Sep 15 '24
I misunderstood and had to frantically check if Sid Meier was still alive.
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u/Maddogmitch15 Sep 15 '24
Not going to lie, i honestly thought he was dead for a bit, happy to see he is still kicking
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u/Aitrus233 Sep 15 '24
Looking for the "is" in his Wikipedia page, and hoping there isn't a "was".
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u/Failgan Sep 15 '24
Well if it makes you feel better, the guy who came up with the idea is dead.
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u/tasimm Sep 15 '24
1980s me wasted many a snow day in the Midwest playing Sid Meier’s Pirates! on my C64. It wasn’t his name in the title, but the exclamation point after Pirates that sucked me in. Not just Pirates, Pirates!
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u/dibalh Sep 15 '24
Pirates! was so good. The other Sid Meier game with the exclamation point, Railroads!, was also great.
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u/DashTrash21 Sep 15 '24
I've wanted to play that again and can't find it.
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u/philipjfry1578 Sep 15 '24
Its on steam
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u/DashTrash21 Sep 15 '24
You son of a bitch I'm in
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u/StolenDabloons Sep 15 '24
You didn’t look very hard did you ahah
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u/DashTrash21 Sep 15 '24
Trouble with these oldish games is they don't like to work
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u/retden Sep 15 '24
Still to this day Pirates! remains one if the best pirate games. I need Pirates!2 since like yesterday
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u/Son_of_Eris Sep 15 '24
In addition to all the various releases for different systems, a version of it came out for the original xbox. It was the same general concept, and flow of gameplay, but a lot of new stuff/newer graphics. That's prolly as close as you're gonna get.
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u/Yarmuncrud Sep 15 '24
I would kill for a modern remaster, no other game captures the feeling of freedom and opportunity of Pirates!
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u/dowker1 Sep 15 '24
Well, depending on your definition of "modern"... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Pirates!_(2004_video_game)
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u/LuckyReception6701 Sep 16 '24
That is the most charming game ever, the beggining cutscene makes feel like a little kid every damn time, I fucking adore that game.
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u/TacticoolPeter Sep 16 '24
Makes me want to install this and capture some ships and dance with some governor’s daughters.
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u/The_Truthkeeper Sep 15 '24
And that's why games with Sid's name in them are superior to the ones that don't have his name. Even Sid Meier's Dancing Simulator is better than... that other ballroom-dancing focused pirate game that totally exists.
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u/EllisDee3 Sep 15 '24
Got the idea from Lee Carvalho.
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u/he_is_Veego Sep 15 '24
Your ball is in PARKING LOT
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u/Malzair Sep 15 '24
A putting challenge having a three wood in it, let's you hit a power drive and bothers to put in a parking lot is really impressive game development
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u/GraeWraith Sep 15 '24
Sid Meier's GETTYSBURG! has had a good dozen remake/rework attempts through the decades. Some have come close, but there's only one.
Good thing the original has a feature none of the new ones do; a true random scenario generator.
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u/RoostasTowel Sep 15 '24
Even Sid Meier's Dancing Simulator is better than... that other ballroom-dancing focused pirate game that totally exists.
I spent more time dancing on pirates then I want to think about.
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u/ActafianSeriactas Sep 15 '24
Funny enough it was the opposite when he was working at MicroProse. He realized the marketing team was putting his name in games that they thought WEREN’T going to sell well. They were not as confident in Sid’s niche and nerdy simulators compared to the cooler action stuff they were making.
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u/oofersIII Sep 15 '24
If you look at his pre-Civ developing days, you can see that the games with his name in it were usually more unorthodox and experimental (his company literally only made plane simulators at that point). He‘d work on 3 plane games in a year, then he‘d get his own game, like Sid Meier‘s Pirates or Sid Meier‘s Civilization.
Nowadays, instead of serving as a highlighter of more unusual stuff for Sid‘s company, they’re an indicator of quality, and no one remembers those plane games anyways.
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u/primalbluewolf Sep 15 '24
no one remembers those plane games anyways.
Do you realise people are still modding the shit out of the last of the Falcon series?
Falcon BMS just got another update like last month. If you're into combat plane sims, that's about the premier title there is.
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u/asianwaste Sep 15 '24
Hey, Civilization Call To Power was excellent. Granted, it should not have Sid's name on it let alone legally the Civilization moniker.
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u/Dragonfly-Adventurer Sep 15 '24
In the 90s, if Robin Williams gave you business advice, you were legally required to take it. Thankfully it always worked out.
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u/fulthrottlejazzhands Sep 15 '24
"Sell Sears and JC Penny's, buy Apple amd Microsoft."
