How important is it for Firaxis to admit mistakes or acknowledge failure?

[queenpea]

From anonymous sources. That's not an official explanation.

Besides, the problem isn't really the boring grey boxes. The problem is the lack of information. We don't know if the beta UI had more information available or if it was just as bad as the release UI.

There can be more than one problem at a time. The appearance or art style of the UI as well as the the general lack of information. Both fall short, in my opinion, of a AAA title.

 

[Kwami]

There can be more than one problem at a time. The appearance or art style of the UI as well as the the general lack of information. Both fall short, in my opinion, of a AAA title.

I'd like a prettier interface, too, but I think that most of the complaints come from the lack of information. The boring grey box style seems to be pretty popular in modern games.

 

[Siptah]

Yeah it’s not my favorite looking UI by far, but I can easily live with that and I don’t consider civ VI‘s to be prettier. It’s all about functionality for me with the UI: all necessary info, few clicks.

 

[Skojardu]

I mean, people have been swearing that wokeness has nothing to do with the reaction to the game. I don't get your point here.

I think wokeness per se is not a core grievance, but it is a ready cudgel for people who lack the vocabulary to explain why they dislike the game overall.

 

[Leucarum]

I have to press X to doubt that leader models were made more ugly than they were in reality. Pretty sure the majority got made as hot as historical accuracy would stretch.

 

[queenpea]

Yeah it’s not my favorite looking UI by far, but I can easily live with that and I don’t consider civ VI‘s to be prettier. It’s all about functionality for me with the UI: all necessary info, few clicks.

I do think that if the age transition, for example, had been handled gracefully--with a better art style rather than the fade to grey/black that we experience (coupled with a sterile distribution of points)--it would be less immersion breaking. There are many things throughout the game where I just think to myself "why does this look so...ugly?"

 

[jaeenox]

This is quite interesting. I would say that there is no "formula" for 1-6. To me, 5, 6, and 7 seem more similar to each other than to 3 or 4.

Broadly speaking I would say 2 iterated a lot on 1, then 3 was almost a new game, 4 iterated (a lot a lot) on 3, then 5 was almost a new game and 6 and 7 have iterated on 5 in various ways.

1-6 formula in that you are one civilization and one leader for the entire game.

 

[Kwami]

I do think that if the age transition, for example, had been handled gracefully--with a better art style rather than the fade to grey/black that we experience (coupled with a sterile distribution of points)--it would be less immersion breaking. There are many things throughout the game where I just think to myself "why does this look so...ugly?"

I'd be happy if I could at least make the big "end of the age" banner go away. It sits there for an eternity.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

From anonymous sources. That's not an official explanation.

Besides, the problem isn't really the boring grey boxes. The problem is the lack of information. We don't know if the beta UI had more information available or if it was just as bad as the release UI.

You’re right. An official source would be fired for speaking on that.

I lend the post a lot of credibility considering the released screenshots are just better versions of the actual UI

We also know they got rid of a bunch of the UI team pre launch and that’s verified by LinkedIn

 

[civlateintothenights]

They could save the game if they acknowledged the bad reception, and stated they were working on a free "ageless" update, while keeping the current version as a scenario for whoever happens to prefer what it currently is.

The Civs were never balanced anyways in Civ 6 - they shouldn't let that stop them from shifting course now. Just remove the soft resets, make a cohesive tech tree, have all leaders/civs available at the start, and redo the victory requirements.

That's the only way the numbers will go up at this point.

 

[Kwami]

They could save the game if they acknowledged the bad reception, and stated they were working on a free "ageless" update, while keeping the current version as a scenario for whoever happens to prefer what it currently is.

The Civs were never balanced anyways in Civ 6 - they shouldn't let that stop them from shifting course now. Just remove the soft resets, make a cohesive tech tree, have all leaders/civs available at the start, and redo the victory requirements.

That's the only way the numbers will go up at this point.

Sure. Just redesign the entire game. That's all.

 

[GrayingGamer]

They should admit they took some risks and tried something new and it wasn't received well by the target audience. They should leave a small team to keep working on Civ 7, and take their most competent developers and move them on to Civ 8.

And Civ 8 should move away from just delivering increasingly complex systems for players to chew through, and charge towards creating from the ground up a highly competent AI that can play the game (a game with a refined set of systems, the best-of and most AI-manageable from 3 decades of Civs) to completion. It should be so good and interesting at playing the game that people will actually just start up all AI sandbox games to just watch and marvel at. This is the true next generation of Civ that we need - a fully functioning world that will completely immerse and challenge the player, one that mirrors the full course of history with opponents worth contending with, rather than devolving into a systems-efficiency simulator.

I highly doubt this will happen, but we've reached the point where a somewhat smaller studio will likely have to take up the mantle, so there's always hope for that.

 

[Kenshiro70]

I suspect Firaxis is pinning its hopes on the Switch 2 launch. I was thinking that was a hail mary pass, but I happened on this Nintendo Life article (link) on the UK retail sales numbers at Civ VII's launch. Granted these are retail, but the split is PS5 47%, Switch 27%, PC 17%, Xbox 10%. You can excuse the low PC numbers since they don't include Steam, but I was surprised at how prominent PS5 and Switch were. Even with a very limited subset of "people in the UK who like to own physical media", I would have expected PC to dominate handily.

