builer680
eats too much Taco Bell
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2010
- Messages
- 525
Does anyone else feel that getting a portal to declare Civ V "Game of the Year" is just Firaxis pulling a "cover your @#$" routine? Specifically the Gamespy PC GOTY award, which is presumably more under their influence than other portals.
The atmosphere here in this forum really reminds me of the atmosphere that came about on the MOO3 forums several years ago when it was released. The game got so much "bad press" from players and portals alike that it killed any chance the game had of eventually becoming successful, and likely killed any chance of a MOO4. It's pretty common to see references to MOO3 now when a great franchise really messes up.
For this reason, it appears to me that at least getting a GOTY award quite a bit after release (after plenty of time to have played for months and seen all the ins and outs of the game, as opposed to a reviewer who may only have a couple hours or days per game to review) gives a bit of "deniability" to the publisher and developer of this game a few years from now when and if people make the argument that Civ V killed the game.
"Nuh uh! Look! It was Game of the Year!" My foot.
Even if you like this game, I don't believe anyone calling it the best game of 2010 is being completely honest. Blizzard's Starcraft II and the Cataclysm expansion come immediately to mind as obviously better games.
In any case, these points have been brought up before, but they set up the following questions for me. I'm working from the assumption that this award (possibly other accolades, but this one specifically) was a quid pro quo deal, and thus not a true objective award. In all honesty I think that much is quite obvious, but there are other threads for that discussion. Disagree with that assumption if you like, but my real purpose in this post is to ask for your thoughts on the following questions.:
1. I've not heard any major announcements about hitting big sales milestones, so I suspect it's not doing as well as hoped. How likely is it that there will never be a Civ VI, because of any failure of Civ V to meet sales expectations?
On a side note, I still haven't seen hard evidence from those who claim it's moved millions of units and is still climbing. All I see are claims of box units added to assumptions about Steam sales volume, but with no actual data.
2. How likely is it that "awards" such as this one will be used to gloss over the possible future failure of the franchise, then any failure to make Civ VI, and thus avoid being called the "MOO3" of Civ?
P.S.
It can be argued that PC Gaming as a whole is moving in the "Facebook / Internet app" direction... and that making games for a demographic such as mine, that is a bit more hard core won't be as profitable in the future. But no one can really KNOW that. It's just as possible that the kind of gamer who'd prefer lighter games won't bother with a sequel because of having different interests by the time any sequel comes out. It's guesswork. And now that a number of long time fans (not all, but some) are so alienated, their "fallback demographic" of long time players is no longer quite as dependable if that tactic fails.
I for one will be very wary of anything that says Civ on it again, after buying up every Civ title without thought or review checking since Civ 1 in 1991. And I know for a fact that I'm not the only one.
The atmosphere here in this forum really reminds me of the atmosphere that came about on the MOO3 forums several years ago when it was released. The game got so much "bad press" from players and portals alike that it killed any chance the game had of eventually becoming successful, and likely killed any chance of a MOO4. It's pretty common to see references to MOO3 now when a great franchise really messes up.
For this reason, it appears to me that at least getting a GOTY award quite a bit after release (after plenty of time to have played for months and seen all the ins and outs of the game, as opposed to a reviewer who may only have a couple hours or days per game to review) gives a bit of "deniability" to the publisher and developer of this game a few years from now when and if people make the argument that Civ V killed the game.
"Nuh uh! Look! It was Game of the Year!" My foot.
Even if you like this game, I don't believe anyone calling it the best game of 2010 is being completely honest. Blizzard's Starcraft II and the Cataclysm expansion come immediately to mind as obviously better games.
In any case, these points have been brought up before, but they set up the following questions for me. I'm working from the assumption that this award (possibly other accolades, but this one specifically) was a quid pro quo deal, and thus not a true objective award. In all honesty I think that much is quite obvious, but there are other threads for that discussion. Disagree with that assumption if you like, but my real purpose in this post is to ask for your thoughts on the following questions.:
1. I've not heard any major announcements about hitting big sales milestones, so I suspect it's not doing as well as hoped. How likely is it that there will never be a Civ VI, because of any failure of Civ V to meet sales expectations?
On a side note, I still haven't seen hard evidence from those who claim it's moved millions of units and is still climbing. All I see are claims of box units added to assumptions about Steam sales volume, but with no actual data.
2. How likely is it that "awards" such as this one will be used to gloss over the possible future failure of the franchise, then any failure to make Civ VI, and thus avoid being called the "MOO3" of Civ?
P.S.
It can be argued that PC Gaming as a whole is moving in the "Facebook / Internet app" direction... and that making games for a demographic such as mine, that is a bit more hard core won't be as profitable in the future. But no one can really KNOW that. It's just as possible that the kind of gamer who'd prefer lighter games won't bother with a sequel because of having different interests by the time any sequel comes out. It's guesswork. And now that a number of long time fans (not all, but some) are so alienated, their "fallback demographic" of long time players is no longer quite as dependable if that tactic fails.
I for one will be very wary of anything that says Civ on it again, after buying up every Civ title without thought or review checking since Civ 1 in 1991. And I know for a fact that I'm not the only one.