Dont buy Civ5 : Dont be the sheep

[Magma]

Who are the gamers you speak of? Most of the gamers around here feel there has been very little communication and certainly no real dialogue. I appreciate you and Greg are here to give us snippets of info, answer some questions, announce podcasts and put us in endless anticipation of an ever elusive FAQ, but it's hardly what I call real dialogue. It is much easier to interpret it as part of a marketing campaign, which to be clear is IMO ok because you are, after all, representatives of 2K whose priorities are, after gamers, selling the game.

If this is real dialogue and we are having a conversation, can you or Greg please tell us some simple things like what it is you have heard or read from the community that has been taken on board? What parts of the conversation have Firaxis and 2K been listening to?

Also, if this is a conversation, rather than everyone here asking all the questions do you have any questions to ask the community? Almost everyone here wants to help make the game successful but people don't have much to discuss other than whether we support or don't support steam.

To be fair it isn't much different from how other companies run these kind of things. Let us take Blizzard as an example, because they are fairly in between good and bad on this front.

They also release very little info of their games but the difference is that they have a good deal of beta testers that leak content even while the NDA is up. What the players gets to see in these leaks are a half-done game and they start going "meh" or "this sucks!", which is not really that constructive given the players have not had to the chance to see the complete scope of things.

What Blizzard do release themselves are often simply small bits and pieces to increase the hype around the game (not much different from from our good friends working on Civ5), or to announce they reworked something that seemed good on paper but did not really work in game.

That said Blizzard have one advantage 2k don't and that is they have an actual developer that sits and discuss with the players on the forum, about bits and pieces of info they gave out. And their CMs do at times also give out some additional information to perhaps clarify leaks. And from what I have seen Bioware is a tad more open on that than Blizzard.

That said, it do not mean to point fingers at Greg or Elizabeth - or you PoM - merely to clarify exactly on what spot 2k could do better as a company. Greg and Elizabeth is after all the 2k answer to dear Vaneras or another CM, they do not work on the game like say Ghostcrawler. Important is to know that Ghostcrawler is a volunteer though.

Aaanyway. They may benefit with a third guy or gal on the team from my humble PoV.

Edit; For the topic at hand - Why do you not let people make up their own minds about the game instead of trying to make them into sheep by not buying it?

 

[evrett37]

I bet this is happening for Civ5 too. They are listening to the community, through the "leaders" they have picked years ago to represent it.

When I first created my avatar here..this was my assumption too. And I've long held out hope that its just an Non disclosure agreement in the beta keeping the leadership and long time posters from speaking up. Pounding the war drums certainly shouldnt fall to me as a newcomer to this community. I know I'm not very diplomatic. But we got 75 days to go and I just dont see anyone else stepping up. Apathy seems to grip this community. Its just a game - who cares. We are just customers - who is going to listen to us. We'll be dead in the future so who care what the game morphs into.

I dont see any evidence Firaxis or 2K has any interest in listening to the community or that the "leadership" here is actually going to lead us anywhere. What has the corporation done but advertise at us? There has been no real dialog, just patronizing "exclusives" like we arnt smart enough to see though that. We are a resource to keep roped in to their larger digital distribution and social marketing scheme. Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep. We've even got a fenced corral in the form of CivFanatics, to keep us all in one place for the targeted marketing. The ownership here has a perfect pulpet to organize dialog and empower the customer. But what do they really do with it ? The only time I see the ownership is when they have something unpleasant and critical to say about one of us.

 

[Dale]

So you fully admit to being a newcomer, which means you have no idea how it worked in the past (Civ4) with the community folks who were recruited to work with Firaxis.

You also bring up NDA's, which would preclude any said community folks who were recruited to work with Firaxis for Civ5 from actually admitting to it.

So basically, you're complaint is completely flawed because you have no knowledge of how it worked in the past nor can you disprove that said dialog isn't already occurring at that level.

