Civilization V's Social Responsibility (Community feature; manual example; 31 Aug)

[bossconian]

Come on, is it really necessary to stoop to that kind of troll comment?

I don't know if anybody defined it yet but it looks every negative / realistic comment is being accused of being a trolling. You guys must be really brain washed by the todays media and PR techniques. These guys are being paid by profit greedy companies to make you think that everything is lovely etc.

That's why you hear about $250k charity donation and so called "environemental friendly paper manual". I'd rather having a great game that sells in 10 milions so fraxis would have to pay 10x tax instead of average game sold in 1 milion and have $250k donated to whoever. These days nobody needs paper manual and these who want it please ask 2k so they will print pdf for you in china and ship it to you in colorful box + charge $19.99. Then you'll feel very environemental friendly.

It would be really more environmental friendly to give people an incentive by dropping a price of downloaded version of the game compare to the boxed one so more people would opt for it and less plastic and paper would be wasted.

Also there is no info if there will be a proper frequently updated knowledge database / wiki about CIV V service provided by developer - e.g. Civilizopedia online - which would be much more usable than some pdf which gets outdated with first patch / mod.

This is just pile of marketing / PR bulshait what we hear from 2k instead of being able to check the game out. Also providing more information about MP mode would be much more appreciated than info about pape manual. But hey - it works for most of you guys who preordered the game. So stay excited and call me a troll again . You'll feel better then. But please don't complain later if some problems occures cos you will be trolls then. Also I'm happy to raze your cities in multiplayer if it will be ever released.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: and at this point any further snipes at other users will stop

 

[Ahriman]

Wow, such a lot of nonsense in this thread.

1. There's nothing wrong with a company doing some charitable donation.
2. Its foolish to think that a company is not making a printed manual "for the good of the environment"; thats like thinking that hotels want to not launder your towels "for the environment". They want to do it because printing a big manual is expensive. Which is fine.
3. If the a game has a good UI and Civilopedia, I don't really see that I'd need a manual at all. If I did, a good quality easy to read electronic one is fine; I'd rather pay $5 less for the game than have to pay for a big heavy paper weight.
4. Paper comes almost entirely from plantation forests. Using more paper means a higher price for wood pulp means more trees get planted. On the other hand, paper mills do use a bunch of nasty chemicals, and are quite energy intensive.
5. Corporations are not parasites. They are an efficient way of organizing a lot of productive activity in a way that has good incentives for innovation and cost efficiency. Without them, we would all be much poorer.

 

[Thyrwyn]

didn't read the whole thread.

I for one am much happier with an update-able, index-able, link-able pdf manual than a printed one that was printed 3 months before the release and is obsolete after the first patch. . . if not sooner. I can always print the pages I want if I need something in print.

Kudos to Firaxis from me.

 

[The_J]

I thought you said you weren't going to buy the game anyway, I don't get why you're so concerned about being 'forced' to donate to charity-

I will not buy it, but if i would i would be upset that they've taken an option away from me.

Quite honestly no one of us donate anything.That's just a communication of social responsibility which objective is to improve 2K public image.The fact that they won't make a paper manual is indipendent from the choice to donate money and this is just a nice way to tell us that and to control damage . Anyway the fact that they will update manual is a really nice thing on behalf of 2K

Right, it's just a big flash grenade they've thrown in here.

Wow, had no idea this community had so many selfish consumerists.

...er...you're talking about people, who will buy a 50$ luxury product from which (at average) 0,25 will be donated...

The_J is NOT a grouch, but sometimes he acts like one.

If there's a reason to complain about, why not?

 

[EmpireOfCats]

On the other hand, paper mills do use a bunch of nasty chemicals, and are quite energy intensive.

Yes. And shipping that weight uses more oil, which is even worse, because of Peak Oil. In 20 years, you'd be cursing the paper manual while picking your potatoes.

Corporations are not parasites. They are an efficient way of organizing a lot of productive activity in a way that has good incentives for innovation and cost efficiency. Without them, we would all be much poorer.

Yes ... to a certain extent. However, if there is anything we have learned, it is that corporations can turn into parasites that are too powerful for the consumer's own good. We just had a financial meltdown because (in part) of this. You might want to read up on what the big seed companies are up to -- makes The Windup Girl seem a lot less fiction.

A point to meditate on: Trucks in China (those blue things you see) are made so that they can be repaired by their users. All cars in the West, on the other hand, are made so that you have to visit a repair shop so they can make more money off you. Explain, if you can, how this result of the free market system is better for the customer.

The problem are not corporations as such. The problem is when the government forget that its job is to serve the people, not the companies who bribe them with insane donations. Then corporations get to do whatever they like, which is not good.

 

[evrett37]

K thats kool...I dont think it makes up for the kids who wont have civ5 at school because of Steam..but its a kool idea

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

 

[sdlufkin]

K thats kool...I dont think it makes up for the kids who wont have civ5 at school because of Steam..but its a kool idea

Why would kids need Civ V (or Steam) at school?

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

Because he's so awesome that he can bend reality.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I will not buy it, but if i would i would be upset that they've taken an option away from me.

What the hell are you talking about? They didn't take away anything from you. If they didn't do this, you would still be paying the same amount for the game. The only difference is some money isn't going to charity. If you wanted to, you could donate on top of the cost of the game to charity and nothing is stopping that this time.

