Jeff_ATARI
Atari
Dear Civ Fanatics,
I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed participating in the forums and interacting with each of you as we count down to the release of Civ Conquests. Hopefully, you've enjoyed seeing all of us from Atari, Firaxis, and Breakaway poking our heads in here to keep you updated on our work.
Now it's our chance to give something back to you. Actually, it's also a chance for you to give something to yourselves.
This week we're announcing the new "Best of the Net" Bonus CD, which will be given away FREE to customers who pre-order Civ Conquests at selected retail outlets*. It contains some of the best Civ-related work created by our growing community of Civ fans. Several entries are from frequent contributors on this forum, such as the excellent DyP mod, the terrain mods from Warpstorm and Snoopy, the single player and multiplayer strategy guides, and six of the most recent "Game of the Month" scenarios (complete with everyone's scores). In fact, even the idea of having a Best of the Net CD was initially proposed on these forums (thanks to Ray Turkhan), and that was what set the wheels in motion for this giveaway.
The CD's menu prominently displays a link to the civfanatics.com site as one of three fan sites that contributed heavily to the content on the CD. (A big congratulations and thank you goes out to all those mod authors that we managed to squeeze onto the CD.) In addition to the fansite related content, the CD includes new soundtracks from Civ Conquests as well as some of the preview artwork and screenshots released for the game.
I would like to personally invite each of you to take advantage of this presell offer. But I want to emphasize that this is not just about me doing my job as a brand manager for the product. This is about giving the mod-makers here a foot in the door to make this happen again and again. This marks the first time that we've released a Best of the Net CD, and I have several people here at Atari watching the results closely. If we have a significant rise in pre-orders for Civ Conquests, it gives me ammunition to feature fan-created content in our future releases.
So, then! If you already know you're going to pick up Civ Conquests, why not help support fan sites such as CivFanatics(and the dedicated modders who post here) by making a trip to the store and placing a pre-order for the game. It's always a struggle for brand managers to quantify the effects of a strong fan community base, and to make sure the fans' thoughts, comments, and contributions are taken into account. In a way this is a referendum to show the world (both at retail stores and within Atari) that we should continue to use fan-created mods as a pre-sell giveaway, and that a strong fan community should be rewarded for their support of a game such as Civilization III.
Best,
Jeff Foley
Atari
* Retail outlets currently include: Electronics Boutique, GameStop, Electronics Boutique Canada, and Future Shop.
Online: EBworld.com, GameStop.com, and Amazon.com.
Gamestop has their online link up already at: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=645419
If you pre-order the game online, you will get the pre-sell CD with your game when it ships. If you pre-order the game at a retail store, they should have the bonus CD there to give you, as early as this week.
As of this date the presell is not available outside of North America, but we're hoping to change some retailer's minds.
I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed participating in the forums and interacting with each of you as we count down to the release of Civ Conquests. Hopefully, you've enjoyed seeing all of us from Atari, Firaxis, and Breakaway poking our heads in here to keep you updated on our work.
Now it's our chance to give something back to you. Actually, it's also a chance for you to give something to yourselves.
This week we're announcing the new "Best of the Net" Bonus CD, which will be given away FREE to customers who pre-order Civ Conquests at selected retail outlets*. It contains some of the best Civ-related work created by our growing community of Civ fans. Several entries are from frequent contributors on this forum, such as the excellent DyP mod, the terrain mods from Warpstorm and Snoopy, the single player and multiplayer strategy guides, and six of the most recent "Game of the Month" scenarios (complete with everyone's scores). In fact, even the idea of having a Best of the Net CD was initially proposed on these forums (thanks to Ray Turkhan), and that was what set the wheels in motion for this giveaway.
The CD's menu prominently displays a link to the civfanatics.com site as one of three fan sites that contributed heavily to the content on the CD. (A big congratulations and thank you goes out to all those mod authors that we managed to squeeze onto the CD.) In addition to the fansite related content, the CD includes new soundtracks from Civ Conquests as well as some of the preview artwork and screenshots released for the game.
I would like to personally invite each of you to take advantage of this presell offer. But I want to emphasize that this is not just about me doing my job as a brand manager for the product. This is about giving the mod-makers here a foot in the door to make this happen again and again. This marks the first time that we've released a Best of the Net CD, and I have several people here at Atari watching the results closely. If we have a significant rise in pre-orders for Civ Conquests, it gives me ammunition to feature fan-created content in our future releases.
So, then! If you already know you're going to pick up Civ Conquests, why not help support fan sites such as CivFanatics(and the dedicated modders who post here) by making a trip to the store and placing a pre-order for the game. It's always a struggle for brand managers to quantify the effects of a strong fan community base, and to make sure the fans' thoughts, comments, and contributions are taken into account. In a way this is a referendum to show the world (both at retail stores and within Atari) that we should continue to use fan-created mods as a pre-sell giveaway, and that a strong fan community should be rewarded for their support of a game such as Civilization III.
Best,
Jeff Foley
Atari
* Retail outlets currently include: Electronics Boutique, GameStop, Electronics Boutique Canada, and Future Shop.
Online: EBworld.com, GameStop.com, and Amazon.com.
Gamestop has their online link up already at: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product_id=645419
If you pre-order the game online, you will get the pre-sell CD with your game when it ships. If you pre-order the game at a retail store, they should have the bonus CD there to give you, as early as this week.
As of this date the presell is not available outside of North America, but we're hoping to change some retailer's minds.
Lucky for me my local mall has EB games in it so my job tonight: convince my parents to take me there tommorow
Now all I have to do is take out the money from the bank that I have been saving for conquests.
