Horrible business practice

[Gamewizard]

I live in Rhode Island where 38 Studios just went under. 400 people lost their jobs.

Making video games costs BIG money. If a game can't meet its deadlines, money will be lost and people will lose jobs.

Thinking that Firaxis/2k should have just delayed the release to please a minority of fans is ludicrous and unrealistic. The game was playable upon release. Perfect, no...playable, yes.

The game sold well and made money. Executives were pleased and Firaxis was given the green light to continue work on the game, thus GaK.

Like many others, I have about 1000 hours into Civ V. Love the game. GaK preordered. Keep up the good work Firaxis.

[Carl5872]

Originally Posted by kpi

yes, it is a fact of life now especially in the internet era that things get faster, cheaper and more disposable.

when you talk about what companies get away with, take a walk around any small or large office these days. most white collar workers are on facebook, texting, daydreaming about paying off their mortgages or generally goofing off.

Or posting on Civfanatics...

[gps]

Originally Posted by Gamewizard

Making video games costs BIG money. If a game can't meet its deadlines, money will be lost and people will lose jobs.

Making cars or planes costs even BIGGER money...

Originally Posted by Gamewizard

Thinking that Firaxis/2k should have just delayed the release to please a minority of fans is ludicrous and unrealistic. The game was playable upon release. Perfect, no...playable, yes.

... and if your car does not brake properly or your plane does not fly properly people will die. So you have to make sure you develop your product properly or you'll loose the trust of your customers, be faced with compensation and liability claims. So if you don't do your job properly then your company is in really big trouble and a lot more people will loose their jobs. The same goes - as far as I can judge also - for professional software quality used in companies. So just because game industry people don't cause havoc whenever they are cheap on their customers as much as they can does not mean that behaviour is OK or won't be noticed in the long run. Just saying...

[Carl5872]

I am glad they didn't include religion and espionage in the vanilla. They made such a dynamic change from cIV that the only way to truly test it was en masse by our feedback. Just my speculation, but I think you could get something down on paper and even have a hundred testers, but until you give it to the community, and they're preferences are made known, you can't get a good finished product.

Had they introduced it from the beginning, it would have been far too much, in my opinion, for they to attempt at one time.

I also must have different definitions of what "broken" and "unplayable" mean. I define these to mean that due to a programming error, the game will not function on any computer period, or if it does function, there are flaws that would cause the game to crash based on certain necessary events, such as every time you DOW'd the game crashed.

What I interpret many people's definitions of "broken" or "unplayable" is that they do not like the way the current rules of the game work, and believe that these rules or lack of rules make the game so un-fun that they refuse to play it. To me these are preferences that players should learn to work around, or if enough players feel the same way the game can be patched. I remember that initially some of the community felt the vanilla was "broken" because of social policy saving, or the lack thereof. I think people were angered by both. While this may be annoying to some, it didn't make the game broken, it just was something to request as a patch improvement. The result was a toggle option that improved everyone's experience. These terms have a connotation that the game as a whole is ruined due to XXXXX. While I feel that the Ottoman's unique ability is weak, I treat it as something to suggest to the DEVS that this could be improved. It does not drag down the game as a whole to the status of "broken" or "unplayable".

To end my long rambling post, I think we need to redefine our vocabulary to avoid over-exaggerations as "broken" or "unplayable".

[headcase]

Originally Posted by gps

Making cars or planes costs even BIGGER money...

... and if your car does not brake properly or your plane does not fly properly people will die. So just because game industry people don't cause havoc whenever they are cheap on their customers as much as they can does not mean that behaviour is OK or won't be noticed in the long run. Just saying...

Car and plane companies charge a premium for their products because of the other regulations they go through. Demand is less elastic; if cars doubled in price, a lot would still sell because people need a car to commute or have to use an alternative they don't want. Probably if games were held to the same standard there would be a lot less of them and possibly the price would go up as well. Also, if there is a minor problem with a car that doesn't affect safety, car companies often won't pay to fix it for customers who bought that car.

Of course, if a game is both great and works out of the box, hopefully more people would be interested in buying it than a buggy broken game. Maybe some fans will remember Civ 5's launch and hold back for a sale for Civ 6's grand debut.

Also helps when the reviewers of a game honestly review it, so players can make informed decisions. Every review of the buggy, broken Civ 5 of the past gushed about it as if it were the Civ 5 of the present day.

[Gamewizard]

Originally Posted by gps

Making cars or planes costs even BIGGER money...



