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The following article was in yesterdays NY Times.
SEP 06, 2001
In Historical Games, Truth Gives Way to Entertainment
By DAVID KUSHNER
IT'S wartime in ancient Rome. There are battles to fight, palaces to build, rulers to overthrow. But though the setting seems in order, there is at least one notable difference. The emperor at the helm is not Julius Caesar of Rome, it's Joe Sixpack of Secaucus. And he's holding a keyboard and a mouse.
Such is the role a player can devise in Civilization III, a computer game that puts gamers in the position of building an empire over centuries. Strategy games like this one, which is due in October, as well as series like Age of Empires and Railroad Tycoon are among the best-selling titles in the business.
They transform a historical period into the stuff of an interactive experience. Players are immersed in the Battle of Gettysburg, say, or the construction of the Pyramids.
Some critics fault such games for departing from historical accounts of world events. The makers acknowledge that the games ignore some aspects of history, but argue that their purpose is to entertain. If anything, makers say, the games will encourage players to find out more about a particular subject.
No one is more familiar with these issues than Sid Meier. Since 1982 he has designed not only some of the most popular strategy games, but some of the most recognizable franchises in the business as well: Civilization and Railroad Tycoon.
Mr. Meier, 47, has long been fascinated not so much by the rampant shooter games but rather the nonviolent action of titles like Pac-Man and SimCity, the urban planning simulation game. He has used such an approach to build games that explored one of his other great passions: history.
"The fantasy of games is to allow you to take on a persona that's more exciting than real life," said Mr. Meier, who is co-founder and director of creative development at Firaxis Games in Hunt Valley, Md. "For me, I thought, `What would it be like to be a Civil War general?' "
Mr. Meier has been pursuing those sorts of dreams through the construction of detailed and entertaining historical simulations. Gettysburg and Antietam cast players inside the Civil War. Railroad Tycoon put gamers behind the controls of the evolving intercontinental transportation system. Civilization I and II spawned a cottage industry as players around the globe ate up the opportunity to, more or less, take on the role of a God-like ruler. (In fact, the genre is sometimes referred to as "God games.")
In a market often associated with blood and guts, what compels so many people to play a game in which the most dramatic moment is, for example, the discovery of the wheel? In Mr. Meier's opinion, it's a matter of using familiar real-world achievements to provide a springboard for player fantasy.
"We're not trying to duplicate history," he said. "We're trying to provide you with the tools, the elements of history and let you see how it would work if you took over."
To achieve the greatest effect, developers of historical strategy games try to inject just the right dose of reality. Often this is achieved not so much by deciding what to include in the game, but by deciding what not to include, Mr. Meier said. In Colonization, for example, his game about the discovery of the Americas, there is no mention of slavery. In Civilization, there is a fictional German leader, but no mention of Hitler.
Mr. Meier believes that giving players too much information can make the game too arcane or controversial for its own good. For that reason, the historical data used to construct the simulations seldom run deeper than the content of an illustrated history book for children.
Another software designer who spends his research time in the children's aisle is Bruce Shelley, a former assistant to Mr. Meier who has since been one of the creators of Age of Empires. Like his former mentor, Mr. Shelley believes that the staying power of such games relies on forgoing the restraints of accuracy for the sake of entertainment. He said, "It's like that famous quote from John Ford," who once remarked that it is more important to film the legend than the truth.
For the most part, Mr. Meier said, strategy gamers, who tend to be 18- to 35-year-old men, do not see much of a problem when it comes to the games' veracity. "The historical aspect of these games is just the icing on the cake," said Graham Somers, a 22-year-old college student in Vancouver who runs an Age of Empires fan site called HeavenGames. "I have a definite love of history, and certainly sending an army of knights and battering rams into an enemy town has a historical basis, but the main thing is it's a lot of fun. They are games, after all."
Not everyone is so understanding. After the release of the first Age of Empires in 1997, South Korean government officials took issue with the game's depiction of an invasion by Japanese troops in the 1500's and demanded that the game be withdrawn. Rather than pull it entirely, Microsoft (news/quote), the game's publisher, agreed to alter it for South Korean release without the offending historical elements.
When the sequel, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, was released in 1999, South Korean officials objected to the Sea of Japan's being referred to that way rather than as what they call it, the East Sea. Mr. Shelley's company, Ensemble Studios, again made the change. "Personally, I think it's silly that people get so upset," he said.
But some educators who study the games do not so readily dismiss such concerns. Among them is Dr. Robert Appelman, a clinical associate professor at Indiana University who teaches a course on the impact of games and simulations in instruction. Of the historical inaccuracies in those games, Dr. Appelman said: "I think in a curricular sense it's wrong. But when I consider that they put as much accuracy as they could within a box office paradigm, I applaud them for even trying."
Dr. Appelman is teaching his students to create educational games that more accurately reflect historical periods, warts and all.
Mr. Shelley said such an approach would be inappropriate for his company. "Every quarter we get a letter about how to redo a game that's about all of history," he said. "But that could kill our business. We'd end up with something that appeals to a small group of teachers that can use it as curriculum."
