Very unlikely…
How important is it for Firaxis to admit mistakes or acknowledge failure?
- Thread starter aelf
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That is an entirely different position. A marketing position.
stealth_nsk
Deity
It's not marketing, it's product. Still, entirely different position.
It's a numbers position. They want someone who can say this is how we make money. It's at the very least very close to a marketing position.
Lazy sweeper
Mooooo Cra Chirp Fssss Miaouw is a game of words
I didn't mean that, I assumed Ed resigned or have been fired bc of the new announcements,
I should have used the conditional, my fault.
stealth_nsk
Deity
Marketing is mostly about how pack and sale product made by some other people, product is about how to make product to be successfully packed and sold. The job description includes learning that people want, which game mechanics competitors have and so on. It's more a "glue" position between producers, marketing and executive.
To me, it's an indication that they do not intend to course correct. Instead, they're going to continue with the status quo, but figure out how to market the status quo in a way that claims to address audience pain points.
Spending 6 months to implement scout auto-explore, without changing anything structural, is the sort of change a Product Manager can identify as a desired feature that they can market.
They want to figure out who, after the launch fallout, will still spend money on DLC, or might buy the game who hasn't yet. Figure out what sort of low-cost features will maximally appeal to them, communicate to the studio the need to implement those features, then develop the marketing vision behind selling those features to create more sales.
It means Civ 7 isn't going to change much. It could mean oddball features. Remember Battle Royale began as an experimental bonus mode in Fortnite. So, it's possible a relatively simply product feature could completely reinvent and reinvigorate 7. It just won't be a "comprehensively rework the game to make it more civ-like".
britesparc
Chieftain
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I definitely don't need an apology because I don't think they've don't anything "wrong" - I just don't like what they've done, which is a different thing - but I would appreciate it if they could come out and say either "we're working on a classic mode" OR "unfortunately a classic mode isn't possible with the way this game was built". Either of those would be very much appreciated.
Gori the Grey
The Poster
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As I read the ad, they want the person to do both: it calls for experience in getting reliable data from customers, then proposing actionable plans for the further development of the product (and then the marketing of those further developments).
It's exactly what we all should want. Someone to sift through all the complaints to figure out what most players most want, then present that to the designers and say "prioritize X to bring the maximum number of players to/back to the game."
stealth_nsk
Deity
Continuing with the Civ7 core is the most logical approach, though.
Yes, that's what we, products do. The only thing here is what we can't expect the person from the street to immediately start making difference. The person will have some influence on first expansion, but will be fully operational for the second one and Civ8. I wouldn't expect significant effect on the base game in the next half a year.
The most loud complains are about age reset and civilization switching, they are not in the area of gameplay, just pure immersion. I don't think there's anything to do with them other than ignoring if Firaxis don't want to break the game.
The most common (that's different from loud) complains from reviews are about unfinished game, bad UI and pricing (including DLC). I think Firaxis already moves in the right direction about UI, polishing and adding more features. For pricing, it's harder to fix, but I think we could expect some freebies in the right time. So, I don't think Firaxis could do something significantly different from what they are doing now.
I think this role is more about avoiding mistakes in the future than solving those already made.
I am hoping for a lot of success for the new position and I hope the occupant is able to get a reasonable read on community feedback.
Firaxis went from what could be described as the most popular Civ release to possibly the most divisive in one go.
Perhaps fresh eyes and a new perspective will be helpful in steering the franchise.
Firaxis went from what could be described as the most popular Civ release to possibly the most divisive in one go.
Perhaps fresh eyes and a new perspective will be helpful in steering the franchise.
From the way corporations think, yes. At marginal added cost, milk untapped audiences through marketing expenditures. Modifying the core product is too risky.
However, smart corporations that understand their customers and products can outcompete others. It wouldn't be that much to create a beta test platform and run monthly gamejam style updates and see what people like. The value of such a test platform is obvious: it can glean information for future products like Civ 8, or parallel products like spin-offs at minimal cost. For studio driven products with volatile relationships to the customer base, you have got to have something like this in place for long term success.
I don't think 2k seems to be a very "smart" company. And as for Firaxis, like Bethesda Game Studios, it seems to be a bunch of senior devs grandfathered in from previous eras of both the games industry and frankly, economic prices levels (i.e. when salary levels and commensurate costs of living were much lower 1.5 decades ago). These senior devs, who are long passed their prime and have had 2 decades to lock in their patronage and nepotism networks, are being paid exorbitantly, and the parent companies don't want to create even more highly-paid dev positions on top of that. However, the seniors have a lock-down on their respective legacy franchises.
There was incredibly turnover in BGS and Firaxis up until Emil Pagliorulo and Ed Beach tookover. Somehow, Beach has survived 2.5 iterations of the product. Emil... don't get me started.
The issue is that big fat senior dev money is going toward experience, yes, but waning talent I suspect. They need that money to go to a skilled AI developer, not people who have had their time in the Sun and maybe need to go make indie games or something with all the money they have.
Lazy sweeper
Mooooo Cra Chirp Fssss Miaouw is a game of words
How do you differentiate the two?
Whom from whom?
They fired UI devs and completely suppressed devs that raised their voices when trying to sound the alarm, that
too much enshittification, and complete departure from the core principles, would have also destroyed their work...
Simplification and "streamlining" are mutually interchangeable in corporative language.
Didn't they double AI dev resource for VII?
If Beach and senior management are a problem, why weren't they for VI?
Lazy sweeper
Mooooo Cra Chirp Fssss Miaouw is a game of words
They were, they are.
What makes you think Civ 6 was a good game by any PC metric?
We never ignored the major issued it had, but they passed the mark. The finishing line, without crippling the core mechanics,
but they went very near that.
Roads.
Without the infinite worker road charges I can't play Civ 6.
Map. Cartoonish.
End game minimap. There is none.
Place view. There is none.
The list is long...
AI dev resources what does that even means???
Did they buy a new nvidia H100 Ai unit???
AI don't think for herself.
What's the point in AI resources if you fire the one UI guy that made Civpedia not XXXX big time???
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By the fact that it was a success.
VII hasn't been (yet?). We can't say "VII is doing poorly and this reflects fans rejecting it" and simultaneously say "VI doing well also reflects fans rejecting it". It makes no sense.
If the commercial angle and player reviews are what defines success, VI was successful. If they don't define success, why does everyone keep using them to say VII failed?
I was responding to someone saying they should hire a skilled AI developer. I have no interest in entertaining moving the goalposts (particularly when I've publicly not been a fan of the state of the UI for a long time).
But it was the publisher that forced the game out too early, they should be apologizing, not Firaxis.
VI wasn't bad, but even at launch Beach had already overstayed his welcome. The board gamification of Civ was not a favored direction, but it was tolerable the one time. The weak launch for VI should have signaled "good try, next!"
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