You're the same as the trolls who post "I'm not buying it cuz Civ5 is crap" threads having made the assumption on extremely limited information and not even playing it.

Ignored!

 

[Ajidica]

When I first created my avatar here..this was my assumption too. And I've long held out hope that its just an Non disclosure agreement in the beta keeping the leadership and long time posters from speaking up.

Why single out the long-time posters? Anyhow, the game is still in final development and they don't want to promiss features that won't be implemented. Plus they are helping CFC by stimulating all these repeat speculation and endless debate threads.

Pounding the war drums certainly shouldnt fall to me as a newcomer to this community.

Well, you aren't as much pounding the war drums as having a hissy fit. Pounding the war drums is generaly seen as a call to arms and action. I'm curious, how did your Firaxis protest go? I didn't see it in News of the Wierd.

I know I'm not very diplomatic. But we got 75 days to go and I just dont see anyone else stepping up. Apathy seems to grip this community.

You got one thing right, you aren't very diplomatic.
Why does anyone have to step up, what are we even supposed to step up about? From what I've seen and I haven't really been paying attention to the Civ5 forums, the game looks quite cool and introduces a bunch of new concepts. Firaxis knows that if they bomb on Civ5 they will have an issue on their hands; just like Creative Assembly had with the barely fixed after 5 patches failure that was Empire.

Its just a game - who cares. We are just customers - who is going to listen to us. We'll be dead in the future so who care what the game morphs into.

We haven't been through the design process so any comments we make are likely made from a starting point of ignorance. To shamelessly degrade the words of Locke, I'm going to compare it to the forum here. Locke says that the people put their faith in the government to protect their rights, if they find that faith has been misplaces they have a right to revolt. Now, I haven't seen anything here that shows my faith is misplaces. While there have been a few decisions I disagree with (Camel Archers as the UU for Arabia. It should be Ghulams.) I haven't found anything showing my faith is increadably misplaced.

I dont see any evidence Firaxis or 2K has any interest in listening to the community.

CFC isn't the entire civ community, we are a large part of it though. And Firaxis has listened to us. FOr the longest time we have been exploring the idea of hex's, the idea of killing the SoD, moving combat out of the cities, Powers instead of traits, modified cultural borders, and improved diplomacy. While they don't listen to our individual complaints, they look at what we have been asking for over the past few years when making the game.

What have they done but advertise at us?

Whats so wrong about that? Its in their best interests to hype the game, and we like it. Simple as that. Firaxis/2k exists to make money. Thats the bottom line. Accept it or go join one of those hippie communes.

There has been no real dialog, just patronizing "exclusives" like we arnt smart enough to see though that.

They have been quite good in answering questions. Far better then the Total War guys. While I would have preffered a little more information on the DLC stuff, I trust that they know what they are doing here. The companies don't exist in a vacuum and if they haven't seen the mess that the Empire TOtal War DLC created, frankly Firaxis deserves to suffer from the Invisable Hand of Adam Smith.
Plus, they don't have to answer any of our questions. What you call 'exclusives' are in fact them being quite open about it; especialy considering they probably have NDA's with 2k/Firaxis. (I'm leaning more toward 2k)

We are a resource to keep roped in to their larger digital distribution and social marketing scheme.

No crap Sherlock. Firaxis needs us. Its quite a parasitic relationship. As much as our lives would be diminished without them, we don't need Civ games.

Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep Sheep.

Baaaaa. Baaaaa. Baaaa. Baaaa. Baaaaa. Baaaaa.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Real dialogue between two parties does not mean dialogue between one party and a third party where the second party know absolutely nothing of who is in the third party nor what positions they have. To be clear, I'm talking about real dialogue between the first and second party.

I can understand if you want to settle on us being happy with the fact there are representatives of the community who are involved in the feedback process and so forth, but it's simply ridiculous to call this "real dialogue with the community". Better to call it simply what it is - real dialogue with the playtesters.