"The other side," Mr. Shelley added, "is that we hear from parents who tell us that `my son couldn't give a hoot about history; now he goes to the library.' "
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
In Historical Games, Truth Gives Way to Entertainment
By DAVID KUSHNER
IT'S wartime in ancient Rome. There are battles to fight, palaces to build, rulers to overthrow. But though the setting seems in order, there is at least one notable difference. The emperor at the helm is not Julius Caesar of Rome, it's Joe Sixpack of Secaucus. And he's holding a keyboard and a mouse.
Such is the role a player can devise in Civilization III, a computer game that puts gamers in the position of building an empire over centuries. Strategy games like this one, which is due in October, as well as series like Age of Empires and Railroad Tycoon are among the best-selling titles in the business.
They transform a historical period into the stuff of an interactive experience. Players are immersed in the Battle of Gettysburg, say, or the construction of the Pyramids.
Some critics fault such games for departing from historical accounts of world events. The makers acknowledge that the games ignore some aspects of history, but argue that their purpose is to entertain. If anything, makers say, the games will encourage players to find out more about a particular subject.
No one is more familiar with these issues than Sid Meier. Since 1982 he has designed not only some of the most popular strategy games, but some of the most recognizable franchises in the business as well: Civilization and Railroad Tycoon.
Mr. Meier, 47, has long been fascinated not so much by the rampant shooter games but rather the nonviolent action of titles like Pac-Man and SimCity, the urban planning simulation game. He has used such an approach to build games that explored one of his other great passions: history.
"The fantasy of games is to allow you to take on a persona that's more exciting than real life," said Mr. Meier, who is co-founder and director of creative development at Firaxis Games in Hunt Valley, Md. "For me, I thought, `What would it be like to be a Civil War general?' "
Mr. Meier has been pursuing those sorts of dreams through the construction of detailed and entertaining historical simulations. Gettysburg and Antietam cast players inside the Civil War. Railroad Tycoon put gamers behind the controls of the evolving intercontinental transportation system. Civilization I and II spawned a cottage industry as players around the globe ate up the opportunity to, more or less, take on the role of a God-like ruler. (In fact, the genre is sometimes referred to as "God games.")
In a market often associated with blood and guts, what compels so many people to play a game in which the most dramatic moment is, for example, the discovery of the wheel? In Mr. Meier's opinion, it's a matter of using familiar real-world achievements to provide a springboard for player fantasy.
"We're not trying to duplicate history," he said. "We're trying to provide you with the tools, the elements of history and let you see how it would work if you took over."
To achieve the greatest effect, developers of historical strategy games try to inject just the right dose of reality. Often this is achieved not so much by deciding what to include in the game, but by deciding what not to include, Mr. Meier said. In Colonization, for example, his game about the discovery of the Americas, there is no mention of slavery. In Civilization, there is a fictional German leader, but no mention of Hitler.
Mr. Meier believes that giving players too much information can make the game too arcane or controversial for its own good. For that reason, the historical data used to construct the simulations seldom run deeper than the content of an illustrated history book for children.
Another software designer who spends his research time in the children's aisle is Bruce Shelley, a former assistant to Mr. Meier who has since been one of the creators of Age of Empires. Like his former mentor, Mr. Shelley believes that the staying power of such games relies on forgoing the restraints of accuracy for the sake of entertainment. He said, "It's like that famous quote from John Ford," who once remarked that it is more important to film the legend than the truth.
For the most part, Mr. Meier said, strategy gamers, who tend to be 18- to 35-year-old men, do not see much of a problem when it comes to the games' veracity. "The historical aspect of these games is just the icing on the cake," said Graham Somers, a 22-year-old college student in Vancouver who runs an Age of Empires fan site called HeavenGames. "I have a definite love of history, and certainly sending an army of knights and battering rams into an enemy town has a historical basis, but the main thing is it's a lot of fun. They are games, after all."
Not everyone is so understanding. After the release of the first Age of Empires in 1997, South Korean government officials took issue with the game's depiction of an invasion by Japanese troops in the 1500's and demanded that the game be withdrawn. Rather than pull it entirely, Microsoft (news/quote), the game's publisher, agreed to alter it for South Korean release without the offending historical elements.
When the sequel, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, was released in 1999, South Korean officials objected to the Sea of Japan's being referred to that way rather than as what they call it, the East Sea. Mr. Shelley's company, Ensemble Studios, again made the change. "Personally, I think it's silly that people get so upset," he said.
But some educators who study the games do not so readily dismiss such concerns. Among them is Dr. Robert Appelman, a clinical associate professor at Indiana University who teaches a course on the impact of games and simulations in instruction. Of the historical inaccuracies in those games, Dr. Appelman said: "I think in a curricular sense it's wrong. But when I consider that they put as much accuracy as they could within a box office paradigm, I applaud them for even trying."
Dr. Appelman is teaching his students to create educational games that more accurately reflect historical periods, warts and all.
Mr. Shelley said such an approach would be inappropriate for his company. "Every quarter we get a letter about how to redo a game that's about all of history," he said. "But that could kill our business. We'd end up with something that appeals to a small group of teachers that can use it as curriculum."
"The other side," Mr. Shelley added, "is that we hear from parents who tell us that `my son couldn't give a hoot about history; now he goes to the library.' "
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
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