14 DAY TRIAL // Sid Meier, the leader of developer Firaxis, believes that the Civilization series continues to be successful because it has managed to craft a special connection with the player community and works with them to deliver the best possible experience.
The developer believes that the strategy genre is now very successful and offers more quality than others in the industry.
He tells Edge that, “What’s interesting about strategy games is that the audience seems to stick with them for a long time. We have a community of Civ players that have been around for 20 years, and they continue to come up with ideas and energize the game.”
Meier believes that whatever the future of games is, the strategy genre will adapt quickly, like it has recently done to the trends for indie experiences and always online titles.
The veteran developer says that he is playing Age of Empires, Starcraft, Gran Turismo and Call of Duty, but he devotes most of his free time to Minecraft.
He adds, “Games like Civ and Minecraft make the player the star, and what they end up with is unique to them. You don’t get that watching a movie. In these games it’s your own ideas, your own thoughts. Games that emphasize that are really taking advantage of this medium.”
Meier is disappointed with the way Zynga has used a number of game mechanics from the strategy genre for its own compulsion-driven titles.
The creator of Civilization says that he also expects gaming to undergo a big change in the coming years, which will probably be linked to the constant online nature of many of the experiences that attract players.
Firaxis has just delivered a second expansion for Civilization V, called Brave New World, which introduces some new mechanics and fixes some long-term problems of the title.
The company will soon launch the Enemy Within expansion for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.