The BUY TWO COPIES of Civ 5 petition

To both replies, there is still the issue of what happens if you miss the window of opportunity to back up the installation of a particular patch version? Even if you can disable automatic patching, you might not be able to revert to a previous patch once the damage has been done so to speak i.e. your game has updated for you and you find out your mod no longer works.

Also, this might be more important to some people than others, but keeping multiple copies of an installation might get impractical. Especially if we're expecting civ5 to be in the orders of several GB. I appreciate this is probably only a minor concern though.

There are other questions like what it means for PBEM players. This is more in reply to Aramel, because the ability to disable automatic patching does not solve the problem of all competitors in a particular PBEM game having different patch versions installed for use in offline mode, assuming it's reasonable to say that in PBEM games everyone needs to maintain the same patch version.

@Aussie in particular, considering this game is steamworks integrated now, could that not mean the install (the noun, not the verb) is a bit more complicated now than it was for civ4? Steam games that I have installed seem to put files in different places in the steamapps folder and nothing about it looks simple to me, where simply copy-pasting them to a different location is possible. I am not sure about any of this though, which is why I'm asking.

It's likely you should be able to install Civ 5 on a different user account in Windows though. I see no way Steam can stop you from doing this. After all, there are no limits to the number of installs AFAIK.

I would doubt copy and paste of all files would work, since it is probably connected to the registry to run. What do I know though

Merovinge said:

I admit there are some cases where convenience sampling has use, but those are basically as pilot investigation followed up by real polling that is not virtually guaranteed to have some bias.

Click to expand...

Unfortunally as long as the participation is voluntary / can´t be enforced and there is a (possible) connection between participation probability and answer behaviour, you will be unable to collect bias free data.

But of course - in this case i would agree, a poll - like discussed here - would certainly need a follow up study to answer the main question (how the implementation of steamworks influences the sales of civ5). But imo - only assuming, to lazy to really think about this - it has limited use (to have a first guess of the dimension of the relation) to answer the question how many say "hooray" to the implemenation of steamworks and how many say "was this really necessary" to this decision - the both extremes.

The "i don´t care this step or my buying decision is independent from the steamworks implementation" group is imo (only a personal guess - nothing based on facts) the one which will really affect the sales. But the size of this group is not really a base for a discussion if the decision was positive or negativ - it´s simply the group which defines how important the topic considering the sales will be.

tom2050 said:

It's likely you should be able to install Civ 5 on a different user account in Windows though. I see no way Steam can stop you from doing this. After all, there are no limits to the number of installs AFAIK.

I would doubt copy and paste of all files would work, since it is probably connected to the registry to run. What do I know though

Click to expand...

What a great idea...
Separate windows user accounts and Steam installs to use for online and offline play might solve some thorny issues I've been contemplating especially if the offline account had a logon script that disabled network access.

Hmmm....I wonder if Steam has an install only for this user option, I'm guessing it must (should) because many families share computers.

The_J said:

Moderator Action: Back to topic please. This is not a steam thread. This thread is about supporting our loved game. Talk about this, not about steam.

Click to expand...

Our loved game is going to be released tied to Steam. It is beyond my understanding how you or anyone else can think that we can support our loved game without taking into consideration Steam.

Thier are dedicated threads for Steam discussions, a few too many infact, just discuss Steam topics raised in there, unless it specifically is related to the topic,
i.e "buying on Steam should give more profits per copy sold to frixasis, so buying digitally on Steam or any other digital outlet for that matter should enchance Frixasis profits."
This idea mentions Steam but it is related to this thread about generating more profits for frixasis, it doesn't discuss Steam in any other way, leave such comments on Steam threads.

I'm going to buy two copies on release and then probably another the first time it goes on sale.

for 2 reasons:
- I can't think of a better gift than the gift of civ!
- To spite the boycotting jerks and pirating jerks.

To be fair, I'll probably end up buying two copies, because my Dad is a Civ freak.

To be retired and play Civ all day... yes, that is the life.

AriochIV said:

To be fair, I'll probably end up buying two copies, because my Dad is a Civ freak.

To be retired and play Civ all day... yes, that is the life.

Click to expand...

To enjoy civ in a beautiful and forgotten corner of the world, 'tis the life

oChuckles said:

I'm going to buy two copies on release and then probably another the first time it goes on sale.

for 2 reasons:
- I can't think of a better gift than the gift of civ!
- To spite the boycotting jerks and pirating jerks.

Click to expand...

The only thing you'll be spiting is your bank-account.

Sure its great to buy 2 copies of the same game if you have a trees growing money outside your window .

Unfortunately I am not that rich haha. Also can you send me a copy of that second copy you buy ?

