Sid Meier, creator of the infamous Sid Meier's Civilization games, has given out his thoughts at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) way back in 2010. This was 6 years ago but his personal philosophy in game design still has impact on today's games. Though mostly for real time strategy slash simulations, some of his notes also maker good references for game creators.
The talk Meier had wasn't published for public viewing until now as the official GDC YouTube channel only did it a couple of weeks ago. In the video, Civilization mastermind, Sid Meier, expounds the significance of injecting psychology within game design. Tips on how it can make notable saving, say millions of dollars, are also expressed at his talk, provided they are done properly. The said GDC 2010 video can be viewed below this article.
Meier had talked for more than an hour which I consider very tiring, not just for him but for people who would want to summarize what he said on that particular talk (video by the way can be viewed below this article or at YouTube, can't emphasize enough of that) and put them on an article. What I can do for you now is to pick my favorite topics and I linked them with bookmarked video timeline. Personally I picked out the '3 VS 1' concept, good for automated battle handling from the AI side. Talking about AI, Meier also emphasized that AI in games should not be programmed like a real person and his explanations make sense.
As a fanatic and sometimes part of video game production, I feel obliged to propagate his lectures to people who do not have the luxury to attend GDC. Great things come from small beginnings, Apple and Google came from small work spaces like their moms' garage yet thru persistence and proper planning (including luck for some), they have achieved global success. I just wrote the previous paragraph as an analogy for small time game developers who do not have enough resources to attend to GDC events and how this article can link them to Meier's talk on game design psychology.
As said on the YouTube description, GDC talks has a wide spectrum of topics like programming, audio implementation, visual arts, game design, business aspects, management in general, game production, properly launching online games, and a lot of goodies if you are in to game development. The said YouTube channel also says that they post 'fresh' videos from their vault, so probably for those who already have heard it before, they will make good review material but this time you can pause, rewind and reply (thank goodness for YouTube). And to those video game production enthusiasts who just viewed them and someday want to start some game studio (somehow, like me) then the YouTube channel is a gold mine.
Gamasutra.com says that the GDC Vault together with its currently established YouTube channel offers a plethora of video and audio recordings, also slides, from GDC events. On top of the free content, they also offer members-only content for subscribers who wish to go deeper into the rabbit hole. If you are interested, you may check out this registration page.
