Alan Emrich, the game designer and writer who coined the term '4X,' has died
Alan Emrich, a designer and writer of board games and videogames credited with coming up with the term "4X" to describe sprawling, empire-building strategy games, has died. Emrich's death was reported by friends in a forum post on the wargaming community website ConsimWorld.
Emrich was a notable figure in the world of boardgaming: His bio at BoardGameGeek says he was the founder of boardgame publisher Victory Point Games as well as multiple tabletop gaming conventions.
He was also a significant presence in the early days of videogaming, working on games including Castles 2: Siege and Conquest, Warlords 2, Conquest of the New World, and Master of Orion 3. His most recent credit listed on MobyGames is as a design consultant on the 2016 Master of Orion remake.
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," which continues to be used today to describe the subgenre of strategy games in which economic development and expansion is as important as military conquest.
