intutama
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 8, 2012
- Messages
- 117
I have low expectations due to a different perspective, I'm worried the business model will somewhat sabotage the game anyway. I have very limited knowledge of business and video games history in general, but here's my thinking anyway.
A long, long time ago, people made games, they sold well, and that was it because newer games had better graphics and mechanics, so why would you buy an old game. Then there was the "extension pack" era, where a game would release, and then an "expansion pack" was released containing originally more content, and eventually some very important improvements or QoL features. Such an expansion is cheap to develop, so companies just need to limit some features so that enthusiasts would basically pay more for the game. Moving forward, the "extension pack" became the DLC, in other words, periodically released additional content. DLC costs even less to develop, and you basically need to design your game to encourage (if not enforce) the use of DLC. I believe nowadays we are in the subscription-model era, with games providing a subscription-based "we deliver new stuff regularly or at least we change stuff so you keep paying anyway".
I suspect that Civ VII will fall into such a subscription based model by providing a framework in which new civs/leaders will be released with gimmick mechanics, and where the player basically goofs around with thes mechanics without being presented a challenge - the goal being to keep him playing until the next gimmick is released. EU4 could get away with it because EU4 is based on a real-life world and you just pick random challenges and it feels like you're changing or repeating history. Civ VI had gimmicks mechanics irrelevant when playing a brain dead AI. CIV VII might be yet another boring, addictive game simply because the market needs it to be so.
A long, long time ago, people made games, they sold well, and that was it because newer games had better graphics and mechanics, so why would you buy an old game. Then there was the "extension pack" era, where a game would release, and then an "expansion pack" was released containing originally more content, and eventually some very important improvements or QoL features. Such an expansion is cheap to develop, so companies just need to limit some features so that enthusiasts would basically pay more for the game. Moving forward, the "extension pack" became the DLC, in other words, periodically released additional content. DLC costs even less to develop, and you basically need to design your game to encourage (if not enforce) the use of DLC. I believe nowadays we are in the subscription-model era, with games providing a subscription-based "we deliver new stuff regularly or at least we change stuff so you keep paying anyway".
I suspect that Civ VII will fall into such a subscription based model by providing a framework in which new civs/leaders will be released with gimmick mechanics, and where the player basically goofs around with thes mechanics without being presented a challenge - the goal being to keep him playing until the next gimmick is released. EU4 could get away with it because EU4 is based on a real-life world and you just pick random challenges and it feels like you're changing or repeating history. Civ VI had gimmicks mechanics irrelevant when playing a brain dead AI. CIV VII might be yet another boring, addictive game simply because the market needs it to be so.
