Has firaxis lost it?

[Fins]

Yeah well it's all good and great but ultimately doesn't have much to do with my post as I don't make the claim that cheap mean bad.

Why, you do, no matter whether you realize it yourself, or not. You said, quoting once again, "wouldn't really count Starships as being very important". Great games - are important, bad games - are not.

But ok, sure, it's possible you do not understand what you're saying, and didn't mean what you actually said. Or, perhaps i am doing this? Perhaps i read and/or say things which are, well, wrong as hell? See, communication is difficult thing. Especially when english is not one's native language, which is so in my case, at least.

P.S. "Not very important" - who you think you're foolin' though, huh? It's the polite way to say "the thing is a piece of junk", no? =) Pardon my poor french, that is... %)

Moderator Action: Please speak for yourself and do not put words in other people's mouths. This makes it personal and that leads to trolling. Also, please do not use swear words by changing them to evade the autocensor, word deleted.

 

[Ryika]

Why, you do, no matter whether you realize it yourself, or not. You said, quoting once again, "wouldn't really count Starships as being very important". Great games - are important, bad games - are not.

But ok, sure, it's possible you do not understand what you're saying, and didn't mean what you actually said. Or, perhaps i am doing this? Perhaps i read and/or say things which are, well, wrong as hell? See, communication is difficult thing. Especially when english is not one's native language, which is so in my case, at least.

P.S. "Not very important" - who you think you're foolin' though, huh? It's the polite way to say "the thing is a piece of $hit", no? =) Pardon my poor french, that is... %)

By making this thing binary you're making quite a fatal error. There are a LOT of games that are "Okay, but not really anything too special." and I'd say Starships fits that definition very well. It's somewhere in the middle of the scale. Nothing wrong with being "an okay-ish game with few to no innovations" as long as it's marketed as exactly that.

 

[Acken]

Why, you do, no matter whether you realize it yourself, or not.
It's the polite way to say "the thing is a piece of $hit", no?

No I don't. You're making that shortcut.

My point was to suggest that Starships is a small project for Firaxis which is not an important indicator of whether or not Firaxis "loses it". The thread topic. It's a small game with only a small portion of the staff working on it and probably was cheap to make.
Now you can disagree with that and suggest that Starships is actually a big deal for Firaxis, that's fine. But no I never suggested that a cheap game is a bad game, sorry.

But ok, sure, it's possible you do not understand what you're saying, and didn't mean what you actually said.

Cut that kind of crap I have little patience for it.

 

[Lexicus]

The fact that smaller games can ultimately end up extremely "important" has little bearing on whether Starships is an important measure of whether Firaxis has "lost it" --which is the context in which Acken used the word "important."

Starships is a side project and obviously isn't particularly financially important to Firaxis. If Civ VI sucks then we can talk about whether Firaxis is losing "it."

Whatever, exactly, "it" is

 

[Acken]

Yeah.

 

[Fins]

The fact that smaller games can ultimately end up extremely "important" has little bearing on whether Starships is an important measure of whether Firaxis has "lost it" --which is the context in which Acken used the word "important."

Starships is a side project and obviously isn't particularly financially important to Firaxis. If Civ VI sucks then we can talk about whether Firaxis is losing "it."

Whatever, exactly, "it" is

I see that you, - and possibly Acken and may be other gentlemen - are not sure what this topic is about.

I am.

The first post of the topic mentions doubts about whether Firaxis is heading to a dark place. Vague, in itself. But, not vague considering contents of the link provided in the 1st post. It leads to a page which says that Civ:BE shows that "Firaxis lost touch".

To me, this topic is about whether Firaxis _became_ unable to make good (read - interesting to play for many kinds of people) games, or not.

Which has nothing to do with how much money they earn or will earn in the future.

Which has nothing to do with how "large" any particular game of their making is. You either make good games, or you make "not very important ones" - and worse.

Ryika - but it is, you see, quite binary. "Okay, but not really anything too special" games, you said. Please stop and think, why did you use not one, but even two "accentuating" words in this expression - "really" and "too"? Isn't it because your intuition tells you, that what you say is not true? How unrealistic this phraze sounds, if we remove those two words, so it changes to "Okay, but not anything special"? You see, in this form, it turns into absurd. A game can't be "Okay", if it's "not anything special". There _must_ be at least something special about any good game. Something which makes it different from any other game. This is true for computer games, for war games, for sport games, for games theory, - everywhere.