In fact, they're taking money from the advertising budget. They've chosen to take a certain amount of money that they'd normally spend, and put it towards a charity. All they're doing is giving you the option to determine where a fraction of that is going. I don't see what options they're taking from you? The option to have that money spent towards advertising instead?

 

[Szpilman]

...er...you're talking about people, who will buy a 50$ luxury product from which (at average) 0,25 will be donated...

Don't underestimate those numbers, that means 4 of us buying it can support a miserable kid for a day or something like that. And if you factor in the hundreds of thousands or millions this game should be selling.. e.g. a million would mean 10,000 kids supported for a month. Granted it's for education, which is actually a much much better investment than simply supporting, even if affecting a much smaller number of people: education multiplies itself.

And then what's the problem I buy a luxury product and still contribute? I don't intend to live a monk's life, if that's the only thing you'd find worthwhile to be pursued.

 

[The_J]

What the hell are you talking about? They didn't take away anything from you. If they didn't do this, you would still be paying the same amount for the game. [...]
In fact, they're taking money from the advertising budget. They've chosen to take a certain amount of money that they'd normally spend, and put it towards a charity.

That's just a marketing excuse, nothing more.
This has at all nothing to do with the manual, they're just pretending it.

Don't underestimate those numbers, that means 4 of us buying it can support a miserable kid for a day or something like that. And if you factor in the hundreds of thousands or millions this game should be selling.. e.g. a million would mean 10,000 kids supported for a month. Granted it's for education, which is actually a much much better investment than simply supporting, even if affecting a much smaller number of people: education multiplies itself.

And then what's the problem I buy a luxury product and still contribute? I don't intend to live a monk's life, if that's the only thing you'd find worthwhile to be pursued.

You are sure right, i don't say anything against that .
But with a 5$ donation you would have relativly for you as a person more done than 2K, that's what i mean .

 

[Szpilman]

You are sure right, i don't say anything against that .
But with a 5$ donation you would have relativly for you as a person more done than 2K, that's what i mean .

Oh, definitely! But people never get around to doing that, do they? It's more convenient to have it donated for you in a situation like this, or when you buy something with PayPal and they suggest that U$1 for a charity. I mean, what's one dollar, right? If they just keep asking me for it regularly, I'll just keep on giving. Saves your time and compounds the money

 

[edpovi]

I’m confused by some responses here. Are some folks actually bashing 2K for donating $250,000 to educational charities? Is this announcement for PR (Public Relations) and promotion of their company and product? Absolutely! But along with promoting the product, they will actually help many kids, which is far more helpful than hearing “Edna” talking about nuking Monty.

Some folks will miss the printed manual, and I can relate to this. But this has been a trend for years now, and the enhanced PDF sounds like a reasonable substitute. I too miss the days of reading thick game manuals, but I can live without it, and probably wouldn’t need it to learn the game.

I’ll avoid the anti-corporate discussion, as it would too easily lead to a political / cultural discussion.

 

[Horserush]

I'm actually glad that people are starting to wake up and realize that some corporations are just evil period. Not saying that 2K or Sid himself are, I'm just saying that since the 80s corporations have pretty much owned us all in the US without anyone really noticing. They own most of our representatives, the entire republican party and also the 'Tea Party' (yes it's wholly funded by corporate interests .. look it up). They fund 'scientific' papers that disagree with real scientific studies just because it would hurt thier bottom line (at great cost to our environment and health) and so on and on

I do applaud 2K for moving to paperless distribution, but I agree with other posters who are saying that there should be some incentive for getting the digital product instead of the physical box.

 

[edpovi]

...

I do applaud 2K for moving to paperless distribution, but I agree with other posters who are saying that there should be some incentive for getting the digital product instead of the physical box.

I agree that there should be an incentive for consumers to select digital distribution. But to my understanding, that is also why the box retailers and publishers demand parity in pricing between the digital and physical product.

 

[Louis XXIV]

That's just a marketing excuse, nothing more.
This has at all nothing to do with the manual, they're just pretending it.

No, they're two unrelated points. The first was contributing towards charity, the second was towards contributing towards the environment. They specifically said the charity money was taken from the advertising budget.

 

[Le Sage]

Donating the dosh to education charities is commendable, and a really great initiative. I applaud it!

Intelligence and Education is the only way to stop hunger, poverty, war and all of these other things that haunt mankind, and I am glad to be able to make a small effort towards that goal just by purchasing Civ5.

Maybe the next great scientist is allowed to get his/her education just because of that fact that we all are playing Civilization 5.

This is new. I've never seen this before. This is obviously the idea and thinking of good people who want to pull a straw towards a better world - like you and me - and it is a great idea and a visionary initiative.

 

[treadwin]

That's not semantics. Capitalism can occur without democracy (see Singapore), and democracy often leads directly to non-capitalistic economic systems (see Greece, Venezuela).

The reason they work so well in conjunction is that a democratic or representative government tempers a free market's tendency to concentrate power and wealth, while a free market distributes goods and services more efficiently in both time and cost than a governmental bureaucracy.

I'm going to play too! I agreed with your earlier statements and full support your picking up the original poster of those remarks on his lack of accuracy.

I would like to question your statement on free market efficiency. A centrally planned economy (often called a communist system and confused with a communist/single party government) is typically MORE efficient that a capitalist system as branding, marketing, competition, patents, legal action and regulation etc is not required. Quality is nearly always lower, but goods are produced cheaper. Also labor is cheaper as workers have no competition for their services. That is why poorer nations often resort to this form of economy.