Civilization’s father, Sid Meier, shares 25 years of insights on his beloved series

Sid Meier is the legendary designer behind many different computer games in a wide variety of genres, and he’s perhaps the only video game designer who can sell more copies by putting his name into the title of the game. Of all of his games, none has been as memorable and successful as Civilization.

It has 33 million copies in sales to date, including 8 million for its latest, 2010’s Civilization V and its expansions. Meier’s teams at MicroProse and Firaxis have created 66 versions of the game across all platforms. Based on extrapolations from sales on the Steam digital distribution and community platform, the Civ series has been played for more than a billion hours.