All those "Okay but nothing special" games which are so many (as you correctly mention yourself) - are bad ones.

People who play them - are doing nearly same thing as people who are happily watchinh some three-hundred-severty-whatever episode of Santa-Barbara - for a third time. If they like it - sure, who am i to forbid them, and why would i do so, if it makes them happy. Gee, i'd buy them another casette with their favorite "brain soap" to their birthday, even.

But this topic is about Firaxis, who until recently was making rather good games. Good, because each had many "really special" features, making them different from any other game in existance. Different in terms of game mechanics, - not in terms of external appearance like graphics and similar cosmetic, non-essential parts. Games are about gameplay mechanics, mainly; how you play through them, what are the rules and game processes.


This post fully clarifies my position on the subject. It is just an opinion. I might be wrong - no human is correct all the time, and i am just a human.


P.S. Acken, it's not only your patience which is short, it seems; your logic is also not exactly most potent. I have proven my point, i don't know if you can see it, but i can; i hope my point contributes to the topic, and if you do not like it and/or me - it's not my crap for sure. It's your feelings, man, - can't be "my crap". But, moderators will probably won't like our little exchange, i feel. So i'll do this: i'll leave this topic. Have a nice day, sir.

Moderator Action: This is also personal. Please stop trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Acken]

P.S. Acken, it's not only your patience which is short, it seems; your logic is also not exactly most potent.

Rofl If you want a discussion you should stop with that stuff dude.

No matter how much garbage you post that P.S. was enough of a TLDR so that I could skip the rest, thank you. Have a nice day indeed.

Moderator Action: Please report posts instead of commenting on them.

 

[Ryika]

Ryika - but it is, you see, quite binary. "Okay, but not really anything too special" games, you said. Please stop and think, why did you use not one, but even two "accentuating" words in this expression - "really" and "too"? Isn't it because your intuition tells you, that what you say is not true? How unrealistic this phraze sounds, if we remove those two words, so it changes to "Okay, but not anything special"? You see, in this form, it turns into absurd. A game can't be "Okay", if it's "not anything special". There _must_ be at least something special about any good game. Something which makes it different from any other game. This is true for computer games, for war games, for sport games, for games theory, - everywhere.

All those "Okay but nothing special" games which are so many (as you correctly mention yourself) - are bad ones.

People who play them - are doing nearly same thing as people who are happily watchinh some three-hundred-severty-whatever episode of Santa-Barbara - for a third time. If they like it - sure, who am i to forbid them, and why would i do so, if it makes them happy. Gee, i'd buy them another casette with their favorite "brain soap" to their birthday, even.

That's a lot of words without saying anything of substance - all you're really doing is diminishing the meaning of "bad".

I have proven my point, i don't know if you can see it, but i can

The fact that you would even THINK that agreeing with yourself (while nobody else seems to share your opinion) is "proof" of anything ... ...

 

[Lexicus]

I see that you, - and possibly Acken and may be other gentlemen - are not sure what this topic is about.

I am.
(...)

This is just silly semantics. There are multiple different senses or contexts in which the word "important" might be used and whether a game is good or bad is fundamentally a subjective question.

 

[Hail]

Firaxis has a Sid game and a civ game going at the same time. both of them being just okay, is imo not enough for Firaxis's financial health.

however, in our case, both are not okay. they are below okay. 5.5 for BE and 4.3 for Starships respectively.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Firaxis has a Sid game and a civ game going at the same time. both of them being just okay, is imo not enough for Firaxis's financial health.

however, in our case, both are not okay. they are below okay. 5.5 for BE and 4.3 for Starships respectively.

I don't trust Metacritic user scores. A cursory glance over the negative ones reveals a significant percentage are simply attempting to bring the score down as much as possible.

 

[ThorHammerz]

I don't trust Metacritic user scores. A cursory glance over the negative ones reveals a significant percentage are simply attempting to bring the score down as much as possible.

Game-rating scores are generally inflated above what would be the game's score if it was properly polled (i.e. randomized sample set with statistically significant parameters).

The fact that a game would receives even marginally low scores speaks volumes about it's quality (or in this case: the lack thereof ).

 

[Hail]

I don't trust Metacritic user scores. A cursory glance over the negative ones reveals a significant percentage are simply attempting to bring the score down as much as possible.

you forgot to glance over the "ten out of ten. the best game eva!!" scores.