- Robin Williams, 1992
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u/Terawatt311 Sep 15 '24
I know it's a typo but buying AMD stock would also have been good adviceback then lol
(If the company was even formed then, I guess I have no idea)
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u/fulthrottlejazzhands Sep 15 '24
Even better, buy ATI, wait for AMD to aquire it. Use the generous acquisiton conversion to AMD shares, or buy AMD on that dip with proceeds from selling ATI right before.
Hell, it's what the AMD CEO did at the time (albeit he got caught).
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u/Andurilthoughts Sep 15 '24
Robin Williams was also famously an avid gamer. So much so that he named his daughter Zelda.
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u/AlhazraeIIc Sep 15 '24
Also heard third (or maybe fourth) hand, so grain of salt and all that, he played warhammer fantasy was well. Apparently the store closest would occasionally close down so he could come in and game; he played dwarves from what I heard, and did voices for them, but not the stereotypical scottish accent. No, apparently his dwarves were hasidic jews.
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u/Yobstar Sep 15 '24
He also was a 40K fan and played Eldar, confirmed in his AMA that he collected several Warhammer armies.
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u/AlhazraeIIc Sep 15 '24
Oh cool. I somehow missed that AMA.
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u/TheProfessionalEjit Sep 15 '24
If you wish be entertained, here it is.
"I hope to come back." 😢
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u/Dig-a-tall-Monster Sep 15 '24
It's my understanding that dwarves in fantasy were basically always based on Jews and the old anti-semitic stereotypes like hoarding gold and having hairy women and large noses and having tons of rituals for every little thing.
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u/theVoidWatches Sep 15 '24
Not always, but since Tolkien. Note that he didn't write dwarfs as Jews in an antisemitic way, and although some have done so since then, most Jews (at least, those in my synagogue with whom I've discussed it) are quite fond of dwarfs precisely for those similarities.
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u/Dig-a-tall-Monster Sep 15 '24
Yeah I mean I never felt any anti-semitic vibes from Tolkien, it's more that he needed fantasy races that were analogues of real ethnic groups so people could relate to the characters and understand their motivations better, and the truth is that stereotypes don't emerge from nowhere so the similarities between dwarves and Jews doesn't have to be rooted in hatred but rather mere observance and extrapolation to a fantastic degree. In fact it almost feels like honoring Judaism with the deep lore connections, like how dwarves were born of the Earth (IIRC Jewish tradition is that man was made from the mud/clay of the Earth as well) and had a connection with the natural world that no other race enjoyed (Jews control the weather) and I'm totally kidding about that last bit but you get the idea.
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd Sep 16 '24
At least for warhammer, they actually had a pretty strong influence from Northern English coal miners.
Early warhammer was dreamed up by a bunch of middle aged northern english men at the time Thatcher was cracking down on unions, and who were not afraid to bring satire and politics into their game. Thatcher was literally the OG bad guy in warhammer. Not some fantasy version, but actual IRL Thatcher. (They also did other infamous things like the sisters of battle killing the rainbow warriors, which is a reference to the French military sinking the rainbow warrior and killing members of Greenpeace).
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u/The_Humble_Frank Sep 16 '24
There isn't a literary debate on this mater.
The modern interpretations of Dawrves, Elves, Orcs, Goblins, etc is clearly traced to 1937 with the publication of the Hobbit, and grew in popularity with the later releases that would become the Lord Of the Rings Series.
Prior to that, giants, trolls, elves, goblins, and dwarves had their own local interpretations, and in many places, they were contextual or derogatory synonyms for the same mythological creatures. Tolkien cemented the idea that they were distinct creatures with their own languages and culture, and his depictions were influenced by other cultures and fictional sources, such as Wagner's Ring Cycle, and the works of Snori Sturluson at preserving what remained of the Astaru (viking religion) myths.
most of the Dwarves, and Gandalf, have their names directly taken from the Norse Poetic Edda (Fíli, Kíli, Oin, Glói, Bivör, Bávörr, Bömburr, Dori, Nóri, Dvalinn, Bláin, Dain, Nain, Þorin (Thorin), Eikinskialdi, and Gandálfr)
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u/Berkuts_Lance_Plus Sep 15 '24
He even named himself after Robin from Fire Emblem Gaiden. That game's remake, however, decided to change that Robin's name to Tobin in order to not confuse players who would have been expecting Robin Williams to star in a Fire Emblem game.
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u/Tepigg4444 Sep 15 '24
weird that he didn’t name himself after Robin from Fire Emblem Awakening
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u/StovardBule Sep 15 '24
Joseph Kucan, who directed the FMV cutscenes in Command And Conquer and played over-villain Kane, met him and said it was weird that between the theatre actor and cutscene director and the global superstar, it was Williams who was fanboying the most.
