But you said "within the limits of the gaming industry". And within those limits, Sid is unquestionably an Asimov, or a Tolkien.
And there's a lot of crappy sci-fi being published these days too, but that doesn't diminish the importance of trail-blazing authors.
A known name does not equal lasting influence. Paris Hilton is a known name, Dizzy Gillespie is a lasting influence. Asimov is my favourite sci-fi
world-builder, Heinlein is my favourite sci-fi
writer. I could draw a similar paralell with Tolkien and Zelazny. All dead except Paris Hilton. Call that fair.
Sid Meier is a
known name in the gaming industry. Everyone who's being
persistent and doing
some things right gets that benefit. Eventually. But Silvester Stallone is not Clint Eastwood. Not for a long time now.
The discussion I brought up about Sid Meier is not about diminishing his factual work, I'm just pointing out that his influence in making the Civilization series is vastly overrated. If he's the overseer he's not overseeing. What good is his title then?
I'm not sure I understand "badly" ... but I think I'm clearer on the original post
To put it into a more streamlined set of thoughts on what makes a good computer game:
An average player is expected to master the basic controls over the designed environment (i.e. the game). An average player is expected to make mistakes during the course of the game. An average player also shouldn't expect to beat the game. In a well designed game the player knows when he's being average. Why take away the thrill of getting better in it? The punishment for these mistakes should be motivational enough so that the player gradually learns how not to make them. He should still be able to make them in the future if he's careless or tired. As the player gains more control over the basic functions of the game, new, more hazardous game choices should open up. These new choices should be more complex than the basic ones. Penalties for failing in these more complex choices should be greater than those for basic choices. Game designers can add as many levels of complexity as they wish, each level being more difficult, more rewarding but also more punishing. The game successfully ends only if the highest level of difficulty is mastered. In game terms, an average CIV player should be defeated somewhere in Renaissance. He did build an empire, but it didn't stand the test of time.
For the player not to get lost in the process of beating the game, the learning curve must be balanced out and important decision-making must be frequent. To maintain player skill properly, a game must never loose the punishment/reward system on any level. When these player decisions are made on multiple levels, they enable fantastic successes or catastrophic failures. The more the player is confident in his skill, the more levels he plays on, the risk is becoming greater and thus the thrill is being stronger. Intelligent game design will always enable the player to "fall back" to a lower level game (to fewer penalties and bonuses), but the thrill of greater rewards will always push him back to multi-level gameplay. However, "falling back but still leading to victory" should be really enabled only for people who risked a lot (spent some time successfully in multi-level gameplay) and now need to sort some things out. A brief change of pace is always welcome.
The strength of Civilization 4 was that multi-level gameplay was enabled from start (say, the Polytheism gambit) for those who wanted it, while the basic level gameplay was still available and just as important.
The utter failure of Civilization V lies in its inability to keep up with player's mastery of multiple levels. Actually, Civilization V has only a handful of levels. After you reach the top level (which is ridiculously simple, especially for veteran civ players), the game inevitably ends in victory. Civilization V is not the only game with this problem, New Vegas has the same issue. After the first five locations you're sitting on 1500 caps and the only thing you need to do is to literally
walk (no fighting) to a friendly base and grab a (free of charge!) sniper rifle. The challenge ends right there. 2 hours into the game.