Game-rating scores are generally inflated above what would be the game's score if it was properly polled (i.e. randomized sample set with statistically significant parameters).

The fact that a game would receives even marginally low scores speaks volumes about it's quality (or in this case: the lack thereof ).

agree. not only for games, but movies, etc.
right after release (before any patches, addons, etc.), the score will be at maximum and decline from there.

two reasons: self-selection bias and fanboyism

 

[Ryika]

Game-rating scores are generally inflated above what would be the game's score if it was properly polled (i.e. randomized sample set with statistically significant parameters).

The fact that a game would receives even marginally low scores speaks volumes about it's quality (or in this case: the lack thereof ).

That's only half the story and I think your conclusion is wrong. Gaming scores are not "inflated", they just go to the extreme - especially when there's a "trigger" for it. Many people will give Cities: Skylines (which is certainly a good game on its own, but still) an inflated score to show how much better it is than Sim City. And at the same time Sim City is certainly not a "2.2"-score game on an "objective" scale.

I'm actually not quite sure what that means for games that are in the middle of the scale. Do they get lower scores, because people are dissatisfied? Or will the people who want to like the game give it an inflated score because "it's not completely broken!"? Do "haters" and "fanboys" cancel each other out and give a fair score overall? I don't think there is any real study on that.

But either way, as I said so many times already.. Critic Reviews? User Reviews? No thanks. When I'm not sure about a game I'll watch gameplay on youtube - from as many different and preferably rather small youtubers as possible.

 

[Hail]

And at the same time Sim City is certainly not a "2.2"-score game on an "objective" scale.

yes, it is.

2.2 is generous actually.

I'm actually not quite sure what that means for games that are in the middle of the scale. Do they get lower scores, because people are dissatisfied? Or will the people who want to like the game give it an inflated score because "it's not completely broken!"? Do "haters" and "fanboys" cancel each other out and give a fair score overall? I don't think there is any real study on that.

yes, yes, probably.

alot depends on what the devs (marketing) promised and what did they in fact deliver. you also have to factor in the date of scoring (bug fixes).

some folks will rate the game/movie a ten/zero anyway. I hope that metacritic uses robust statistics.

 

[Acken]

Any self reported poll is skewed one way or another. How much is a question that only a costly real life proper survey would answer.

It's not too much of a guess to say SimCity is not a 9/10 game but whether it's a 2/10 3/10 or 4/10 is up in the air.

When it comes to financial success it's also important to remember that user score is not a pure measure of it. Good score only boosts future sales. For all we know the 100s thousands of copies sold right away could be enough to get in-the-money. It's impossible without an estimate of the project cost to know that kind of stuff. Also a company is a sum of all it's projects present past and future. If BE wasn't a big success, civ5 and XCOM certainly are.
They also probably are working on another big game (Civ6 or else) as many of their staff have not appeared on the radar since BNW. However that's not to say Firaxis should be content of it either of course, any company would like to keep making hits that brings better profit But that thread is a bit too much doomsaying for me. I'll reserve judgement for civ6.

 

[Kutuzov]

Game-rating scores are generally inflated above what would be the game's score if it was properly polled (i.e. randomized sample set with statistically significant parameters).

The fact that a game would receives even marginally low scores speaks volumes about it's quality (or in this case: the lack thereof ).

That flies in the face of what we see even here. We had a poll asking posters here how they would rate Civ:BE on a scale of 1-10 and there was one guy who wanted to rate it a zero. This is simply pure outrage and not an objective measure of how good or bad a game is and therefore can be discounted by any unemotional reader as can scores of 1, 2 or 10.

People who are unhappy appear to be more motivated to mark down a game than a player who likes it. We had one guy here who claimed that he had posted his damning review of the game on eight sites and had encouraged all his friends not to buy the game. I have absolutely no reason to doubt the guy's sincerity. Now, that's just one guy but he's certainly not alone and that's a level of commitment to spreading the bad word that folks like myself won't ever be able to match.

