Dislike the direction CIV5 is taking? Tell us how you'd do it!

Scenario:

You're a small game developer company best known for 4x games. Your initial games were simple enough to be picked up by everyone. As you published new games, they got more and more complex. This turned away new potential players, but created a strong fanbase. The last iteration of your games became a very complex and a very satisfiying game for the majority of your fanbase, yet new gamers simply aren't showing up.
You build a console game on similar premises and suddenly you realised the reason why your fan base isn't growing is because your games are too complex for new potential fans.

How do you proceed?

You build a console game on similar premises and suddenly you realised the reason why your fan base isn't growing is because your games are too complex for new potential fans.

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How did CivRev actually do? From what I know, while its sales weren't really bad, they were only mediocre?

Bibor said:

Scenario:

You're a small game developer company best known for 4x games. Your initial games were simple enough to be picked up by everyone. As you published new games, they got more and more complex. This turned away new potential players, but created a strong fanbase. The last iteration of your games became a very complex and a very satisfiying game for the majority of your fanbase, yet new gamers simply aren't showing up.

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You are saying that Civ4 didn't sell more than Civ3. Was that really the case?

I would make the game complex and accessible for beginners, just like Civ4 was.

Are you applying for a job @ Firaxis? Moderator Action: Such accusations are not allowed here. Really, those choices are as biased as any rant how bad CiV has become. Presenting their way as the only reasonable option...

Although I have to admit it is rare these days, it is possible to release a game of great complexity that is easy to learn. Sometimes tutorials do the trick, sometimes scenarios with increasing difficulty.

After all we are talking about Civilization here (although you don't mention it in your "scenario" for some reason) and not about some independent underground project.

I'd make simpler games for new players which introduce some of the main concepts used in my more complicated game series. Then I'd hope that the more hard core fans of the simpler game would be tempted to try the more complex game. No need to reinvent the wheel, Avalon Hill and SPI etc. did this with board wargames 40 years ago.

Misanthrop said:

Are you applying for a job @ Firaxis? Really, those choices are as biased as any rant how bad CiV has become. Presenting their way as the only reasonable option...

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Besides we really don't know if

"Create a simpler game that is going to attract new players; make it more complex through expansions."

even is their way. No one knows if the expansion will make the game more complex - no one even knows whether there will be an expansion. Besides it's not even that good idea in the first place. If the core audience is disappointed of the game, they are not that keen to buy expansions.

I'd dumb it down as far as possible to attract the widest possible audience. The learning curve will be subtle and have a low cap, but just enough to make people initially think the game is deep. Sure it'll all piss the hardcore fans off, but their market is far smaller and they'd end up buying it anyway through lack competition and variety, and no one else is going to cater for them

Bibor said:

yet new gamers simply aren't showing up.

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You are talking about a game with something around 4 million copies sold?

I'm not sure if the cause and effect necessarily match up in the poll options. There's a difference between complexity and accessibility, and the latter has more to do with attracting a new audience than the former.

Bibor said:

Scenario:

You're a small game developer company best known for 4x games. Your initial games were simple enough to be picked up by everyone. As you published new games, they got more and more complex. This turned away new potential players, but created a strong fanbase. The last iteration of your games became a very complex and a very satisfiying game for the majority of your fanbase, yet new gamers simply aren't showing up.
You build a console game on similar premises and suddenly you realised the reason why your fan base isn't growing is because your games are too complex for new potential fans.

How do you proceed?

Click to expand...

Jolly Rogerer said:

I'd make simpler games for new players which introduce some of the main concepts used in my more complicated game series. Then I'd hope that the more hard core fans of the simpler game would be tempted to try the more complex game. No need to reinvent the wheel, Avalon Hill and SPI etc. did this with board wargames 40 years ago.

Click to expand...

I'd have released yet another expansion for the successful 4X game to keep the cash flowing, and redesigned the console game to be both a more effective gateway, and an acceptable portable version for the 4X fans. Then the door would be open for a new 4X.

There's much more going on here than your four straitjacketed poll options suggest, and I don't really understand your push now, five months after release, to use these polls to put the very dubious launch of Civ5 in the very best light--or at least to attempt to prove that the devs and Firaxis/2K did the best, smartest thing they could.

I think by now we all pretty much know how it went down and what decisions were made and why the game is how it is and why it lauched in the state it did. The patches and hotfixes speak volumes about all this, both for how extensive they are in gameplay and mechanics, and though they are too little too late in the sense that they won't bring back any of the casual gamers or many of the die-hards who were turned off by the problems with the game on initial release and moved on, they are heartening for the rest of us.

