Civ DLC's

[aatami]

but I don't want the fantasy wonders

Fantasy wonders? Fantasy wonders?
I assume you are from the USA, am I correct?

Moderator Action: What you're implying here is trollish. Please do not troll.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[elprofesor]

There's been obviously a misunderstanding, or a poor way to phrase his/her thought.

Please, don't make a fool of yourself, your country, and your continent, by making the insulting assumption that anybody making a history mistake must be from the States. It can only backfire.

And I haven't even been directly insulted by it, since I'm Spanish.

EDIT: I'm trying to be constructive, it's not my objective to insult you. If you do feel attacked, please accept my apologies.

 

[anandus]

Maybe he meant something like 'wonders that don't fully exist anymore'?
What's left of ToA is nothing more than a pillar, the Mausuleum is a pile of rubble, etc.

Temple of Artemis (in the foreground)

Temple of Zeus:

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus:

 

[sav]

I got the game for free to review, so I don't mind paying the $$$. It's not exactly much - $5 every couple of months? That's less than what I pay for lunch every day.

 

[Pouakai]

I have bought every DLC except the Cradle of Civilization ones - and they are well worth the money I paid

 

[Ford]

I also belong to the bought-them-all-except-the-cradle-maps group. For the base game and DLC I've paid around 60 Euros, and played around 900 hours. That's about 7 Cents per hour. Can't think of many things that are that cheap, especially entertainment. I think my electricity costs me more

 

[Ellye]

Maybe he meant something like 'wonders that don't fully exist anymore'?
What's left of ToA is nothing more than a pillar, the Mausuleum is a pile of rubble, etc.

Yeah, but it's very likely that those buildings existed, at least (while the Hanging Gardens, for example, might not even have been actually built). It was either a bad word choice for the poster, or he feels that the effect of those wonders are too fantasy-y (which I would kinda of understand, though I disagree).

Anyway, the Wonders of the Ancient World is the only DLC with bothers me a bit. If it wasn't in a bundle, I wouldn't purchase it for U$5,00. Just three buildings - even if three interesting ones - aren't worth it for me.

 

[TPQ]

I'm just curious as to how many of you have purchased these. Clearly enough people have or the price would have dropped (simple supply and demand). I just don't get why you'd spend $5 for just 1 new civ even if it is only $5.

I just waited until a Steam sale and then got Inca, Spain, Babylon, Polynesia and Denmark for under £10 (under $15 USD). It worked out at just under £2 (just under $3 USD) for each Civ, which I thought was fair enough. I just went without a bottle of vodka that week and got the Civs instead.

I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I did buy Korea for £2.99 (~$4.66 USD) but I've never wasted money on maps/scenarios at all and can't really see why anybody would bother. I am somewhat tempted by the new wonders, but not enough that I wont wait for another Steam sale.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

I also belong to the bought-them-all-except-the-cradle-maps group. For the base game and DLC I've paid around 60 Euros, and played around 900 hours. That's about 7 Cents per hour. Can't think of many things that are that cheap, especially entertainment. I think my electricity costs me more

With that logic you shouldn't mind paying something like 300€ for civ 6, would you?

 

[Ford]

With that logic you shouldn't mind paying something like 300€ for civ 6, would you?

How did you work that out using logic? Oh, you didn't...

 

[Becomedeath]

If you can't afford $5 to throw away on an optional extra then you should be out working, not at home playing games anyway.

The DLC model works just fine, and they're optional. If you don't like them, don't buy them. Nobody is forcing you to.

 

[OrsonM]

Fantasy wonders? Fantasy wonders?
I assume you are from the USA, am I correct?

Not necesarelly an ignorant comment, about the fantasy part that is. There was no consensus nor was there any sort of polling method used for their choosing back then (must they be 7 to begin with?).

To call them wonders can be a bit of a fantasy then, as they weren't around at the same time and were just raised to a status of full blown master pieces by Eurocentric nostalgic writers from the Middle Ages and up.

Even then these probably didn't meant a lot to the world (maybe they meant a lot to the Greeks, since all but the Pyramids are greek). It can be a bit like if Kim Jong Il wrote a similar list of awesomeness and placed nothing but North Korean wonders on it (number one: Dear Leader).

But not to say that Firaxis has not created actual Fantasy Wonders in the past: Copernicus Observatory, Leonardo's Workshop, Bachs Cathedral and Newtons University. Some of these are pure fantasy (Copernicus never had an observatory, neither did he ever did much star gazing to begin with, Civilopedia lies).

In any case it was a terrible purchase.

 

[Carnifaux]

I was apprehensive at first, however I recently purchased all the available DLC (minus babylon and korea) in a large swoop. I certainly think it does a great job of revitalizing the game if you're getting tired of running into Napoleon and Alexander every game.