Dialogue implies conversation. 2K are talking to us (thank you for doing so, by the way) but they are not talking with us.

And if there was one person I think Firaxis should be having real dialogue with, it would be jdog, but he's obviously not under a NDA.

By the way, I still have faith in Shafer not to ship a bad game. If he insisted on it being Jon Shafer's Civilization V, that would probably be enough for me.

 

[Ajidica]

Don't know if you were responding to my post, but the communication for Civ5 is far better than it was for Empire Total War. The only things we knew were from screenshots and official review sites (who must have been blind not to see the buggy AI issues. Or the strangely accurate AI cannons whenever they target your general.)

 

[PieceOfMind]

Well, the timestamps probably make it obvious enough, but yes I wasn't really replying to your post. Mainly Dale's I guess, and partly Magma.

 

[Grey Fox]

I see no reason whatsoever to boycott Civ5.

 

[Frank Drebin]

ok, i wont be a sheep and follow your example.

 

[azzaman333]

I see no reason whatsoever to boycott Civ5.

You must be a sheep then.

 

[tom2050]

Stockholders are the customers, not the gamers? That is some serious stretching to come to that conclusion.

In that case, if no gamers bought the game, I suppose somehow the company would still profit from it?

Gamers are the customers... this is pretty obvious. What you explain is what customers should do; if you don't like the direction the game is going, don't purchase. If you don't like the way the company is being run or acting, don't purchase their products. It does make a difference.

For example, I no longer buy any Bethesda product because of the broken Fallout 3 for PS3 they released (literally a broken practically unplayable game, no fix released or explanaion given to the hordes of complaints).

Nowadays, I check games out first before I buy them, to avoid burning my hard-earned cash. Hopefully Civ 5 has a demo version; and the demo version shouldn't require Steam (if a demo does exist that needs Steam, are they protecting the free demo from pirates? )

BTW, I want a pet sheep.

 

[Silverwave]

Boy, this is hardcore thread !

You seems to forget one big detail. The guys behind the game aren't Presidents of a nation or oil tycoons. They are gamers, just like us. You don't wake up one day and tell yourself : I wanna be a game designer to make lot of money and enslave my customers.

Sure, firaxis want to make money out of their games or they wouldn't exist anymore. But in their minds, they tell themselves : how could we make this game great so people buy it?

I have some friends who are game designers and I can tell they never have ideas like "we are going to make consumers our sheeps" whatsoever.

 

[evrett37]

Boy, this is hardcore thread !

You seems to forget one big detail. The guys behind the game aren't Presidents of a nation or oil tycoons. They are gamers, just like us. You don't wake up one day and tell yourself : I wanna be a game designer to make lot of money and enslave my customers.

As I mentioned in another post - "the guys" (and gals) behind the game may not be gamers. There was a large braindrain with the death of the dot come era and the fall of wallstreet. Big corps like 2K all think social media is the new TV as a venue for reaching potential customers so they picked up some of these people and asked them to design the next big thing to interface with social media. They may be more interested in justifying their employment by locking in the most sheep to harvest from in the long term than producing a good product. bleh thats an ugly sentence..

The people holding vigil over the future of civ may be they same folks who brought you pop-up ads and the banking collapse.

 

[TheMystic]

As I mentioned in another post - "the guys" (and gals) behind the game may not be gamers. There was a large braindrain with the death of the dot come era and the fall of wallstreet. Big corps like 2K all think social media is the new TV as a venue for reaching potential customers so they picked up some of these people and asked them to design the next big thing to interface with social media. They may be more interested in justifying their employment by locking in the most sheep to harvest from in the long term than producing a good product. bleh thats an ugly sentence..

The people holding vigil over the future of civ may be they same folks who brought you pop-up ads and the banking collapse.

It's usually the innovators that drive the industry, not the top dog business men. Do you really think that there was some backroom meeting at EA or 2K where a bunch of smoking men came up with this big scheme to harvest people like sheep, and get them playing games on Facebook? The majority of the established industry was taken by surprise at the success of casual lower budget games, especially those on Facebook, mobile phones, etc. Now big publishers are trying to catch up.

