Comparing Civ V to IVanilla or BTS

[Ataxerxes]

Basically, what Firaxis is doing is "milking" those gamers who want CivV as soon as something is available, bugs and all. They then have to pay all over again for the improved game. This is a way Firaxis makes additional money on a very good franchise.

I'm patient. I've learned from CivIII and IV that the initial game will have problems that will be corrected later. A lot of people are going to wait for Firaxis to fix some bugs and upgrade the game.

It could be called "milking" and say it's unfair of Firaxis. It could also be called getting something into the hands of people who want a game quickly and putting out a "Beta" version to satisfy those people even though development is not complete instead of making those people wait another year. They effectively have a lot of people paying to be Beta testers.

I don't think it's good or bad that Firaxis does this. We all know this and make our decisions knowing this.

 

[Thormodr]

firaxis will prolly introduce religion in a new expansion cuz the community wanted it. Then they look like saints cuz they listened to the community. Paradox Interactive does this all the time. They constantly remove features from sequels then re-add them in expansions because of overwhelming feedback from community.

At least Paradox Interactive listens to their fans. Firaxis...I am not so sure about anymore.

 

[thbrown81]

In defense of Firaxis (tempering my earlier cynical criticism), they don't really have a track record for milking the Civ fanbase on expansions. They only released two expansions for Civ IV, and BTS added so much new content to the game play that it's considered by some game reviewers to be one of the best expansions ever and really stands on it's own as a game. If they really wanted to soak Civvers for every penny, they wouldn't release the SDK code for modders to work on. They'd keep everything in house, release five $29.99 expansions and five or six $19.99 goodie packs with extra untested/ unbalanced Civs, UUs and UBs. And I think the point that Alexander the Great's horse was trying to make is that is that if you were running the company and you knew that people were going to buy anything and everything that you put on the shelf, you would be stupid not to do it, which is true. If we as consumers don't like this practice, all we can do is speak with our wallets and not buy the full price initial release and expansion packs. Giving them our money and then complaining about it accomplishes nothing. Right?

 

[thbrown81]

However, I'm fairly certain that the Civ V developers specifically sat down and decided 1) which elements of BTS to remove and then repackage in an expansion (I'll bet anything religion and espionage were selected) and 2) which Civs to pull from the initial release and sell as DLC. The latter part certainly concerns me the most. Which is Firaxis more likely to devote programming time to? Fixing game balance issues and AI problems or more leaders/ units and buildings to sell. It seems to me that Civ V could easily devolve into a CCG.

I hate it when I'm right.

 

[MOIDALIZE]

Honestly, I feel like Civ V has more in common with Colonization than I do Civ IV. Maybe Firaxis has made a conscious decision to make more of a board game than a sim.