All Quiet on the Civ Front

[Neirai]

Who here would be okay with CiVII having a $90 price tag, our of curiosity?

I paid over CA$100 for Civ VI.

 

[DWilson]

I paid over CA$100 for Civ VI.

Does that include the Deluxe?

 

[TahamiTsunami]

Come December: Smash Bros. Ultimate!

Smash Bros. is a great Nintendo series to for Nintendo newcomers and veterans alike.

Well, Gilgabro for Smash Bro would be cool. I guess it’d look a bit like this.

It would be incredibly amazing if the recent updates were in preparation for adding the Civ 6 leaders to the Smash Bros roster! I actually wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer for the next dlc or expansion if it meant we could have Gilgamesh try to out punch Captain Falcon!

 

[Neirai]

Does that include the Deluxe?

Yes; I bought it on day one, because I am a hotshot modder who makes mods and therefore I need to have the most cutting edge version of the game.
Cut forward a year or so, I've yet to make a mod for Civ VI.

 

[Rup]

I wouldn't be okay with 90$ base game not because I cannot afford it but because I don't want this game to be not affordable by college students or for the people who don't want to spend that much into a game because even after usual discount the price would still be too high for many people.
I don't want gaming to be a hobby for rich people especially for a series like Civilization which is easily accessible financially.
But if it was only about me I wouldn't mind if the content is enough for that much money, as I'll spend more than that buying expansions and DLCs anyways.

 

[Aristos]

Who here would be okay with CiVII having a $90 price tag, our of curiosity?

Only if the AI can count at least to 90.

 

[Rup]

Only if the AI can count at least to 90.

Firaxis will give them bonus up till 89 so they will have to count only 1
Beside I know it is a very unpopular opinion but I don't think Microtransaction is a bad thing in any video game.But I hate how most publishers use it.For me buying one or 2 civs as a DLC is also a microtransaction.It really depends on what you consider as micro level.I wouldn't also mind if they want us to pay to change the colour of the dhuti of Gandhi to pink for 5$(Not saying they should or would but it would be damn funny).People who want to pay for it can pay but people who want to enjoy the normal game can for less price.They can make money out of the people with strange fetishes.The problem arises when developers make the game focused around the microtransaction to push the people at buying it.
It is like any good weapon but the people using it are mostly evil.

 

[Leathaface]

Who here would be okay with CiVII having a $90 price tag, our of curiosity?

I would buy Civ VII for that price, but then again I am a really big fan of Civilization. It would be a mistake for 2K to set that as the price for Civ VII though, the general public wouldn't pay that much.

 

[DWilson]

How long has the standard price been $60? Even with an increased market size and decreased distribution costs, the added cost of marketing, development(graphically, as well as just salary and team wise), and inflation means we need to change something. If not a higher priced base game, what would you guys prefer? DLC seems like it can't be the answer, given its fairly terrible steam reception and the cost to develop it usually meaning they can't just lower prices there if it's meant to maintain lower base game costs, and expansions alone aren't sufficient either.

 

[Cerilis]

I remember the times when games were only 60... Deutschmark.

 

[Rup]

I remember the times when games were only 60... Deutschmark.

Know that feel.At the time of bad company 2 AAA games were ultra cheap here..It was about 7$ not counting inflation though but it is now almost 60$ for almost all publishers and rarely 65$ but not Civilization 6.It launched at a price of 34$ for the base game and 45$ for digital deluxe edition.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

A good game with replay value has long been, and remains, about the cheapest form of entertainment going, other than taking walks in the great outdoors.

A Civ game with good core mechanics that Firaxis converted to a continual improvement model a la World of Warcraft is one I'd gladly pay a monthly subscription for, and a monthly subscription model is likely to be, by far, the most expensive way to acquire access to video games. Also therefore likely the most profitable for Firaxis, and the most easy to plan for (production costs are covered by current sales rather than being sunk costs recovered from future sales).

Having long been on the road of up front sales (sucks to pre-date the internet era), Firaxis is constrained in moving towards that model. Modders offer that continual improvement model for Civ 4 and Civ 5 now, and presumably will for Civ 6 at some point, and they do so without costing the player anything.

So to get on that other road, Firaxis would need to come up with a version of Civ 7 that offers a compelling game play improvement over existing Civ versions, and release it in a way that shakes people out of their current "buy up front" mentality. The obvious solution is the razor-and-blades model where Civ 7 is released at a fraction of the cost to develop it, but that future add ons are available only with a monthly subscription.

If they don't go that route, then the cost for Civ 7 and it's expansions aren't going to be set by what the fanatical civ player will pay for it. They'll be set at whatever level 2k guesses will maximize initial sales across the whole addressable audience. Since the marginal buyer is going to be the general video gamer, that'll likely be whatever the average AAA game is selling for when Civ 7 is released.