The same thing happened with the rise of MMOs, the online community saw the rise of MUDs, then games like TSN's Shadow of Yserbius, Meridian 59 and Ultima Online popped up. Then everyone wanted in on the action, with Everquest, D&D Online, LOTR Online, WoW, Warhammer Online, Planetside, etc. While some things remain the same and we're lucky to have classics like Civilization, a large part of the industry simply follows the innovators.

Just like any business sector, development itself tends to adapt to changing trends and ultimately follows the money trail. PC gamers have complained for years that consoles seem to be getting preferential treatment, but PC is not where most of the opportunity for success is. It's about getting your game out there on the platforms with the biggest audience. I don't think you really realize how much it costs to make a game these days. Additionally, if you fall behind it's even harder to catch up.

It's obvious that Firaxis is testing the waters, and trying to remain relevant with some of the shifts lately in the industry. We saw Civ:Rev, and soon CivNet on Facebook. There is nothing wrong with that, they are a business and need to explore every opportunity possible.

The majority of the industry on the development side consists of gamers, even including the executive staff. Sid Meier still works on his games, he's not sitting around in a secluded office counting stacks of money. It's very disrespectful to imply that you're just a resource. If that was the case, we wouldn't be seeing continued development of games like Civ. We'd only be seeing games that offered the most potential for mass profits.

Anyways, I'm starting to think that there's no way to change your opinion on this. If so, that's really unfortunate. I think the crew at Firaxis are very worthy of respect, and trust in a franchise as loved as Civilization.

 

[xmen510]

I don't think that Firaxis or 2KGames has done anything wrong here.

From what I have seen, Civ5 looks like a good game (won't know for sure until I try it).

I see no problem with using Steam (never used it before - this will be my first time).

I completely understand having different bonuses with different releases of the game.

I will buy the game from Steam for Babylon. I will also probably buy the Limited Edition that was just announced.

I am not a sheep. I have made up my mind by reading and looking at the information available and find it to my satisfaction. I made up my own mind. I am not buying it because someone else told me to.

Thus far, I am still unsure of why evrett37 doesn't want us to buy the game. It seems like you are telling us not to, but not giving any actual reasons not to. If I do what you are asking, then i am being a sheep I suppose.

Perhaps, you should promote your reasons why we should not buy the game. Do not quote others or show how things have worked with other companies. Plainly tell us the "reasons" why we should not buy the game and/or support the company developing the game. What is wrong with it, that I should avoid it?

That might help some people better understand your position here.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I'm going to have to sell my game consoles and buy like 8 copies of Civ5

I hope Civ5 sells better than all of the other Civs combined

Why? At this point I want it to succeed entirely to spite Evrett.

 

[Magma]

Real dialogue between two parties does not mean dialogue between one party and a third party where the second party know absolutely nothing of who is in the third party nor what positions they have. To be clear, I'm talking about real dialogue between the first and second party.

I can understand if you want to settle on us being happy with the fact there are representatives of the community who are involved in the feedback process and so forth, but it's simply ridiculous to call this "real dialogue with the community". Better to call it simply what it is - real dialogue with the playtesters.

Dialogue implies conversation. 2K are talking to us (thank you for doing so, by the way) but they are not talking with us.

And if there was one person I think Firaxis should be having real dialogue with, it would be jdog, but he's obviously not under a NDA.

By the way, I still have faith in Shafer not to ship a bad game. If he insisted on it being Jon Shafer's Civilization V, that would probably be enough for me.

Mhm, thank you for elaborating. You raise a good point. Which is even more reason to have a Firaxis developer in here like Ghostcrawler on the American forums in WoW. Now Ghostcrawler is just doing it because he feels like it, so they don't actually pay him to sit there and post. And that may be the difficulty, it would be easy to find one on a big team such as WoW, but for one to deviate in a team as "small" as Civ5? Well, we can only hope!

