2K and Firaxis

[ColdFever]

They sit there and work on their product, every now and then they trow a little something to the community [...] Then all of a sudden some German Gamer´s Magazine creates an article that contains way more info then had ever been released before. It is so weird

You obviously are confusing the tasks of Firaxis and 2K. Roughly said, Firaxis controls the development, 2K controls the marketing. Both companies respect each other and try not to interfere with each other. Firaxis is happy to concentrate on developing the best strategy games available, and if 2K decides that the huge German gamescom is reason enough to release extra material in Germany, doing so is their business decision, and the Firaxis guys help them. For the E3 in Los Angeles extra material also has been released. This is not "weird", this just is the way marketing works. We only have two months left until release, and we already know most of it. Don't you think it is nice to have some spots of speculation left to discuss instead of just having to wait?

 

[Camikaze]

It's also complicated by the fact that 2K has multiple divisions; 2K International marketing would be somewhat different from regular US-based 2K marketing.

Do Firaxis ever respond to any posts on their forums, or join discussions there?

Firaxis do not have forums. They occasionally respond to posts here, though. The last Civ5 patch was preceded by an open beta, for example, in which Firaxians (particularly the Lead Producer, Dennis Shirk) were actively posting here. Generally they haven't posted here in a marketing capacity, though; that's usually been a 2K thing.

 

[Makavcio]

Firaxis is a company that makes games and Cenega is a company that promotes/distributes them. They do their job well enough that I want to buy their products with my hard-earned money. I don't really expect more from them and I don't share the idea that following whims of fans is a good path to a successful product. A Civ game must be based on a complete concept that encompasses all aspects of the game, and players' input is crucial for balancing, not for other things. Yes, it can be useful, but not enough to base solutions on it.

Let's take the example of Paradox Interactive, the guys behind Europa Universalis series and a throng of its clones, like Victoria or Iron Hearts. They can't really produce anything right and their release date is actually the day when beta testing starts. I'll grant them that whenever something in me brakes and, crimson red with anger, I go to their forums to point out simply [censored] things included in the game, they fix them in the next patch in 95% of cases. The thing is that a developer that actually respects its fan base (we used to be 'clients' and we still are, but for some reason we are not granted in this business the same rights eg. car manufacturers' clients get) would never dare to release such a slapdash parody of a final product. Especially that the most of basic mechanisms we have in EU4 were just copied from the ancient EU3 and are still practically in beta. Imagine that Firaxis launches a patch where all melee units get -50% combat strength and all ranged units get +50%. Unimaginable? Of course, but for PI things like that are a normal practice. Firaxis guys know what they are doing and even though I may not agree with everything they do, and I'm also often disappointed, I have the utmost respect for them. Expect for that burgerlord who thinks that Stanisław Lem is a russian writer.

 

[Sprenk]

I imagine that dealing with fans can be quite . . . wearing. At their worst, fans can seem like total cranks: "Why did you nerf my favorite faction/class X to the ground--do you hate me?" "Why did they get invited to beta and I didn't?" "Why did/didn't you put a freckle/scar on my favorite character? The game is ruined!"

And, for the cranks, it all adds up to "Why, oh why don't you see the universe exactly the same way I do?"

 

[NASAROG]

A Civ game must be based on a complete concept that encompasses all aspects of the game, and players' input is crucial for balancing, not for other things. Yes, it can be useful, but not enough to base solutions on it.

So what happened with the release of CIV 5? Singular vision isn't always the best thing.

 

[DarkestOnion]

2K feels like they live in a distant tower so I just nod when I see their name.

Sid Meier seems to be a rather reclusive Gamer Cult-like Figure, not unlike Richard Garriot. I think of him as a somewhat distant shy person whose name (when they attach it to a game title) is of considerable weight in my decision to buy a game.

Firaxis seems very accessible to the fandom (maybe even more than they should be) so I see them as people who could potentially be online friends. Pete Murray was a good choice to extend us a friendly hand for BE imho.

 

[DarkestOnion]

Since the so called fans have been part of development, we gamers have gotten the shaft by getting crappy products.

I think I can partially agree with you here Randall. Cases in point, the recent Fan Revolts which changed both the ending to Mass Effect 3 and the Launch Features of the XBox One.

In the case of the ending of ME3 I was shocked that fans thought that they were entitled to an ending that they found personally significant. It must have baffled the developers who knew their was no way to pleas every individual Fan. Their decision to go wide and vaguely philosophically probably seemed the safest bet at the time. Today I fear that Fan Entitlement like that is getting out of hand.

In the case of the Launch Features on XBox One, we never even tried the new features before so many of us virtually rioted. Sony even unprofessionally (perhaps un-ethically) encouraged Fan Entitlement to manipulate people into buying the PS4. The result was that potentially groundbreaking features were scrapped because Entitled Gamers were afraid of changes which might be a mixed bag.