I consider myself to be fairly unbiased in this matter. I rated Civ:BE as an 8 out of 10 which seems to me to be a good and fair score for this game. Not the best game ever but not bad either. And I have not posted a single review of the game anywhere, not on Steam or Metacritic or 'Polls 'R Us'. Were I to do so, I would give the game the same rating. (I'd actually wanted to give it a rating of 7.5 but that wasn't an option so I rounded it up)

I would be even more careful when reading reviews from long-time fans of games with a pedigree. I'm thinking of games like HOI, EU, Tropico etc here. This behavior is seen on other game boards as well. The worst critics of 'Gamebuster 5' tend to be folks who loved 'Gamebuster 1-4' and not people who are new to the franchise. Particularly games with a strong element of strategy involved. I've lost count of the number of times I've read that 'this iteration of Gamebuster' has been dumbed down to make it more acceptable to a wider audience and posts calling the new wave 'filthy casuals'.

It also helps ratings if the game is the first in a series, like Endless Legend, for example. How well will it be received by these same fans when it reaches EL4? There are no folks who are disillusioned with the direction their 'fave' game is going and are even likely to have the full-blooded support of the disenfranchised fans of other games, like Civ IV fans who can't stomach 1UPT for example.

There's just far too much emotion around for me to take ratings on Steam and Metacritic with more than a grain of salt or the people who wave these numbers in my face seriously. That's far too evangelical for my tastes thank you. Like Ryika, I watch videos on Youtube to get a feel for a new game rather than sift through the poison and bile that some folks seem to need to spread around. Go swimming in sewage and you'll end up smelling like sewage.

 

[ThorHammerz]

Think of it this way: there will always a "vocal minority" in whichever medium you take your information and data from. This is not to say that this vocal minority is necessarily representative of the entire population (i.e. all the players).

But in the case of critical reviews (for games, movies, books, you name it), you will need to take into consideration the reviews that are bought (i.e. paid for). You may not think companies will resort to this, but in reality they certainly do. At the end of the day, all "reviews" are more or less glorified advertisements in the form of "supposed user-feedback".

Whether one wants to somehow justify a game's quality with one excuse or another (read: "Oh, but they will probably fix that in a DLC/patch soon!") is irrelevant - the product speaks for itself... the game is either good enough for you, or it isn't. And given the casualization / dumbing-down / watering-down of the turn-based strategy genre, Firaxis probably just wants to cater to your average American youth (i.e. less thinking for players to do)....

But in the end, whether you want to spend $49.99 on something is entirely up to yourself: you have the discretionary income, so go for it!

For those arguing that Civ V was just as crap as Civ BE on launch: you are most likely correct, but unlike Civ BE, Civ V was not a paint job on top of a total conversion mod of a previous Civ game. Seriously, Civ:BE is to Civ:5 as Civ:Colonization was to Civ4.... they even tossed the job to a couple of junior developers because they know that people will lap it up (a full $50, mind you) even if they don't do a very good job on it.

 

[thecrazyscot]

*groan* Can we not bring ethics in video game journalism into this?

 

[Kutuzov]

Think of it this way: there will always a "vocal minority" in whichever medium you take your information and data from. This is not to say that this vocal minority is necessarily representative of the entire population (i.e. all the players).

Agreed. But I don't need to 'think of it this way' as that's exactly how I see it and is implicit in the post preceding yours.

But in the case of critical reviews (for games, movies, books, you name it), you will need to take into consideration the reviews that are bought (i.e. paid for). You may not think companies will resort to this, but in reality they certainly do. At the end of the day, all "reviews" are more or less glorified advertisements in the form of "supposed user-feedback".

Well, while I'm sure it happens, who really trusts these reviews nowadays anyway? I certainly don't. I used to trust a film critic called Barry Norman way back in the 70s, 80s and 90s because I frequently found that his opinion of a movie matched mine. There are no Barry Normans in the computer review industry as far as I am aware and so I prefer to watch videos to get a feel for a game.

Since we were all able to watch Madjinn's Let's Play videos in the weeks prior to the release and that there was a free demo of Civ:BE on the day of release, nobody has any good excuse for being 'fooled' twice since Civ V's release should have fore-warned this community. There's nothing new about the response this community has had to Civ:BE. We've seen and read it all before.

But in the end, whether you want to spend $49.99 on something is entirely up to yourself: you have the discretionary income, so go for it!

I only paid about $32 for the game as I pre-ordered it before the price went up. Again, even after the release, with so many discounts available on Steam, it's up to the buyer to control him/herself and buy the game when the price inevitably goes down. If people are unable to control their spending impulses, then THEY have the problem and they WILL go on being a victim until they change their own spending habits.

I won't respond to the rest of your post as it's not worth bothering with.