... and if your car does not brake properly or your plane does not fly properly people will die. So you have to make sure you develop your product properly or you'll loose the trust of your customers, be faced with compensation and liability claims. So if you don't do your job properly then your company is in really big trouble and a lot more people will loose their jobs. The same goes - as far as I can judge also - for professional software quality used in companies. So just because game industry people don't cause havoc whenever they are cheap on their customers as much as they can does not mean that behaviour is OK or won't be noticed in the long run. Just saying...

I don't think anyone died because of the release of Civ V. I could be wrong...lol.

This seems to come down to an opinion of the quality of the game upon release. You think it was unbearable, I think it was very playable and worth the money.

The original poster said it was bad business to release a game early/on time if it isn't 100% complete. I disagree. Get the game out there, collect the money, please executives, get a green light to continue work on the game. Everyone keeps their jobs and the game continues to evolve.

Or do what 38 Studios did...delay your game again and again until there is no more money, company goes under, everyone loses their job and the game never sees release.

The choice seems pretty clear.

[TallNSturdy]

As a long time gamer I have seen both sides, where games came on 1.44" floppy disks (if some of you youngsters even know what those are) to instant downloads off the internet. I will say this, most games back in the day would be a much more polished product and didn't require the internet to play. We had 2400 baud modems so downloading updates was not even a thought at the time. The major problem was if there was a bug you were stuck with it. In todays gaming market games come out unfinished with bugs that would kill sales of games when I was a kid. The end result after patching though is a much better experience and everything can (and hoepfully) gets addressed. If you don't like the bugginess don't buy it until the first couple patches come out, if you have to be the first in line to get something then quit your complaining. If you are still surprised that games are like this when they come out.. Well I'm afraid no one can help you. Starcraft 2 took 10 years to make, is basically the same game as before with better graphics and units and even they had to patch the game.

[Ranos]

Don't try to compare software to hardware. If your car doesn't run properly, it costs you money in gas and service, plus if it is severe enough, it can cost lives. If a game doesn't work properly, it's annoying and frustrating and you'll probably not play it until it gets fixed. But it won't cost you any more money and nobody is going to die.

Civ V doesn't have many of the features that IV had at the end, but that's the point. IV was released without espionage, despite espionage being in I-III. We had Civics and Religion for new features. The map went back to the Civ I orientation of squares instead of diamonds. 3D graphics were introduced. Two expansions added many more features to the game but that took something like three years.

So Civ V gets introduced and everyone complains about the missing features. There's no espionage, no religion, no corporations, etc and a number of things didn't work very well (diplomacy, AI tactics). But there were a lot of new features added as well. Hexes instead of squares, 1UPT, a revamped policy and civics system combining the two together.

Additionally, regular patches helped fix some of the problems. Diplomacy works better although its still confusing. Tactics are a bit better but severely lacking. Many other bugs were fixed though.

Now G&K is coming out and new features will be introduced. Or reintroduced. I do think that the revamped combat system should be given as a patch to Civ V vanilla for those who can't or don't want to buy G&K. That is the only thing that is "missing" from vanilla.

Originally Posted by gps

Not a very good point considering the fact that customers allready paid them the full price for a completed game way back in 2010.

And they got a completed game. Yeah it had problems but...

Originally Posted by gps

Well, there are games that are broken by design. Those are unfixable. Then there are games that are broken by severe bugs. These should be fixable, if they get proper treatment. And - you may or may not believe this - there are some gems that are neither broken by design nor by severe bugs. They more or less work as they should from the beginning, maybe they get a patch or two to fix minor issues - and then that's it. That is the standard companies should aim for. That's the standard I am willing to pay full price for. If you let them get away with anything less - you're setting the standards. If a game is still severly broken two years after release and you have to pay them for patch-expansions - and you even think this is great service... Well, don't complain if you get what you asked for.

Companies should aim for that and most, if not all, probably do but programming is a lot more complicated than that. The more complicated the game, the more chance there are for bugs. Civ V is not still broken. The game works and is fully playable. It isn't perfect and still has bugs but it is far from broken.

As I said above, the new combat system should be a patch since this is the major problem with Civ V still. Everything else is a new feature that you should have to pay for. And I will gladly pay it. If you don't like it, then don't pay for it.