 

[jtb1127]

I spend 90% of my time in the civ v section arguing over DLC. I hate DLC and I think it is a horrible business model that is being adopted all through the industry as a way to get more profits by selling useless crap for the price of lunch. Consumers have this "price of lunch" mentality and will spend the money without realizing how there were 18 civs to come with civ v and $5 per DLC civ is clearly a ripoff if they'd do the math.

 

[anandus]

Consumers have this "price of lunch" mentality and will spend the money without realizing how there were 18 civs to come with civ v and $5 per DLC civ is clearly a ripoff if they'd do the math.

Thank god people can choose if they want to be ripped off
I can do the math, and I choose to pay for the DLC.
Some people, like me, find it worth $5,-, others don't think it's worth the full $5,- and wait for a sale when they're $2,50, and again others don't find them worth any money at all and don't buy them.

Just like some people bought Civ 5 on Steam for $50,- where other people, like me, shopped around and only paid $30,- (that's 4 free DLC ) and again other people waited until it was on sale for $8,-
It's just what the customer wants to pay for it.

I think Camikaze said it best earlier in this topic:

[...] but whether you consider a civ worth $5 depends entirely upon what else you'd do with that $5 and how much enjoyment you actually get out of the new civ. [...]

And I think that's the core. It depends from person to person what they could otherwise do with that $5,-.
For some people it's not even lunch or a beer, for others it's more significant than that. Also it depends of course on the amount of enjoyment somebody gets out of it.

Although this is a more pragmatic view and less principal view than yours, though
And can understand your point of view though, I just don't fully agree with it.
Mind you, it does help that I view the DLC's as a smeared out expansion.

 

[elprofesor]

There are actually two different problems debated here:

- "Is a DLC worth 5$?"
That depends on the purchaser, as Camikaze said. For 5$, you've got a scenario (2h at the very least) and a civ (6h at the very least if you want to try them on a regular map; probably way longer). That's absurdly cheap, if you compare with just about anything else.
But you may be a hardcore player, and you would have played those hours anyway. Then does the added value warrant those 5$? The answer is obviously harsher if you don't play the scenario (and trust me, you should). But it is nice to be able to choose from a wider array of civs, and it is nice to meet new personalities on your regular games. So your call, really; a Steam sale to get many at once will probably be a better pick. But this only applies if you dedicate all your leisure time to civ 5, really.
Then you've got people who don't have access to 5$ to spend via Steam; usually, young people that don't earn money yet. But this goes into problem number 2.

-"Should I pay 5$ for a DLC?"
Which is a very different question. A common argument is to say: "if you are eager to pay 5 bucks a civ, why wouldn't you pay 100$ for civ 5?" This is where we get into the second debate. The market laws dictaminate that an object is worth as much as people are ready to pay for it; so civ 5 must cost around 50$, because every other strategy videogame costs more or less that much; and that's at the same time a cause and a consequence of people being ready to pay that much for a videogame, even though they may be worth more. So people argue that a DLC should be worth 2$; and that's where the market laws screw them, because people are ready to pay 5$ for them, so logically that's how much it is worth. You can't really take into account them when it benefits your reasoning, and put them aside when they don't, can you? And you can't try to convince people to stop buying them to make prices drop, since they genuinely believe it is worth that much (and that's because of a mix to answer no 1 and answer no 2, as I see it).

People use the question that benefits them more when answering to somebody questioning the price of DLCs.
Will I get more enjoyment paying 5$ on Civ 5 DLCs than spending them elsewhere? Yes.
Will I get more enjoyment paying 40$ on another videogame than spending them on 8 Civ 5 DLCs? Potentially; it depends on your ability to pick up new games, but there are certainly mind-blowing games that are waiting for you to try them.

 

[OrsonM]

Another question could be if they would still charge 5 dollars if there was a serious competitor around the corner that sold DLCs for less.

Besides Zynga (king of the microtransaction).

 

[jtb1127]

Thank god people can choose if they want to be ripped off

Really, the majority of people are choosing to get ripped off and it has become an
exceptable practice because the consumers allow it. There is no option b, for people who don't want to get ripped off.

 

[elprofesor]

Another question could be if they would still charge 5 dollars if there was a serious competitor around the corner that sold DLCs for less.

Besides Zynga (king of the microtransaction).

Well, obviously, no. They wouldn't sell nearly as much then. They would have to lower the prices to encourage customers of the competitor to come and buy their base game.
But neither there is an obvious competitor, neither do other companies sell DLC for less. So...

 

[chazzycat]

Really, the majority of people are choosing to get ripped off and it has become an
exceptable practice because the consumers allow it. There is no option b, for people who don't want to get ripped off.

That's exactly how supply & demand works. With infinite supply, demand determines price. If enough people are buying it such that the price stays steady, that's not a rip-off...that's market equilibrium. Macroeconomics 101. Are you some kind of communist or something?