I pledge to not buy Civ 6 until it is released

[rastak]

4 DLCs. Of course, noone knows what do they add, why would a conscious consumer need such an unimportant information?

Preordering is bad, preordering while not having any information as to what exactly are you preordering... I don't have words to describe it.

In theory I would agree it seems rather silly to pre-order something when you don't even know what it is.

In my case, I buy it all no matter what so it isn't a nutty as it would seem on the surface. Now one could argue that's crazy too but I love Civ and I know myself.

 

[ash88]

Personally I think this "problem" is entirely overblown. Both good and bad games have always been released since the beginning of video game development. With the sheer number of games released nowadays there's always going to be a percentage of stinkers. What people do and do not spend their gaming money on is really no concern of yours or mine.

I don't think anyone cares who spends their money on what (I mean, why would they?). For my part I'm just coming to a group of like-minded people (we are on a site called civ-fanatics, right?) and saying how we might make a (albeit small) difference to the game we all are "fanatical" about.

The idea of some corporate big-wig who knows nothing of the game (and has never played a civ title) telling the Dev team, "Release it tomorrow. End of Discussion!" When the devs know it isn't ready... that really pisses me off.

Any change that happens starts with one person bringing an idea to like minded people. I know it seems unsurmountable - but maybe, just maybe someone at Firaxis/2k wherever will see our efforts and some small change will happen.

And if nothing changes then I, for one, haven't lost anything except a few hours of initial-release-buggy play time which would probably be spent waiting for something to download or connect anyways.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Pre-ordering = not caring about video game culture at all?

Pre-ordering coupled with a desire for video game culture to be good or thinking it has no or positive effect on video game culture is irrational.

It is possible to care, want a good outcome, but then irrationally select an option that makes it worse instead. If you pre-order and believe it has no impact or a positive impact on the industry's culture, you are doing exactly that (evidence of willful purchases of unfinished product will reduce incentive to ensure a finished product on average. If you believe that not to be the case, be ready to defend dispute of this point).

Do you routinely pre-order movies on DVD months in advance, knowing they're in development? Do you routinely pre-order music that you purchase? Do you expect that if everyone were to do so, the quality of movies would improve or remain completely unchanged?

And yes, the market setting the bar far below my preference in quality is a concern of mine. There's not a lot I can do about it, but it's still a concern. I have watched it directly influence developer priority on the quality of the title before and after release.

If this thread convinces even a small handful of people not to throw money at unfinished products before they're confirmed finished, it will have served the gaming community a small amount of utility. That would be better than many other threads!

 

[jlc22]

@King Rad - I checked Amazon Prime in Canada and we don't get the discount. We do get the price guarantee that if the price drops before the release day you get the difference back.

 

[Balkans]

Even civ teaches about - "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."
There's not much to say, if some model of milking money works, it will happen. Long past are the days where developers had something with marketing, or cared that they don't let their fans down, or they choose not to publish unfinished game, or cut a game into 2 parts to sell it two times ...etc...etc...just a couple of game studios out of thousands that wouldn't let buyers not get their worth.
Most preorders are probably some saved money for people who know they will buy it anyway, some people that don't really care about that amount of money and are willing to take a risk if it will be game, and some support developers and kinda want their dreams of good game come true with this support...bunch of reasons to preorder and bunch of reasons not to preorder...it's all good.

 

[Socrates99]

Can I still buy it the day before for the pre-dowload? Honestly that's the only reason I can fathom for pre-ordering something I'll probably only ever bother with a digital copy of.

 

[evanaurora]

It's a discount on the DLC (plus the soundtrack thing). Whether it's worth it depends on whether you'd buy all the DLC separately at a less discounted price. Of course, that will probably be clearer once we know what the DLC is.

For me, the fact that you can buy the deluxe edition at a discount from places like GMG makes it seem like a good deal. (But I don't even know if I'll buy the game at launch since I don't know the required specs.)

hmmmm..... I definitely see people's points that it seems. Anxiety inducing, at the very least, to buy something without really knowing what you're buying.