But seriously why does it matter if games are made on specifically for a console/pc? Sure, i'd love to see game devs to make games for PC but it doesnt really matter what platform you play on. Both PC and consoles are basically similar, and PC has slightly better graphics.

Porting games on several platforms reduces the quality of the game but thats not our fault, its the devs fault .

oChuckles said:

I'm going to buy two copies on release and then probably another the first time it goes on sale.

for 2 reasons:
- I can't think of a better gift than the gift of civ!
- To spite the boycotting jerks and pirating jerks.

Click to expand...

I would strongly advise you to buy even three copies, because there are more boycotting guys than you might image.

Maybe you guys aren't familiar with the concept of spite... It's not really supposed to achieve anything. (kind of like an internet petition or boycott of a AAA title)

Aussie_Lurker said:

Hmmm, according to this poll here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=366427&highlight=Steam+Poll, only 17% of Civfanatics polled have said they *definitely* won't by the game because of Steam. Given that Civfanatics members make up only a minority of total consumers of the game, I hardly think this is a *significant majority*.
Personally I think all this BS about DRM are just a tiny minority acting like drama-queens, when the reality will probably be a very non-obtrusive, one-off process. The way some people are talking you'd think that 2K was demanding the sacrifice of a first-born child in order to play the game!

Aussie.

Click to expand...

Well only 29% have said they will definitely buy the game, so that is not large of an amount. It seems that the vast majority of the people are undecided, leaning towards buying it, but not fully convinced yet, so it is not like that it is a small minority. I know I am part of the undecided group, but i am leaning towards not buying it because of the requirement, but I will see how it affects things before making my final decision. I bought CivIV straight when it was released, but because of the Steam component I am not going to buy it straight away.

To everyone who thinks steam is going to hurt sales... Boycotts don't work, give me a break.

Commander Bello said:

I would strongly advise you to buy even three copies, because there are more boycotting guys than you might image.

Click to expand...

I guarantee you that for every Boycotter that has actually posted on the forum, there is another Boycotter lurking...

However, I also guarantee you that for every non-boycotter on the forum there are three more lurking, impulse buyers, Christmas gifts, etc.

Then you must consider that only about 10% of the boycotters will actually hold the line once discussion and dissection of the game begins in earnest.

Yeah... not real worried.

oChuckles said:

Maybe you guys aren't familiar with the concept of spite... It's not really supposed to achieve anything. (kind of like an internet petition or boycott of a AAA title)

Click to expand...

Hey, Blizzard is going to crack and add the lame emo-kid graphics to Diablo 3 any day now

I actually sometimes do buy two copies of the same game, but not at the same time.

I bought 2 copies of Civ 2 because I bought it on its own, and then I wanted command + conquer, but it was only available in a double pack with Civ 2.

I buy lots of games on release, but then I dont get the expansions because I find them too expensive. Then when the gold edition of the game is released with all the expansion packs in one box, I buy it again.

Civ however, along with the Elder Scrolls, are two games where I buy everything including expansions on launch at full price, including collectors editions if possible. I find it silly to petition for people to buy two copies if only for themselves, if you want to support the game then just buy the collectors edition.

Also, I very nearly didnt want to buy Civ 5 because of the mandatory Steam use. I simply dont like using Steam, Impulse, or any such program to play my games through, and I definately dont like not being able to play without having to use such programs, but because its Civ, I will still buy it.

Also, another thing to consider with Civ 4 is that the Civ: Chronicles collectors thing, nor even a collectors edition for just Civ 4 was released in Europe on launch. Firaxis could have potentially made much more money from Civ 4 with a global collectors edition release on launch day, but it didnt happen. I would have definately have paid for the Civ Chronicles boxset, but it was a US only release.

You cant fault sales when there are obvious flaws in the games marketing. Civ 4 was a very successful PC game in terms of sales, and I'm sure that Civ 5 is going to be great as well, but with poor marketing choices like a lack of a global CE version on release day, and forcing the players to have to use steam, the game studio is going to lose income and sales for such decisions which is their own fault.

I bought two versions of Civ4: Vanilla, Warlords and BtS separately and then once again the (US) Complete version for the sole reason that it removed all DRM. For Civ5 I'll likely wait until after release to decide whether to buy the game at all and if I do would probably to the same thing I did with Civ4 if they decided to do the same thing they did with Civ4 as well

I will prolly end up buying two as well. I've tried to get my little lady into playing multiplayer so I can defeat, conquer and vassalize her, but to no avail. She doesn't like Civ4 although I've promised her she can play Isabella.

Maybe she'll like Civ5; she HAS to if I fork out and get her a copy for her birthday. She HAS to!