More modern examples would be both Pathfinder games with mediocre kingdom management minigame in first, and bad HoMM clone in the second. Thankfully the main game was still good.
On other side there are games that successfully pulled it but usually it's a some simple-but-satisfying minigame, not some big element of the game.
> The mistake I think I made in Covert Action is actually having two games in there kind of competing with each other. There was kind of an action game where you break into a building and do all sorts of picking up clues and things like that, and then there was the story which involved a plot where you had to figure out who the mastermind was and the different roles and what cities they were in, and it was a kind of an involved mystery-type plot. ... In Pirates!, you would do a sword fight or a ship battle, and a minute or two later, you were kind of back on your way. In Covert Action, you'd spend ten minutes or so of real time in a mission, and by the time you got out of [the mission], you had no idea of what was going on in the world.
> So I call it the "Covert Action Rule". Don't try to do too many games in one package. And that's actually done me a lot of good. You can look at the games I've done since Civilization, and there's always opportunities to throw in more stuff. When two units get together in Civilization and have a battle, why don't we drop out to a war game and spend ten minutes or so in duking out this battle? Well, the Covert Action Rule. Focus on what the game is.
But that works perfectly fine in XCOM! But there both elements are build up to the level player will be using it. The combat is main game, but while the "management" certainly wouldn't be enough to make whole game around it, for the few minutes between combat engagements it fits just fine.
Spore problem was that you switched from one game mode to another completely so it was essentially playing next game for few hours.
I think it just needs to be balanced in effort to the time player spends with it. Like players remember Gwent or Triple Triad with fondness.
People raise that in commentary about the rule (notably https://www.filfre.net/2017/03/whats-the-matter-with-covert-...), usually in one of two ways:
- XCOM is the exception that breaks the rule
- XCOM is the exception that proves the rule
I tend toward the latter camp. Meier's rule isn't "don't do multiple games", it's "focus on what the game is". To Meier, Covert Action wasn't as good as it could've been because of the lack of focus on what the game is — putting together the clues you collect in the minigames to not only solve the case but also arrest as many participants in the crime before they go into hiding.
XCOM and Pirates!, the game that made Meier think Covert Action's stitched-together design would work, work because they know what the game is. "The game" in XCOM is the tactical part, with the strategic parts being lightweight and sufficiently unambiguous that every action you take in it is tangibly, to the player, supporting the next tactical success.
Pirates! works because the game is becoming the biggest badass in the Caribbean, and every mini-game — swordfighting, raiding cities, romancing governors' daughters — supports the goal of having the biggest fleet, happiest crew, and that GTA-ish feeling of earning your way into dominance over the setting itself by playing the game well.
Covert Action is fun in the trenches but struggles with that top-line focus. Being good at Covert Action neither makes you better at the next game, or even phase of a single game, of Covert Action. Your character has a kind of pasted-on progression track that doesn't really reflect how you play. The procedural content aspect of Covert Action, which was ahead of its time, also predicted how little we'd enjoy procedurally generated sameness in games that rely on it but also don't "focus on what the game is" — once you start seeing the patterns, the more of the mystique wears off than in a more authored experience, and then you're fully left with how much you enjoy stuff like that chip-swapping minigame or you bounce off the whole thing.
So you don't have to enjoy the minigames in XCOM, or Pirates!, or other similar games that seem to "break" the "rule" like Rockstar's and CD Projekt's oeuvres, the Yakuza series, and whatnot, to enjoy the games because their focus on the core game loop is so tight.
To me, that's the meat of the rule, and that's where Spore's wheels come off. Not only does it lack that focus, it's startlingly clear while playing the game exactly where the design shifted from one that did have and reinforce that focus, to one that actively abandoned it for the kitchen sink.
