Jon Shafer leaves Firaxis!

Why would someone leave in December, or do software companies have different schemes when it comes to 13 month and performance bonus? I sure know I wouldn't leave before March.

Dale said:

According to T2's recent financials, Civ5 has just hit the million sale mark.

Factor in DLC and the inflated special editions, 2K Games has probably netted around $30 million USD in revenue.

For this type of game, 1 million sales is exceptional. Yes, they would've hit the projections.

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Considering that on avarege the game is played by 20k players now, it's pretty disappointing maybe... one million sales against 20k players maybe is the reason behind the Shafer's decision...

ThERat said:

Why would someone leave in December, or do software companies have different schemes when it comes to 13 month and performance bonus? I sure know I wouldn't leave before March.

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Perhaps he has been offered a job elsewhere.

Hey Trip, your vision was pretty good. I look forward to seeing all the bugs ironed out in a few years. Glad you took the franchise this direction, looking forward to your next project wherever it is. Am kinda bummed you won't be doing the xpacks. Enjoy your break!

Scaramanga said:

lol It's fun watching people sing "Ding dong the witch is dead."

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Di~ng dong the witch is de~ad. Fa-la-la-la-la la~la-la-la.

Merry Christmas to all fans from Santa. Jon is gone!

He probably didn't leave by choice in my opinion with his fantastic job on 5. (sarcasm)

So, this is a really bad sign.

We won't ever be able to say for sure if Jon was the one who CAUSED everything to go bad, but as the game has come out, it has been easier and easier to see that it was not as awesome as those previous (on average, though I do realize some people love it, and that's fine.)

Having Jon Leave for whatever reason at this point, indicates a few things, and asks a lot of messy questions:

1) The game hasn't finished important balance patching and tweaking. In fact, it just pushed out a DLC and one final patch of possibly not the greatest merit. That sounds a LOT like Jon wanting to get out as fast as he could, but had an agreement to produce that patch and DLC first. Conversely, it may be the last thing the company would let him do.

2) The game is barely out the door still. It has been a couple months, sure, but not THAT many. All the discussion about ideas they wanted to flesh out, or the move into ... what happens to those? Someone else takes over? Games like this often have one or two people strongly driving the vision. Different people will have different visions.

3) The timing is also weird looking outside of the industry. December, right before Christmas? There aren't a lot of good reasons to be unemployed at this time of year. Either he has another job lined up (which his hiring will no doubt make waves) or he got axed. If he isn't hired soon, I think we know which it is.

I like how you guys say give civ 5 time but it doesn't work that way.Think of first impressions if, their bad its bad. Kinda like when you see a movie first impressions from majority.

Even with patches and expansions it's still going to be covering the old thing. Unless they do drastic changes and do more intense research on history and social sciences.

bonafide11 said:

Based on his tweet I quoted above, he doesn't seem bitter about it or anything. But it also doesn't sound like he has another job he left for.

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Dear Lord.

What shall he say?

There are two options:
a) he left on his own accord and feels great with what he did and how it turned out
b) he was given the chance to resign as otherwise...

In any case, he can't do anything else than saying "Oh, it was such a great time".
Which company would hire him if now he would disclose some insight details as "They pressed me to do this, they cut our budget on that, they overruled my ideas here and there..."

He is obliged to remain silent about what was going on behind the scenes. Not only by his contract (and you can bet on such a clause), but just by the need not to prove himself untrustworthy to any employer.

Fact is that he indicated early leave in October already, after having been silent about the poor response to his work for some two or three weeks.

Fantastic news.

I personally think his career will rightly be downhill from here since he is responsible for the disaster that is Civ 5. He is responsible for wrecking the most sucessful computer game in history.

Hopefully this will prompt Firaxis to take control of their sinking franchise and put an adult with a proven track record in charge of CIV 5.

This thread is unbelievable.

Sorry to rain on your stupid little fantasy, but there's ZERO PERCENT chance Shafer got fired because of the endless, childish, mind-numbing ranting of the 100 or so malcontents on this board.

Ok, while maybe the ratings weren't quite as good as Civ 4, the overall reception by the masses (not the need-a-life zealots who seem to monopolize this board) was extremely positive by industry standards - 90% on Metacritic/Gamerankings - and by any objective measures the sales have been good.

But, even if he did get fired, why celebrate it like a personal victory? What kind of antisocial person gets so invested in a video game to derive pleasure in somebody's professional misfortune? From the tone of some of the posts around here, you'd think that Shafer had killed someone's family or purposely tried to ruin people's lives.