[cain3456]

Games today are so complex that if it had every feature straight out of the box it would cost over $100, which no one will pay. Games today are roughly the same price as twenty years ago , not even counting for inflation. The market has determined that under no circumstances will people pay over $60 for a game. Thus they break it into expansions, DLC, etc. to recoup their investment.
Those who have to have it first will pay for it, while cheapass people like me will wait until the price comes down and the bugs have been squished.

[nokmirt]

I know, I have made tons of comments about CiV, but I still bought every extra dlc and map pack and played it about 400 hrs, including some offline time. So. I may have not liked some things about the game, but I still feel it was fun to play, and to me worth the investment. I do not feel ripped off at all. All of my chronic complaining did seem to pay off, the devs read our posts and listen to our opinions. Good or bad they looked into what we were saying and are making big changes. That goes a long way with me. I do feel the game needs to make a step forward. Hopefully, the GnK XP is a step in that direction. I have good feelings that will be the case. There probably will be some problems with it on release, but the devs will work them out.

I would like to see the AI improved and diplomacy reworked some to make it more varied. Other than that I can't wait for June 19th, to see what this XP is made of.

[gps]

Originally Posted by TallNSturdy

The end result after patching though is a much better experience and everything can (and hoepfully) gets addressed.

Well, I've seen enouigh games go down unfinished. C3C anyone? And the way things look right now Civ V might be the next one...

Originally Posted by TallNSturdy

If you don't like the bugginess don't buy it until the first couple patches come out, if you have to be the first in line to get something then quit your complaining.

And that's exactly what I do. I bought Civ IV in 2007 when it had reached a state of maturity that I found satisfactory. And I bought Civ V two days ago for 5,97 EUR. Saves a lot of money and frustration.
Btw. I am not complaining. There's no need to. I've allready voted with my wallet. That's the strongest weapon the customer has. Hit's them where it really hurts. I am just criticizing. And I'd say I am entitled to do that in a game related forum...

[gps]

Originally Posted by Gamewizard

This seems to come down to an opinion of the quality of the game upon release. You think it was unbearable, I think it was very playable and worth the money.

Btw. a big misconception you have here. I did not think Civ V was unbearable at the beginning and I don't think it is unbearable now. Actually I did not even know it until two days ago. All I have to do is read some press reviews, the Amazon customer reviews and the discussion here in the forums to clearly see this game had severe issues. And every game has fanboys and hardcore defenders who will love it no matter what. Ignore them. Read the critics, read the one star reviews, listen to what they don't like and how reasonable they criticize it and you'll soon get a very good picture of what's going on - and it hardly ever happens that a professional reviewer goes as far as to criticize bad AI. Usually they neither have the time nor the experience to judge that stuff properly. For Civ V they did it, some actually said the AI was bad. In a first line companies major franchise release!!! Plus a hughe part of the communitiy very vocally confirmed it. That's red alert for me to not cash out carelessly and waste time with an unfinished product...

[Peng Qi]

Originally Posted by gps

And every game has fanboys and hardcore defenders who will love it no matter what. Ignore them. Read the critics, read the one star reviews, listen to what they don't like and how reasonable they criticize it and you'll soon get a very good picture of what's going on

So...all games are terrible.

[The QC]

Originally Posted by gps

And every game has fanboys and hardcore defenders who will love it no matter what. Ignore them. Read the critics, read the one star reviews, listen to what they don't like ...

That's a sure way of ending up not buying any game or film ever.

Just like every game/film has super-fanboys who just love everything about them, every game and film also has super-haters who will never accept that there's something good in there, that somebody else loves it.

I often go on IMDB after seeing a great film that moved me so much it made me want to hear more about it and talk about it. And you know what the first thread in that film's forum is pretty much every time? It's either "Worst film ever" or "Most overrated film ever".

Similarly, I've been trying to decide on a boardgame to buy lately, but I'm paralyzed because, if I read reviews on Boardgamegeek, invariably I find some very convincing negative reviews for any game out there.

In the end, buying a game is a (small) leap of faith. There's no sure way of knowing if you'll like it or not. Some of the highly praised games out there you'll dislike. Some of the games that have some convincing negative sentiments around them you'll actually enjoy. You can research as much as you want, but the image that you get from that doesn't always reflect how much you'll like a piece of entertainment yourself. And in the end all you can do is accept that you'll pay money for some games you'll hate. Such is life.

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: This thread seems to have amply served whatever purpose it originally had. It isn't a thread to discuss the relative merits of Civ5, and it isn't the Rant thread. So closed.