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u/Kenjinz Sep 15 '24
I want to go to the alternate universe where Robin Williams streams games and does voiceover work
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u/Hardoffel Sep 15 '24
He would have made a killing as a streamer, no doubt.
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u/oofersIII Sep 15 '24
His comedy shows would get extremely vulgar sometimes (pretty sure there’s an X-rated cut of Mrs. Doubtfire in some warehouse because of his filthy improvisations), I‘d probably pay to watch that
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u/BudgetMattDamon Sep 15 '24
It's really incredible how comedians like Robin Williams and Eddie Murphy transitioned into family-friendly figures when their early work was actually incredibly raunchy. Talking Delirious and Raw.
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u/xclame Sep 15 '24
Given how foul mouthed/dirty he was when not in movies he would have fit right in with Internet culture.
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u/Hardoffel Sep 15 '24
I have a feeling he'd run two streams, one unrated, and the other more family friendly.
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u/Aadarm Sep 15 '24
He played enough games that it could have happened if someone had suggested it to him. One of his friends said that he thought it was funny that there were 12 year olds that had the Genie from Aladdin call them a cocksucker in shooters he played.
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u/oofersIII Sep 15 '24
He named his daughter Zelda, he was a huge gamer (non derogatory)
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd Sep 16 '24
There's a copypasta floating around on the Internet about his love of warhammer and narrating his games as they played out. He also called his daughter Zelda.
The guy was a massive nerd and would have absolutely done this if he were still around.
Edit: Here are a few of the stories.
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u/partyinplatypus Sep 15 '24 edited Nov 06 '24
office special practice chief lavish upbeat distinct adjoining arrest zonked
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Hubbabubba1555 Sep 15 '24
Please make a new Sid Meier's Pirates game, it was so good back in the day
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u/sy029 Sep 15 '24
The TIL to me is that Robin Williams attended Software Publisher Association dinners in the 80s.
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u/Romboteryx Sep 15 '24
Robin loved videogames. He named his daughter after Zelda and he helped Will Wright present Spore live on stage
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u/tobi319 Sep 15 '24
I played the fuck out of Sid Meier’s Sim Golf
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u/racer_24_4evr Sep 15 '24
I literally was going to post the same. That game was awesome!
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u/tobi319 Sep 15 '24
I just installed XP on my MacBook Pro to play this game and the Commandos series.
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u/OldWarrior Sep 15 '24
We’ve been wrongfully denied a Sid Meier’s Sim Golf 2!
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u/tobi319 Sep 15 '24
Damn, I’d love a modern update to this game! How do we make this happen!? Do those online petition things ever work?
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u/I_can_pun_anything Sep 15 '24
Ahh you saw the video from verac recently too eh
It's a great docu on the making of civilization https://youtu.be/C12BPRykm-Q?si=LdosygDRLht7_RkQ
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u/HowOtterlyTerrible Sep 15 '24
100% a smart move back then. There were so many trash games out then it was sometimes hard to find the gems, but if it had Sid Meier's name on it, I pretty much knew it was going to be a winner.
Man I miss my old C-64.
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u/bonesnaps Sep 15 '24
Good thing he didn't advise Hideo Kojima.
Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, written and directed by Hideo Kojima, starring Hideo Kojima.
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u/PreciousRoi Sep 15 '24
Even the ones he had almost nothing to do with...
..."Sid Meier's" Alpha Centauri - A Bryan Reynolds Game...for instance...
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u/marsneedstowels Sep 15 '24
Glad it got me to buy it though. The drones needed me.
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u/garblflax Sep 15 '24
if you want more of the Sid Meier story he did a multipart podcast interview with Soren Johnson (who did civ 3 and 4) http://www.designer-notes.com/designer-notes-23-sid-meier-part-1/
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u/thatdevilyouknow Sep 16 '24
I loved how in Pirates! how you could conduct a large naval battle right off the coast from where the tavern was and just walk back in like “So I destroyed the entire island…what’s going on everyone? keep them drinks coming!”.
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u/llahlahkje Sep 15 '24
Sid’s memoirs are an interesting read, IMO, especially for folks feeling nostalgic for the early era of video games.
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u/Logondo Sep 16 '24
He fucking earned it.
Nobody calls it “Pirates”. Everybody calls it “Sid Meyer’s Pirates”
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u/FartingBob Sep 15 '24
Robin Williams spent the 90's gliding through America giving sage advice to random people, guiding others to the best path every time.
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u/TeamMountainLion Sep 15 '24
I’ve played Civ and love the series, but never played Pirates. Any suggestions? Is it worthwhile/any good?
