GamesStrategyAlan Emrich, the game designer and writer who coined the term ‘4X,’ has diedWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesStrategyAlan Emrich, the game designer and writer who coined the term ‘4X,’ has diedWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Alan Emrich (Facebook))
Emrich was a notable figure in the world of boardgaming: His bio atBoardGameGeeksays he was the founder of boardgame publisher Victory Point Games as well as multiple tabletop gaming conventions.
As well as making games, Emrich also wrote about them, which is where I came to know his work: He served as a longtime editor on Computer Gaming World, the preeminent gaming magazine of the 1980s and ’90s, including as its first-ever “On-Line Editor.” It was in those pages that he made what I would consider his most enduring contribution to the form, although it’s unlikely anyone realized it at the time: Creating the term “4X,” whichcontinues to be used todayto describe the subgenre of strategy games in which economic development and expansion is as important as military conquest.
While he didn’t use the term directly, he very clearly laid its foundation in his September 1993 review of Master of Orion (viaCGW Museum), calling it a “quadruple-X” game, a play on the unofficial triple-X rating applied to porn flicks.
(Image credit: Computer Gaming World (via CGW Museum))
“I give MOO a XXXX rating because it features the essential four Xs of any good strategic conquest game: EXplore, EXpand, EXploit, and EXterminate. In other words, players must rise from humble beginnings, finding their way around the map while building up the largest, most efficient empire possible. Naturally, the other players will be trying to do the same, therefore their extermination becomes a paramount concern. A classic situation, indeed, and when the various parts are properly designed, other Xs seem to follow. Words like EXcite, EXperiment, and EXcuses (to one’s significant others) must be added to a gamer’s X-Rating list.”
(Image credit: Armchair Dragoons (Bluesky))
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“There’s a significant hole in the wargaming world tonight. Everyone raise an extra glass tonight in honor of a man happy to sling dice with any opponent, so long there was a good conversation during the game.”
A cause of death has not been released.
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