The fact that it didn't really worries me. If the Switch 2 does drive a wave of sales, then it's going to be less likely that we'll see any major changes on the gameplay side. The patches up to this point have been restoration of cut features and balance tweaks but nothing that increases replayability. The core game loop gets old after about 3-5 playthroughs, and I was assuming the sales pressure would force some changes. That may not happen, which is pretty disheartening.

 

[protocol7]

How important is it for anyone to admit mistakes? For me it has a few important benefits:

- Builds trust by demonstrating honesty and accountability. It’s just easier to trust someone who you know doesn’t double down on mistakes or blame others/deflect.
- It’s an opportunity to learn and improve. If no mistake was made then what is there to reflect and learn from and try to do better?
- it shows mutual respect and an interest in building relationships, rather than prioritising ego defense.
- It actually reduces stress on behalf of who made the mistake, by changing anxiety/guilt into a more collaborative discussion around how to improve.
- Denial or cover-up of a mistake just delays the inevitable fix, or even escalates the conflict because it seems like the denier is just denying reality.

Admitting mistakes is not a weakness or failure, it’s a sign of maturity, emotional intelligence, and strength. It paves the way for trust, progress, and better outcomes.

Now I realise society today seems to feel the opposite on every point above (always double down, never admit anything, if you fix the mistake fix it in secret and/or say you wanted to do it because listening to feedback is a weakness), but if you were to ask me why it’s important to admit mistakes those are the reasons. In the meantime I can always choose not to associate with people or companies that don’t live up to this (what seems to me) basic expectation.

 

[AD1730]

I suspect Firaxis is pinning its hopes on the Switch 2 launch. I was thinking that was a hail mary pass, but I happened on this Nintendo Life article (link) on the UK retail sales numbers at Civ VII's launch. Granted these are retail, but the split is PS5 47%, Switch 27%, PC 17%, Xbox 10%. You can excuse the low PC numbers since they don't include Steam, but I was surprised at how prominent PS5 and Switch were. Even with a very limited subset of "people in the UK who like to own physical media", I would have expected PC to dominate handily.

The fact that it didn't really worries me. If the Switch 2 does drive a wave of sales, then it's going to be less likely that we'll see any major changes on the gameplay side. The patches up to this point have been restoration of cut features and balance tweaks but nothing that increases replayability. The core game loop gets old after about 3-5 playthroughs, and I was assuming the sales pressure would force some changes. That may not happen, which is pretty disheartening.

Yeah, not including Steam makes this statistic practically unusable. Steam has an estimated 75% market share in the PC game market.

 

[Kev1916]

Sure. Just redesign the entire game. That's all.

Failure can lead to success, if you learn from it

Firaxis could re-design it thou best IMHO to put this version on the back burner and if keeping it alive do so with a small team .
Fire a few, and get new people in and start on Civ 8

 

[Gorbles]

Starting to come round to the idea that this game deserves a comeback if only to spite the people whose arguments boil down to "fire developers".

Chill a bit, eh? Making a game you don't like doesn't mean someone deserves unemployment, nor will it fix 2K pushing it out the door in the state it was in.

 

[protocol7]

I wouldn’t say their argument (it wasn’t even an argument, just a suggestion which they labeled as their opinion) boils down to “fire developers”. I would say it boils down to learning from mistakes and moving forward, either by fixing it or starting work on the next iteration - they recommended the latter.

I’d tend to agree someone should get fired for the way it was pushed out the door with the issues it had, though that’s also just my opinion. It seems to reflect poorly on their decision making ability IMHO.

 

[Gorbles]

I’d tend to agree someone should get fired for the way it was pushed out the door with the issues it had, though that’s also just my opinion.

This is why I said such a suggestion wouldn't in any way affect that decision, or future decisions about release windows for games published.

And I believe that a suggestion that comprises of "move onto Civ 8, and fire a few devs", boils down to firing devs (to make Civ 8 a different kind of game). Your mileage may vary.

But really, more than anything, if you thinking firing a few devs is going to improve Firaxis' output, pretty much every study done on layoffs in tech disagree.

 

[protocol7]

Firing decision makers for making poor decisions around shipping early seems like a great way to send a message and make it clear to your decision makers that you aren’t the kind of company that makes poor short-term decisions around shipping games early, if you accidentally became one by hiring people who think that way.

I’m a technical product manager myself, and would expect to be held accountable if I made some terrible product decisions. The reason this is important, including applying the same rule to myself, is because the worst places I’ve ever worked are ones where people with poor decision making or execution skills get moved around and/or protected instead of dealt with. It’s a sure way to end up on a crap product death spiral.

The only person who said anything about developers is you, and you’re the one who decided their argument can be discarded except the part about developers, so it kind of seems like you’ve made something up to be mad at in your message telling everyone to chill.

But anyway, the main point was learning from mistakes. These are just my opinions on holding teams accountable, which was a tangent in the first place, and others may disagree. The person we are replying to said something much more interesting than something that boils down to firing developers. Especially since they didn’t even say that.