Jon Shafer leaves Firaxis!

Sneaks said:

I am VERY curious as to the whys.

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I don't think that this really is a question.
The response to either Shafer_5 or the patches was underwhelming, to say the least.
Yes, some new people have been attracted, no doubt, but most of the sales are coming from oldtime fans.

Islet said:

Shafer had his successes too; Final Frontier mod for Civ IV and Civ IV BTS. CiV was a major disappointment though.

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For BtS, he was only the co-designer and as we've heared was responsible for some of the least appreciated features therein (espionage).

el_hidalgo said:

But to anyone looking at Shafer's resume, CiV is a colossal success, not failure.

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Anybody in the gaming industry knows that Shafer_5 sold well since being based on the fans' experiences with Civilization 4.
Take away the brand name and experience 75% less sales.

Back to topic:
Personally, I expect now two things to happen.

First, there will be some more DLC to drain the last bit of money out of the game and that's it.
Second, I expect them to already be working on Civ6 behind the scenes. Well, maybe not really working, but analyzing what went wrong with Shafer_5 and how to avoid such a bad echo from the fans.

Shafer_5 may have sold well in absolute figures, but I am pretty sure that it missed the expected figures in a considerable way.
The absolute sales figures are a heritage of previous Civ versions, as the longtime fans couldn't wait for the new version.
And then, from day one on, the game was under fire, because of the very well known reasons. For sure it didn't get much positive mouth-of-mouth advertising. Not in a large scale.

I think, Shafer_5 has been buried.

We will have to wait for two to three years and then we'll see what they present us as Civilization VI. And if not them, sooner or later another company will take care for the fans of the genre.

I really wonder what would have happened if they have not laid off half of the crew and pushed for an early release at the same time.

The players who criticize the game (like my colleagues here at CFC) are extremely unlikely to figure into personnel decisions at a company like Firaxis.

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Especially those whose posts read like the sound of a grinding axe.

Don't underestimate the power of the fanbase. Many people bought Shafer V because they enjoyed Civ IV. If people lose interest in the game too quickly, they will buy less DLC's and perhaps not even the expansions.

Civ fans are too smart to buy crap over and over again. I mean, look at some of the latest releases:

Railroads!, Civ:Rev, Civ:Col and Civ V.

Firaxis simply don't deliver great games anymore.

eric_ said:

Especially those whose posts read like the sound of a grinding axe.

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Not especially. None of them are going to figure into personnel decisions at Firaxis. Jon Shafer's boss does not come to CFC, read a post criticizing bad diplomacy or cruddy AI problems, and go "oh heck, this dude's mad about Civ5! Quick, fire our lead designer to appease the Internet!"

EDIT: Bad Brett does have a point (above) - overall satisfaction among the entire userbase may have a bearing on the ongoing development of that product, but if anyone here thinks that individual threads or members of CFC somehow influenced personnel decisions at Firaxis, they're kidding themselves.

Right. My post was meant to build of yours:
'players who criticize the game, [especially those whose posts read like the sound of a grinding axe],...are extremely unlikely to figure into personnel decision'.

ori said:

Take Two's earnings report was conspicious in not naming Civilization 5 in anything but the one sentence in which all its releases of the fourth quarter were listed (except some DLC and Dora's Big Birthday Adventure and Cooking Club releases) and all of them were said to be significant contributors to revenues - the only other mention of civ5 in their earnings report was ... not terribly well informed to say the least Essentially those reports are based on nothing really since Take Two didn't release figures due to their transition of the fiscal year calendar which allows them to postpone most figures to April 2011.

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Fair enough. I thought about checking the earnings report myself against that article, but I was too lazy so I just took their word for it.

Still, CiV seems to be a critical success, based on the majority of reviews I've seen, and it seems to be a sales success too, again from what I can see. And that's what employers will look at, not "immersion factor" as judged on a fan forum, or whatever other objections are raised here (and again, I'm sympathetic, having decided against buying the game based on objections raised here).

Bottom line: can the guy make games that sell, and the answer appears to be "yes." Although, to be fair, perhaps it's true that, as long as it was called "CiV," anything they released would have sold well.

Who knows why he left, but I don't see any compelling reasons to suggest that he was fired or pushed out because of the "failure" of CiV.

eric_ said:

Right. My post was meant to build of yours:
'players who criticize the game, [especially those whose posts read like the sound of a grinding axe],...are extremely unlikely to figure into personnel decision'.

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I understood that, but your post seemed more like an attempt to snipe at some vague collective of players that post axe-grinding hate threads than an actual response to my statement about personnel decisions at Firaxis. Effectively, you were using my post to try and insult other Civ fans, the way I read it. If I misinterpreted, I apologize.

overall satisfaction among the entire userbase may have a bearing on the ongoing development of that product

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For sure. They are very clearly listening to criticisms from those who aren't panning Shafer/the game in general.

