Sid Meier's Memoir!

A Life in Computer Games

By: Sid Meier, Jennifer Lee Noonan - contributor

Narrated by: Charles Constant

Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's Summary

The life and career of the legendary developer celebrated as the "godfather of computer gaming" and creator of Civilization.

Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world's most popular video games, including Sid Meier's Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier's Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry. Writing with warmth and ironic humor, Meier describes the genesis of his influential studio, MicroProse, founded in 1982 after a trip to a Las Vegas arcade, and recounts the development of landmark games, from vintage classics like Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon, to Civilization and beyond.

Articulating his philosophy that a video game should be "a series of interesting decisions", Meier also shares his perspective on the history of the industry, the psychology of gamers, and fascinating insights into the creative process, including his rules of good game design.

©2020 Sid Meier and Jennifer Lee Noonan (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Great!

Genuinely some of the best game dev insight I've heard. Narrator really gets into performance when needed.

Terrific insights into an incredible career

Having played almost every game referenced in this book, it was like getting to hear from old friends again. Hearing Sid's perspective on the events of his career was very interesting and entertaining.

Highly recommended if you enjoy Sid's games

As someone who played lots of Pirates!, Railroads and Civ in his childhood (and still play Civ to this day), I really enjoyed this book. The best parts were when Sid explains the challenges he and his colleagues/team faced when building those games, and the explanations behind the decisions that were made.

must read for any sid meier fan

i love civ, pirates, alpha centauri, railroad tycoon and many others. listening to his they emerged has been a treat

Great

I have enjoyed Sid Meier’s games since the 80s and when I found this book, I immediately bought it and listened to it as quickly as possible. I loved it!

"May all of your decisions be interesting"

What a warm, humble and wise man Sid is, and what great company I had during the hours I spent with this book, narrated to perfection by the superbly named Charles Constant. It does start off a touch slow... "is he really going to talk about EVERY game?" I thought after the first half-hour, but this choice was convincingly explained half way through.

It needed one more structural edit to get that fifth star, but the version of it in my head now (with the material rearranged) is full-house worthy. There are a half-dozen ideas here I'm definitely going to use in my life (which barely features any computer games!) like the "doubling or halving" change rule, so you know you're going in the right direction and don't waste time on smaller iterations. Sincere thanks to everyone involved with his book, it was a privilege to hear it.