T w e n t y S i d e d

My column last Friday was about why I think Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is bad at his job. It’s one of the longest columns I’ve run, and I could probably say a lot more if I thought it was worthwhile. The company is filled with dysfunction that can be easily observed simply by reading headlines. Which means things most likely look a lot worse inside.

Of course, you can’t mention the man’s name without having people yell the word “greed”. Greed in this case being internet shorthand for “wants to make more money”. I cringe whenever I see this line of thinking, because it misses the point entirely.

There are two fast food restaurants in town: Valve Pizza and Activison Burgers. Valve keeps their place immaculate. The cashiers are all smiles. They’re always giving out coupons.

Right across the street, Activision Burgers offers about the same quality food for the same price. Inside, they have a beat-up dining area where half the tables are missing salt & pepper shakers. There’s a lone surly cashier at the front counter. They charge for individual ketchup packets, the bathroom door is coin-operated, the drinks are mostly ice, and they don’t have free refills on soft drinks.

Now, is the problem with Activision Burgers “greed”? I don’t think so. Sure, they cut costs and nickel & dime you in an attempt to make money. But Valve is trying to make money too. The just understand that spending a little extra on trivial stuff like salt shakers and sweeping the floor can make more money down the road. Both of these stores are “greedy”. One of them is just one-dimensional and short sighted.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Here is part 2 of the history of Civilization.

Ok, I was playing on a large map last night and it got to the point where it took the computer so long to process its turn that I actually abandoned the game. A lot of time was wasted hopping around the map and making me watch all these stupid irrelevant battles on the other side of the planet. There’s an option to disable the animated battles, which is only available at the beginning of the game. (And always off by default. And the game doesn’t remember your preferences. So if you’re four hours in and you find yourself watching half a minute of fights you’re not even in, then there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s also no option to show only your own fights. Thank you so much Firaxis.)

But the computer also spends a surprising amount of time simply thinking. It feels like about the same amount of time I spent waiting for turns in Civilization II, which came out in 1996. According to Moore’s Law, processors should have doubled in performance 9 times in the last 14 years. So computers are (very roughly, give or take a power of 2) five hundred and twelve times faster. I can believe that Civ V is more complex than Civ II, but it’s nowhere near hundreds of times more complicated. The simulation is several fold more complex. (Let’s aim high and assume it’s as much as ten times more complex.) That still means the game should be running fifty times faster. Turns should be instant. What is the game doing with all those cycles. (It’s not graphics, since you still get the delay when using the super-fast 2d view. Which is also a great way to crash the game, by the way.)

I’m not accusing the game logic programmers of incompetence. (I save those insults for the dunderhead who designed the interface and left out half the options.) I’m just really curious what’s going on here. My guess is that the combat AI is looking more moves into the future. As people who write programs to play chess have discovered, looking forward through just three or four turns of moves & counter-moves can burn an unbelievable number of CPU cycles. I did notice the game got slower when big wars were going on. This led me to want to make peace between other nations just so I could get back to building my spaceship without having to sit there doing nothing for half a minute between each turn.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

So I’m playing a lot of Civilization V these days. A process which led to the creation of this comic and the loss of a couple of nights of sleep. It’s been a while since I’ve really experienced the Civ bug in full force.

It’s a remarkable game. The game has so many complex systems that work well together, remain roughly balanced, remain consistent, and follow the pseudo-historical premise of the game. It’s a remarkable achievement.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.