Regardless of what Shafer was doing, there needs to be someone with a clear idea of how the game should be repaired. The last patch improved the game but showed a lack clear concept or purpose. The game needs insightful solutions and not just knee-jerk metric changes.

Who in Firaxis has a clear idea of what the final game will look like and how to get there?

Effectively, you were using my post to try and insult other Civ fans

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No, just emphasizing that those who seem to have an axe to grind seem most enamored of the idea that disgruntled niche players on CFC have the correct view of Shafer's departure.

"I think i'll have to look up who Nick Clegg is"

He is the leader of the liberal democrats in the UK, who formed a coalition government with the tory party (against his pledge BTW) to make a majority. Now whenever David Cameron (leader of the tories) announces his next proposal to destroy Britain, Clegg gets all the blame. Not to say he doesn't deserve it though (I assume you have heard of the tuition fee row, he lied to us all by making a pledge to vote against tuition fee rise although at that time he was secretly writing up plans to vote for a rise in tuition fees).

Sorry for the off-topic-ness of my post.

Can it be named "Jon Shafer and Firaxis Seperate"? It still sounds like it was all his decision. If it was all of his decision then the "complainers" are wrong about him. Usually someone leaves on his own if they think that things are not going as "he" planned. One does not usually leave on their own if things are going well for them. There is a slight possibility that one would leave because he feels he has failed, but who would hire a failure? You might as well ride things out and keep your job. Yet seeing that sales were good, another company may overlook the fact that a game was ruined for the core gamers.

I am pretty sure that John had a vendetta against core Civer's and wanted to ruin the experience for them. If you beleive that, then I believe the game will improve now that he is gone. If sales were supposed to be 5 million, then the company would see Jon as a failure and let him go, even if he begged saying "Give me one more turn". There is also the possibility that Sid had something to say in the matter, but we will probably never know.

Best of luck Jon and thanks for trying.

DaveGold said:

Who in Firaxis has a clear idea of what the final game will look like and how to get there?

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I'll risk an answer - don't hit me - current Staff.

all i can say is... PLEASE SID COME BACK AND RIGHT THIS SHIP, IVE SPENT TOO MUCH MONEY AND TIME FOR IT JUST TO END HERE! IF SALES ARE THE ONLY THING THAT MATTER THAN IMAGINE IF SID MEIER CAME BACK TO WORK ON THE GAME HE STARTED. IF GAMEPLAY IS WHAT MATTERS, SAME DEAL, SIDS ONE OF THE GREATEST GAME DESIGNERS WEVE HAD, AND I WANT HIM TO FINISH WHAT JON SHAFER STARTED.

I am pretty sure that John had a vendetta against core Civer's and wanted to ruin the experience for them.

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lmao! Seriously? I'm seeing quite the opposite (that some self-described "core" Civ fans have personal problems with Shafer and/or others involved with ciV).

timtofly said:

I am pretty sure that John had a vendetta against core Civer's and wanted to ruin the experience for them. If you beleive that, then I believe the game will improve now that he is gone. If sales were supposed to be 5 million, then the company would see Jon as a failure and let him go, even if he begged saying "Give me one more turn". There is also the possibility that Sid had something to say in the matter, but we will probably never know.

Best of luck Jon and thanks for trying.

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It was not Jon's fault that the game was rushed, but it's pretty obvious that it was his idea to turn it into a tactical war game and add stupid things such as the GDR.

I'm sure that Jon is a great designer. However, I don't believe that he's the right guy to design Civ.

lschnarch said:

We will have to wait for two to three years and then we'll see what they present us as Civilization VI. And if not them, sooner or later another company will take care for the fans of the genre.

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I "hear" that CFC is already looking for a major financial backer.

Victory!!!!

SuperJay said:

Not especially. None of them are going to figure into personnel decisions at Firaxis. Jon Shafer's boss does not come to CFC, read a post criticizing bad diplomacy or cruddy AI problems, and go "oh heck, this dude's mad about Civ5! Quick, fire our lead designer to appease the Internet!"

EDIT: Bad Brett does have a point (above) - overall satisfaction among the entire userbase may have a bearing on the ongoing development of that product, but if anyone here thinks that individual threads or members of CFC somehow influenced personnel decisions at Firaxis, they're kidding themselves.

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probably not a huge influence from the fanbase here necessarily, but the extremely negative reviews on amazon and many other sites will surely be a killer for dlc/expansion sales and the budget oriented people who wait for the complete/gold box sets to come out.