 

[Ajidica]

Evrett. We want to see pictures of your Firaxis Protest.
Civ5 isn't perfect. Based on what I know I would have handled a few things differently. I would also have rethought the whole pre-order Babylon issue and DLC. Nothing can be perfect. As (IIRC) JFK said:"Perfection is the enemy of progress."
Tell us explicitly using bullet points exactly what you would change in Civ5. (Excluding Steam. We all know you opinions on it.)

 

[evrett37]

Civfanatics posted an article from VG247 so I will do..this one is about how Activision, a large corporations, treats its developers. After reading this one wonders if the Firaxis devs are working in a similar environment. Might explain the lack of communication.

http://www.vg247.com/2010/07/10/report-infinity-ward-lawsuit-claims-police-state-atmosphere-at-activision/#more-106763

I did not receive a single message about the protest so it didnt happen. Just a reminder that society today is ever creeping closer to resembling the humans in the Wall-E movie. I was also banned from the forums for that weekend so if you wrote me and didnt get a response, thats why.

 

[TheMystic]

Civfanatics posted an article from VG247 so I will do..this one is about how Activision, a large corporations, treats its developers. After reading this one wonders if the Firaxis devs are working in a similar environment. Might explain the lack of communication.

http://www.vg247.com/2010/07/10/report-infinity-ward-lawsuit-claims-police-state-atmosphere-at-activision/#more-106763

The treatment you're reading about took place during and after a very chaotic time for the company. They were investigating significant issues involving the studio heads, and then had to address all hell breaking loose at the company once Jason and Vince were let go. Again, all of that was during and after the terminations, not prior. It's not like security was sitting there forcing them to work on the game, they could have quit to join Respawn or any other studio at any time.

If you read into the details of what Vince and Jason were supposedly up to, you'd understand why Activision swept in there like they did. Considering the allegations, the risk of an altercation, and the need to protect employee privacy, I'm sure with security around things looked pretty odd to the average dev at the studio. Either way though, it's over and most people there have moved on atleast according to those that I know who work still there.

Regarding all the drama surrounding royalty and bonus payments, I don't know what exactly the deal is with that. It sounds improper, although Activision must have some shielding contractually to bind the remainder payments to the completion of the next title. If not then they'll lose the case, and be forced to pay out the remaining portion and then some. Chances are the lawyers going after bonus payments are working on a contingency basis, and are not charging directly for their services.

Regarding communication, development studios and publishers have been making huge strides in bringing developers and the community together in the past five or so years. This is why Community Managers are now part of the formula, when previously they just didn't exist.

CMs typically act as the gateway between the development team and fans. 2K is ramping efforts on the community side if you can't already tell. They've got 2KGreg on now to help cover Civilization, and just added 2KDavid to work with Spec Ops. Previously it was just Elizabeth running the show. I'm sure we will see more Civilization community interaction soon. The podcasts are already a cool effort, and give the developers a chance to go over some of the upcoming content in Civ V.

If you're expecting daily forum posts from those who make the game, usually core developers (designers, programmers, artists, etc.) don't get involved with the community. It's not part of their job, they've got a lot of work that has to be done on the game, and sitting around on forums would waste a lot of time. Producers tend to interact more with media than fans if they speak out on anything, but they've got work of their own to do as well.

Remember that through the course of development so much can change in a game, and the last thing a development studio wants is to let anyone down. Additionally if there are big changes in a game, it's usually not best to reveal them early on because a lot of the feedback will be ultimately theory based. When developers make something new like the Civ V hex system or one unit per tile, they actually get to play with it at the studio and make team decisions on whether something works or not. Forum users however only have the luxury of their imagination.

Anyways, I do think that we'll at the least see more activity out of 2K and Firaxis through the CMs. Remember that Greg just started in late May or so.