I noticed yesterday the Steam "Buy-it-now!" pop-up you get every few days had Civ V at 1/2 price as the lead. FWIW.

Lone Wolf said:

How did CivRev actually do? From what I know, while its sales weren't really bad, they were only mediocre?

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http://www.vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=civilization revolution

Looks like 1.6 million units. I don't think that includes digital downloads, which are available over xbox live (not sure about psn). Civ 5 is currently at less than half that, but we know that number is lacking a heck of a lot of digital downloads so it's got to be way off.

Looks like CivRev sold about half as well as Bioshock (a big success), better than Mafia II (moderate success?) and four times better than Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (assuming this was a flop). The numbers also lack the iphone version.

<moved to another post>

Streamlining is a good thing to have. There are a number of features in Civ4's Beyond the Sword expansion that add complexity for little real gain (espionage, corporations, vassal states, many of the lategame units, etc.) Trimming the fat a bit in the next game is definitely needed.

However, when you eliminate old gameplay systems, you need to replace them with new systems that also work. That's where Civ5 falls flat. It's not the streamlining that bothers me, it's the fact that so many things are broken (diplomacy, global happiness, One Unit Per Tile combat, etc.) Simple games are great... if they're executed correctly.

Bibor said:

Scenario:

You're a small game developer company best known for 4x games. Your initial games were simple enough to be picked up by everyone. As you published new games, they got more and more complex. This turned away new potential players, but created a strong fanbase. The last iteration of your games became a very complex and a very satisfiying game for the majority of your fanbase, yet new gamers simply aren't showing up.
You build a console game on similar premises and suddenly you realised the reason why your fan base isn't growing is because your games are too complex for new potential fans.

How do you proceed?

Click to expand...

I would stop making 4x games Really, if the scenario you are posing really happened , than atleast one of the following 2 would be true:

- There are no future prospects for 4X games for whatever reason, and because of that , there are no new gamers coming

- You lost the touch regarding making 4X games ,and because of that you fail to atract new players.

Both point to the fact that you would be unable to make a 4X that would bring profit and new gamers, so making one more, more complex or not, is a exercise in futility and a carrier burner.

This hypotetically speaking, that is

r_rolo1 said:

This hypotetically speaking, that is

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Even if I would agree, I don't see it as an option since Firaxis was bought by 2k for a specific reason (and I'm sure as hell it wasn't the Pirates!)

Oh, you were talking about Firaxis ?

Well, suposing you are being forced by point gun to make a new 4X game and suposing that you failed to bring new gamers with the latest interaction of your flagship series ( have my serious doubts that this applies to Civ IV ... c'mon it even won a Grammy ... but I'll suppose that you are right for argument sake ), you have 2 options:

- You make a 4X out of the series to test some new concepts and see if the mainstream fish bites. Say, a SMACish aproach . If you are sucessful, port that stuff to the flagship series

- You continue with the line you got with the previous series, because a new sucker borns everyday and there will be surely new people that like your games coming to the shop. In other words, assume you are a one trick horse and try to milk it.

This are the actual two viable options and anything in the middle has the potential of neither satisfy the old guard or the new players that you failed to catch with the previous title

Since when does making a game more complex reduce its chances of attracting new players?

There are lots of people out there who enjoy complex games. Making games easier or 'dumbing them down' actually annoys much more of the fanbase than it attracts new players.

Misanthrop said:

Really, those choices are as biased as any rant how bad CiV has become. Presenting their way as the only reasonable option...

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I think that's the point. I see it as satire on that kind of biased - lets bash civ5, if you disagree you're a moron poll

good work Bibor

Good software (extrapolate to games) starts with a small core system consisting of only the absolute minimum, must have features. Then by a continued process of: implementation, feedback and refinement existing features are improved and new features are added according to need.

One of the more common reasons for software project failure is feature bloat and scope creep. More and more features which look great on paper but more often then not are not actually needed or that important are added (often mid development) to the project. This results in software that is large unyieldy, unnecessarily complex and performs poorly at those very core task that it is really needed for.

The extra features put pressure on budgets and timelines and take attention away from the really important stuff. The end result is a buggy, incomprehensible, low quality system.

Software is a process, its continued small improvements (baby steps if you please), it is not something you can get right first time. A good solution now is better then a perfect solution later (because the perfect never comes). A small start and continued refinement IS the proven, tested, tried and true industry accepted method of doing software projects.

On a side note there is a small subset of application domains were errors are not an option and must be right first time every time (nuclear reactors, flight control systems, medical systems). Add at least two zeros to the development costs for these. But even these have a process of continued refinement.