ZERO PERCENT - don't break your arms patting yourselves on the back!!!! Pathetic.

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weenarz1176 said:

This thread is unbelievable.

Sorry to rain on your stupid little fantasy, but there's ZERO PERCENT chance Shafer got fired because of the endless, childish, mind-numbing ranting of the 100 or so malcontents on this board.

Ok, while maybe the ratings weren't quite as good as Civ 4, the overall reception by the masses (not the need-a-life zealots who seem to monopolize this board) was extremely positive by industry standards - 90% on Metacritic/Gamerankings - and by any objective measures the sales have been good.

But, even if he did get fired, why celebrate it like a personal victory? What kind of antisocial person gets so invested in a video game to derive pleasure in somebody's professional misfortune? From the tone of some of the posts around here, you'd think that Shafer had killed someone's family or purposely tried to ruin people's lives.

ZERO PERCENT - don't break your arms patting yourselves on the back!!!! Pathetic.

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John? John? Is that you?

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weenarz1176 said:

This thread is unbelievable.

Sorry to rain on your stupid little fantasy, but there's ZERO PERCENT chance Shafer got fired because of the endless, childish, mind-numbing ranting of the 100 or so malcontents on this board.

Ok, while maybe the ratings weren't quite as good as Civ 4, the overall reception by the masses (not the need-a-life zealots who seem to monopolize this board) was extremely positive by industry standards - 90% on Metacritic/Gamerankings - and by any objective measures the sales have been good.

But, even if he did get fired, why celebrate it like a personal victory? What kind of antisocial person gets so invested in a video game to derive pleasure in somebody's professional misfortune? From the tone of some of the posts around here, you'd think that Shafer had killed someone's family or purposely tried to ruin people's lives.

ZERO PERCENT - don't break your arms patting yourselves on the back!!!! Pathetic.

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You may need to get a life.

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Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Yeah but I also have some sympathy for the guy yes he so far steered civ over a cliff but hopefully it will climb back up.I don't wish for the guy's career to be misery.After all I believe in second chances and I think everyone should too.

This is luke-warm news. On the one hand, Shafer fixed warfare in civ. Warfare now has a tactical element beyond "which unit attacks first". On the other hand, Shafer seems to have broken diplomacy and AI.

I've had a pretty good time playing his game so far - so I'm sad to hear this news.

This isn't Shafer's fault but it was said that it's only 50 bucks, people should have read the box, they should have played the trial, perhaps they should have visited even more review sites, and that in the end their opinion doesn't matter it's just the bottom line. DLC is selling like a champ and Firaxis wouldn't give a crap what they thought. So I think when people see this and had chosen not to buy the DLC it is indeed a small victory in that regard.

ezwip said:

This isn't Shafer's fault but it was said that it's only 50 bucks, people should have read the box, they should have played the trial, perhaps they should have visited even more review sites, and that in the end their opinion doesn't matter it's just the bottom line. DLC is selling like a champ and Firaxis wouldn't give a crap what they thought. So I think when people see this it is indeed a small victory in that regard.

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You seem to have forgotten that the demo was delayed till release date, so you couldn't try before you buy if you were a devoted fan hoping to get it on release day. It's clear to most of us that this was done because of "quality" issues.

Perhaps Firaxis should have been upfront about what they created and how it was dumbed down to be "more accessable" to new players.

One thing is for sure, after Civ 5 I wont be paying to play any more Civ games.

Take-Two set the tone for Civ5 from the very beginning by offering 'deluxe' and 'standard' editions and all manner of ******ed DLC and map packs ... we should have seen it coming.

Originally Posted By Geddy One thing is for sure, after Civ 5 I wont be paying to play any more Civ games.

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Ok if you don't like civ no more then why are you on a civ fan site? I don't get it?

Civilization is most likely going to improve maybe into something else spiritually or with a different title like Call to Power. And only if we want it to. Why not get directly involved in it? I plan on being in the video game industry sooner or later.

WOO HOO! Shafer is finally gone! This is the best news I have heard in a while. Now I feel Civ 5 actually has some hope. I bet Firaxis 'Made him leave kindly' for PR reasons. Let's call it what it really is: a kind way for them to fire the inexperienced destroyer of the Civilization series.

Let's hope they get some good experienced person in there, that will bring Civ 5 to be what it should be.

And finally, I don't wish Shafer well in the future, I don't care what he does or where he goes; but I hope he never returns.

Thanks Shafer, for a horrible job done.