How's that for a long boring way of saying expect no change to the pricing of Civ 7 versus Civ 6?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Man I would be very upset about a monthly subscription plan. That's what made me stop using Adobe Lightroom.

 

[UWHabs]

How long has the standard price been $60? Even with an increased market size and decreased distribution costs, the added cost of marketing, development(graphically, as well as just salary and team wise), and inflation means we need to change something. If not a higher priced base game, what would you guys prefer? DLC seems like it can't be the answer, given its fairly terrible steam reception and the cost to develop it usually meaning they can't just lower prices there if it's meant to maintain lower base game costs, and expansions alone aren't sufficient either.

I'm kind of surprised they don't have more DLC, especially DLC that doesn't take a ton of effort to produce. So yes, leaderheads take animators, but there's not a ton of effort to new wonders, natural wonders, buildings, maps, map scripts, scenarios, etc... Sure, you can only charge a couple bucks each, and tons of people won't buy them, but that seems like a logical way to handle things going forward.

The other option is that they make the expansions smaller, and optional. So basically you have the base game, and then instead of R+F, you have that as multiple DLC expansions:
-Each civ would be their own DLC
-Governors would be their own DLC
-Golden Ages would be another
-Loyalty would be another
-etc..

So instead of charging 30 bucks for the whole thing, they could get more money by charging, say, 3$ per piece, and sell it off as like 15 separate DLC pieces. Yeah, it gets a little complicated, since now maybe you need to give a separate bonus to Korea depending on if you have the governors or not. Or maybe you need to balance things separately if you have the Golden Age pack without the loyalty pack.

But I don't work there, and don't know what their economic model is like. For all I know, they sell enough base game copies that 60$ is fine. I mean, steamspy has civ 6 as selling between 2m and 5m copies, so even if they only averaged 40 bucks apiece, that still pays for an awful lot of developer salaries.

 

[AvianBritish]

Er... on other news... has anyone's games' been reset? As in... all of their settings set to default and their saves games wiped?

That appears to have happened to me and a friend of mine about to continue a multiplayer game that we played 2 days ago (I think) where both of our single-player, multiplayer and settings have been wiped.

I can't see that there has been an update or anything though...

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

It would be incredibly amazing if the recent updates were in preparation for adding the Civ 6 leaders to the Smash Bros roster! I actually wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer for the next dlc or expansion if it meant we could have Gilgamesh try to out punch Captain Falcon!

We all know that if Civ would get representation in the game we would get Gandhi with his nukes first.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I'm kind of surprised they don't have more DLC, especially DLC that doesn't take a ton of effort to produce. So yes, leaderheads take animators, but there's not a ton of effort to new wonders, natural wonders, buildings, maps, map scripts, scenarios, etc... Sure, you can only charge a couple bucks each, and tons of people won't buy them, but that seems like a logical way to handle things going forward.

I think that's a really good model. It's the basic coffee versus pumpkin spice latte offering. At the end of the day, you get pretty much the same product, but those who are willing to pay more get more bells and whistles and everybody benefits, including those who can buy a basic cup of coffee for less than they would have to pay if the cost of the shop was being covered by basic coffee sales alone.

The biggest challenge is a vocal component of the gaming world seems strangely adverse to some people being offered the opportunity to buy extras that they consider over priced. Rather than just not buying the over priced offering, they post negative comments about the game/publisher/industry, which may well impact sales of even the basic game. It'd be a bit like having to walk past a picket line of protesters at your local coffee shop, upset about the price of the pumpkin spice latte. Even if all you wanted was a cup of basic jo, you might continue up the street to buy a cup of tea instead.

 

[DWilson]

I think that attitude among many video game consumers is the biggest problem. The audience is generally angrily opposed to every form of cost increase, but we frankly can't sustain the industry without something. The question is which method will stick.

 

[Xur]

I’d pay 100 euro/dollars easy for a good civ game - even if it only had 2D leaders. Civ6 is a step in the wrong direction, and not really sure I’ll get next expansion. It’s a bit frustrating that I love the genre, but that it is obviously designed by someone that loves boardgames more than PC games and automation/quality of life features.

 

[Leathaface]

I’d pay 100 euro/dollars easy for a good civ game - even if it only had 2D leaders. Civ6 is a step in the wrong direction, and not really sure I’ll get next expansion. It’s a bit frustrating that I love the genre, but that it is obviously designed by someone that loves boardgames more than PC games and automation/quality of life features.

Ed Beach, the leader designer of Civ VI, created boardgames in the past. From what I read they had complex rules, they weren't boardgames where you'd just sit down and play on a whim.