Extended Book Review – “Sid Meier’s Memoir! A Life in Computer Games”, written with Jennifer Lee Noonan

Reading books and playing computer games are two of my favourite sitting-down pastimes. So a book about computer games sounded like an obvious choice – especially since it focuses on particular computer games, designed by a particular person. As it turns out, “Sid Meier’s Memoir!” is a great read for anyone – not just for game fanatics. What’s so good about it?

0. Who is Sid Meier and why should I care?

Back in the 1990s, it was still reasonable for the late, great Roger Ebert to proclaim that in his view, video games aren’t a work of art – not the way movies are. Things have moved on since then, and I wonder if Ebert would still be able to make such bold statements today. Within the gaming industry, Sid Meier is regarded as one of the titans who made sure that computer games went from strength to strength.

He is best known for creating strategy games – the most famous of which is the “Civilization” series. But during his career, he was involved in lots of projects, and this is what the “Memoir!” is about. It’s a largely chronological discussion of the games Sid worked on, and the context around them – the teams he worked with, the technology landscape unfolding in front of them, and the impact of his work on his personal life – and the lives of countless gamers.

It’s gamers, then, that presumably make up the majority of the readership for Meier’s and Jennifer Lee Noonan‘s book. But, as stated above, the stories which unfold in the “Memoir!” have a much wider appeal. There’s plenty of nostalgia factor there – it feels good to go back to the age of early computer software, or first breakthroughs in internet connectivity. But crucially, there’s also lots of inspiring material for anyone whose job it is to make things – or, at least, to make decisions. I thought it would be useful to outline some of the good stuff you can find in the “Memoir!” for yourself.

1. A series of interesting decisions

I already wrote about it in my earlier post, but it bears repeating. Sid Meier’s philosophy for game design can be summarised in this neat definition: a good game should be “a series of interesting decisions”.

The book unpacks this seemingly simple statement, and provides lots of good examples along the way. Meier’s games got it right plenty of times; as a devoted “Civilization” player, I can attest that the series’ attractiveness relies on this decision-making. “What would happen if I did this differently?”, or “what if I chose another leader to begin with?” – these choices lead to different outcomes, and no two games are ever identical.

This works in so many other walks of life. If you’re a learner or a teacher, then your learning/teaching process can revolve around the exploration of these interesting decisions. If you’re a writer, then each story you craft can benefit from this principle.

The secret sauce behind this maxim is another one of Sid Meier’s rules – and, once again, this one travels well.

2. Find the fun

Throughout the story, I was amazed at how good Sid Meier was at recycling ideas from his past. His own projects were often inspired by books, photographs, or experiences which he preserved as fond childhood memories. And whenever he worked on other people’s projects, he managed to make them exciting enough to be playable – even complex flight or submarine simulators managed to entertain and not overwhelm.

There is an art to this, and it has much to do with “the practice” – honing your craft over years, iterations, and learning from the limitations of your genre. This much is true; for Meier, though, the other essential element was always connected with finding the fun.

An overwhelmingly realistic flight simulator would not work as a computer game – it could just make players feel stressed and/or bored by having to respond to so many things that they wouldn’t enjoy flying. There is a “fun” part to flying – just as there is a “fun” element in golf, politics, railroads, and almost anything else which turned into a Sid Meier game.

This is not just reserved to games, either. Personal productivity can be (and has been) gamified – big projects can be made fun, if that’s what gets them done. On a larger scale, gamification became a separate industry, and its solutions are being applied – with varying degrees of success, it has to be said – to business, healthcare, education, and public services.

The reason why gamification hasn’t been a resounding success might lie in what “Memoir!” is hinting at: fun needs finding. My “Civilization 6” idea of fun is probably different from yours. My way of making learning fun may not work for you – because we’re learning different things, in different ways. Fun will be personal, more often than not; it’s Sid Meier’s personal take on each topic which made it fun for players who chose to connect and respond to it. This personal aspect brings us neatly to the last big aspect of “Memoir!” which I chose to remember.

3. Feedback is fact

A person who e-mails me to say that they don’t like my blog can be right or wrong. They can be polite or impolite about the way they voice they opinion. Their suggestions can be reasonable or impractical. All of these things are variables – one person’s five-star review will almost always be miles away from another person’s three-star submission.

But they will all happen and they will all reach you. This is what has been Meier’s teams motto for many years: “Feedback is fact.” It doesn’t mean that “the customer is always right” or even that “we should respond to every piece of feedback we get” – instead, it states that each review/opinion/piece of fan mail exists and represents another point of view.

“Memoir!” provides lots of fascinating examples on how this conundrum was resolved in Sid Meier’s games. The makers of “Civilization”, especially in their later editions, have been really engaging with the players’ communities. Patches, expansion packs, and other updates have shown, time after time, that the studio developers and testers were keen to listen to all ideas – and act on the workable ones.

This, for me, has been one of the more challenging lessons from the “Memoir!”. It is difficult not to take feedback personally. And it’s equally difficult to engage with it in a productive way. “Feedback is fact” is a sober starting point for starting a conversation: the first step to dealing with a piece of feedback, to paraphrase a well-known saying, is to admit that feedback exists.

4. Conclusion

Sid Meier and Jennifer Lee Noonan wrote a book about one man’s journey through life which was punctuated by computer games. By doing so, they managed to write several other stories, too – about creativity, teamwork, technology, connection, and personal productivity.

I listened to an audio version of “Memoir!” while doing many other things in 2020 – running, walking, exercising – and I always found it easy to follow and engage with. Like so many good computer games, “Memoir!” has plenty of interesting choices to offer to a reader / listener. I recommend you give it a go.

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(Photo by Diego Marín on Unsplash)