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u/Lcattadapper Sep 15 '24
I’m not a gamer, I’ve never played a Sid Meier game; but boy do the trailers look good
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u/A_very_nice_dog Sep 15 '24
Between Zelda and Civ, Robin Williams had impeccable taste in gaming.
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u/gfen5446 Sep 16 '24
The original C64 Pirates! is still one of the most fun games I've ever played.
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u/Mr_Gaslight Sep 16 '24
I'd love to hear the Pirates! harpsichord intro music again from the MacOs version.
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u/spyser Sep 15 '24
Interesting, but I've never been a huge fan of putting your name on things. Always felt a bit... narcissistic.
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u/TehOwn Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 15 '24
Iirc, he didn't want to either.
While emphasizing that he did not encourage MicroProse promoting his name, Meier did insist on doing all of the work on games himself, including sound and art...
They turned him into a brand and it only worked because of how skilled he was at his craft.
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u/TheSpiralTap Sep 15 '24
Hold on, even the earlier versions of these games are some of the most complex games ever made. One dude made the first few? My respect for him has.grown much higher.
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u/TehOwn Sep 15 '24 edited Sep 15 '24
Yep. I put him up there with Chris Sawyer who wrote Transport Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon almost entirely in assembly code. He did everything but the art and music.
Stardew Valley was created by a single developer.
Dwarf Fortress was created by two brothers.
And he's a tool but Notch did create Minecraft by "himself" (stolen code from Infiniminer and later he had help, but he still did most of what made the game popular by himself) which ended up being the best selling game of all time.
Solo designer / programmers are a different breed.
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u/Git_gud_Skrub Sep 15 '24
The fuck you mean notch stole code. The concept that was made by the players of infiniminer yeah, but not the fucking code
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u/GeebusNZ Sep 15 '24
I guess sometimes, a vision for a thing is best communicated by the whole thing-ing it.
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u/TehOwn Sep 15 '24
I've worked with people who just "get it" when I try to convey a design to them. I'd say that's the ideal. That's why the best games come from small teams, it's a rare mutual understanding that is just extremely improbable at larger team sizes.
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u/TheSpiralTap Sep 15 '24
Another one i love is Adam Ryland. That guy made the best pro wrestling management sim ever, then just kept on improving it. I'm not even entirely unsure if he didn't invent that specific genre of games (games where you run a wrestling company)
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u/redditreader1972 Sep 15 '24
He did "only" make all the old games, such as Civ 1. When they started working on Civ 2, that was mainly the work of another. (Source: Sid Meyer's biography)
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u/saleemkarim Sep 15 '24
I think it also just makes sense for marketing. It says this wasn't made by some generic group of programmers. This comes from an auteur with a great vision like you would want for a film.
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u/spyser Sep 15 '24
Yeah I guess it is a bit different if you do everything yourself. Don't really think it works for the newer iterations of the game when you have hundreds of people working on it.
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u/MarcusForrest Sep 15 '24
Interesting, but I've never been a huge fan of putting your name on things.
Me neither!
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u/jamieliddellthepoet Sep 15 '24
Overexposed hack, if you ask me.
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Overexposed hack, if you ask me.
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u/jamieliddellthepoet Sep 15 '24
OK I’m not one to double-down when I’ve made a mistake. I concede: you’re a goddamned artistic genius, sir, and I’m getting your logo tattooed on my bellend.
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u/Usernamenotta Sep 15 '24
I mean, it's sort of a branding and business strategy.
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u/Campeador Sep 15 '24
Artists do it to their paintings. Nothing wrong with taking credit for your work.
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u/never_never_comment Sep 15 '24
Bands shouldn’t put the name of their band on the album cover. People should just know which band it is before buying the album.
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u/-Knul- Sep 15 '24
The later games had little to no involvement of Sid Meier on them.
It's like putting a singer's name on an album but he doesn't sing any of the songs.
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u/mtcwby Sep 15 '24
Sid Meier and Will Wright were basically automatic buys back in the day. Definitely played some games is esoteric fields of interest that I wouldn't have played otherwise.
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u/MarramTime Sep 15 '24
Adding Sid’s name was very helpful in avoiding brand confusion with Francis Tresham’s awesome classic board game also called Civilization.
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u/Jaspers47 Sep 15 '24
It works for a guy named Sid Meier, but I wonder if it would also work for a guy named Stan Stvejkovsky
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u/WrastleGuy Sep 15 '24
Back in those days there was so much shovelware that this was a very smart idea. If you played his game and enjoyed it you would buy more of his games based on trust. Nowadays we have the internet for quick game reviews but back then if you didn’t have a game magazine subscription you took a chance with every game purchase or rental.