CyberChrist said:
You just pull those numbers right out of the air don't you - no real research or actual foundation on any kind of facts (except perhaps the sales numbers), eh?
Heh.
Ummm... I know the total membership of both sites and I know how many people actively post about Civ 3. Which were the stats I was using...
I am personally responsible for many sales of Civ3 to persons not visiting here or any other place related to Civ, by convincing them it is a product of quality and worth investing in. At the same time I made them aware of the minor problems with the product but reassured them these would be fixed. What if I don't see any reason to convincing them to buy Civ4 (in fact quite possible advicing against it) AND without these problems being fixed as was promised? What do you think the chance are they will acutally choose to buy Civ4 then?
Btw then I am no salesman in a computershop or anything like that, the people I recommended buying Civ3 are people I know personally. I am sure I am not the only Civ fan visiting CFC/Apolyton that have recommended Civ3 to friends and family making people that would probably never have bought Civ3 on their own accord actually go out and buy the game.
This is where word of mouth plays in and this is why ignoring the fans can easily have a greater negative effect than any raw numbers might initially indicate.
Okay, assume for every person who cares about Civ 3 on both sites gets someone else to buy it and follows up on the product. Still a small fraction of total sales.
Unless you think a pair of websites with ~10,000 active members actually makes a real dent in 2 million sales.
Exactly what do you base that assumption on? A few things you should consider regarding those that do as you suggest (however many or few they may be).
1. Why would someone a stranger to Civ3 suddenly start watching the progress of Civ4 (not saying they might not pick it up in shop on impulse of course)? And someone not a stranger to Civ3 would know about the problems surely.
Reviewing websites and magazines have a significant impact on public opinion about products.
Yeah yeah "you don't know anything you don't do research blah blah blah." It's a well-known fact. Plus I'm in the gaming industry, so as a matter of fact I
do know a thing or two about what I'm talking about.
2. Why would anyone following a release of a program not check out the previous programs of series also?
A lot of products are bought as presents or impulse buys - having heard seen it on a website with a good review and seeing in on the shelf. Considering the
only place you could find out about the patch progress would be in the small online Civ 3 community the exposure is quite small. Do you really think most people who will buy Civ 4 will log on to Apolyton or CFC and find that out?
If anything they'll see the glowing reviews of Civ 3 and Conquests and nothing more.
3. People talk about new exciting release and when people talk other people answer, and since people most often talk to people with similar interrests about such things it could easily happen that some of the people answering had knowledge about prior releases and the problems with those.
And the vast majority of people who bought Civ 3 know absolutely nothing about Apolyton or CFC.
4. What makes you think the problems of the previous releases of a series would not be discussed on the forums for the new release - and surely anyone following a new release closely would get around to reading some of those.
Again, there aren't as many people "following closely" as you might think. The people who actually come to websites about the game is a small fraction, especially for those who aren't familiar with the series already.
5. Why would those following release of a program not also read the previews and reviews of a game - and some of those would surely comment on the past performance/customer support of a company and any problems related to previous releases ... especially considering this is the next in a series.
The previews and reviews all are glowing about Civ 3 and Conquests. PTW was mired in MP troubles, but those have been since rectified. I'd love to see you find a review or preview online that says that Firaxis doesn't have good past performance and customer support. Firaxis' patch support for Civ 3 has been far greater than what most companies do for their products - most are lucky to see a single patch, if any.
No, you are wrong to assume that word does not get around about past performance or lack of the same and that this has less impact on reputation than pushing release date of new product a few months. If the product is brilliant when finally released there is virtually no damage done to reputation of the company calling the delays - quite the opposite as most people realize that the delay is the reason they are holding a more complete and unbugged product not needing to be patched to work properly.
There are several examples of this being the truth out there - people would rather wait a while longer for a working product than get a flawed one on time.
Why do you think companies release buggy products? Why do you think they stop patching at some point and don't continue until the game is "perfect?"
Do you really think that all of the game companies are stupid, and purposefully shooting themselves in the foot doing these sorts of things, rather than bumping back release dates?
The only companies that can afford to do that are huge and have vast financial resources - they can sit on their gold mine, tweaking and changing to their heart's desire. They don't have
publishers which demand a product be done by a certain date - the publishers come to them begging to represent them. And they have huge profits, so they can afford to work on patches for some time to come. And since everyone already expects a perfect product from this great company, the reviews are glowing and nobody cares.
But that's rare. Very rare. Even big companies with well-known products don't often bump back release dates more than a month or two at most.
I really think that you're living in your own idealistic sphere, where you believe word-of-mouth of this tiny community (yourself included) has a significant impact on the greater scheme of things. Fact is that most exposure is through reviews and previews, all of which don't go into patch details after the fact because they only worry about a product up to its release (and VERY rarely afterwards). PTW had a variety of patches which improved MP play significantly - but that was irrelevant, because the scathing reviews were already written and the damage was already done. Anyone who looks up info on a website will see a rating of 4/10 because MP play is impossible - when in reality patch 1.27 makes it quite possible.
CFC and Apolyton are nothing compared to the total sales of Civ 3. The
vast vast majority of Civ players have never even heard of either, directly or through people familiar with them (such as yourself). Most people who buy games don't go online, do a google search for the game and go hunting down information in
forums about the games. They go to Gamespot or IGN or other game reviewers. They don't dig through threads and posts and research things like that. They just don't. The membership and viewer stats are a testament to that.
And they are much smaller than Firaxis.
If CIV 4 is good 
with something wonderful that sticks to sides of Game Reviewers, watch out they could be looking at largest sales yet.
![[pimp]](/images/smilies/pimp.gif "Pimp [pimp]")
here on forum who could be had 
for mere shinny pennies, if we could just get the code released to them.... 
news of week. 
May I quote you in my by-line, 'Firaxis is probably doing the best it can to create good problems' however I would amend the last to read 'while we fanatics are sure to count mark and paint all the bugs'. What do you think? 
