Strategy gaming icon Sid Meier received a rockstar's welcome when he strode on stage for his keynote address at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco today. Meier was the brains behind the groundbreaking and hugely popular Civilization series and led development of all time classics Pirates and Railroad Tycoon.

He is currently the director of creative development at Firaxis Games and says his blockbuster development days are not over yet, hinting that there may still one day be hope for Dinosaurs - a game he began developing a decade ago but never released.

During an address to a crowd of thousands of his peers, Meier said developers needed to remember the games they created were "all about the player. Keeping them feeling good about themselves is what it's about".

Understanding the psychology of the gamer was also important - if a game didn't have an intriguing and rewarding first 15 minutes, developers risked losing their audience, he said. To do that, developers needed to make sure gamers were able to "suspend their disbelief" and feel that were part of the game or in the shoes of its main character. Humour, music and atmosphere added greatly to a game, but modern developers could not rely solely on technology and graphics if they hoped to succeed.

"Use the player's imagination, no matter how cool your graphics are or how cool your tech is."

The best games took players on an "epic journey," allowing them to make interesting and meaningful decisions as they learnt and progressed through the game. Meier promoted a "one more turn" philosophy, telling developers to keep gamers "constantly learning forward".

Designing a journey that was "multi-epic" (ie. could be played more than once) and offered an experience that was significantly different each time was the final ingredient required to make a game great, he said.

He had some regrets during his time as a developer, saying his initial plan to make Civilization a real time strategy game instead of a turn based one was "the first bad thing I did in life".

"What we found with the real time version of Civ was that the player became an observer. Our mantra was that the player had to be king."

As I'm sure you all know, Civilization was released as a turn-based game and is now one of the top selling game series of all time.

My GDC game of the day - VisualSoccer on Visual Sports System

Okay, so it's a bit of a gimmick and it's far too easy to score if you've got a smidgen of football talent but I had to mention this one purely because it's a cool idea. The Visual Sports System, due for release in the US early next year, is a peripheral designed for PC, Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. It features a small netted "arena" you place in front of your screen and motion tracking cameras.

In its VisualSoccer incarnation, it allows you to physically boot a ball at your TV screen (which sits behind the netting) or a projected image, in a simulated penalty shootout.

Unfortunately the goalkeeper lacks some talent, but the simulator can track the velocity of your shots, the number you have scored and the total scoring percentage. It has a long way to go to make it more realistic but the idea of kicking a real ball at your expensive TV is so cool that it just might work.

According to its creator, Visual Sports, it will be released with a selection of other sports games as well, including baseball, golf, ice hockey and "zombie handball". No decision has yet been made as to whether it will be available in New Zealand.