On the other hand, I wish I had *all* the DLC for V, not just the major expansions (Babylon and Korea sound like they're borderline cheating overpowered, which can sometimes be delightful) so.... maybe.

thanks for the info!

what are people's thoughts on possible ranges for specs? I can't play the likes of Fallout 4 on my laptop, and while Civ is obvs a different animal altogether, it would still be a little crushing to be just unable to play. (I run 5 just fine on high textures, though.)

 

[Montov]

Well, I already pre-ordered because of a 25% discount. You'll probably have to wait half a year for such a discount to emerge again. And I know I'm going to play it. Otherwise, I could understand this pledge.

 

[ash88]

In theory I would agree it seems rather silly to pre-order something when you don't even know what it is.

In my case, I buy it all no matter what so it isn't a nutty as it would seem on the surface. Now one could argue that's crazy too but I love Civ and I know myself.

This is what I struggle with as well. With a title like Civ I usually just buy-it-all-as-it-comes. Whether or not you liked Civ5 I didn't have the best time with it, and it was the first game in the full series I didn't jump in to with-both-feet.

The day after Civ5 released there was the typical rabble-rabble on these forums, and elsewhere. All the "Civ4 was just as bad/worse on release/give it time/etc". I know we all had different experiences and some people loved it.

But for me there was something ick-y about the Civ5 release. I felt betrayed. Jon Shafer's out-of-the-blue exit was, for me, confirmation that this wasn't some simple birthing pain that would subside with time, as it did with Civ4, and Civ3... (I don't recall any of it with Civ2, and definitely not Civ1 - but that could just be selective memory).

I understand that Civ5 is/was loved by a great many - and I respect that. That's why I'm not saying "Civ5 was terrible" or "Civ5 was the worst" - those are statements that are as individual as the people here; who am I to say?

What I can say is that there was a lot of smelly stuff going on in the early days of Civ5. No doubt Non-Disclosure Agreements and professional courtesy will prevent the people that know from ever saying for sure - but if you take a step back you can say that something isn't right when your lead designer leaves with the launch of the game.

The other thing is that: It seems to me that the "thing that wasn't right" was on the business end, not the development end. I mean, sure, I wouldn't have made all of the same decisions that Mr. Jon Shafer made, but overall the vision of Civ5 was cohesive.

That said - very few people would argue that the AI was terri-bad, and the multiplayer (in the early days) was unplayable.

Case in point: I don't remember when I finally won a my first game on Deity in Civ4, but it wasn't in the first week. It was at least a few months.

These types of problems seem to me to be problems with the polish of the game, rather than the vision of the game. And if there wasn't enough polish that can usually be attributed to the conflicting priorities of the Developers and the Producers, right?

I mean, if they hired the right people on the Dev team - people that love Civ like everyone here - then those people would (given enough time) worked the Development problems out. It isn't like Shafer had a bad vision which would have meant throwing the whole thing out and starting from scratch - it was more about the game being released too early.

"Yes yes, but they have to make money! So they have to release it."

This is kind of a naive view though, right? I mean, it's not like they aren't going to make money on the game. The cost of development of Civ5 was never going to overrun the revenue it generated. The problem was cashflow, not profit.

And when you have a cashflow problem that isn't a profit problem that points to bad management, and bad management decisions. Maybe the scope of Civ5 was to big for the startup budget they had? Maybe someone didn't make the cuts needed to the game in order to deliver a better finished product? Maybe the people making the development roadmap were underqualified? I could only be guessing. The point is that the non-subjective flaws in the Civ5 release seem to be business related, not dev-team related. Maybe it was that Mr. Evil Business Manager didn't keep Mr. Schafer as on-target as he should have. If people know they can't or won't say.

So what the hell does this have to do with Civ6 preorder?

Well, preordering is a way for a company to lock you in to paying for something before you have any idea what it is so the company is less accountable for the final product. There is no other reason for it (except for small startups who have 0 cash). And I want the opposite of that - I want them to be accountable for the product they give us. I want this so that the business side manages the Dev team and their goals professionally. You know, instead of selling me a car without the tires.

... sorry for the meandering rant, but it felt good to get it off my chest.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, I already pre-ordered because of a 25% discount. You'll probably have to wait half a year for such a discount to emerge again. And I know I'm going to play it. Otherwise, I could understand this pledge.

A discount offer for pre-order is interesting. It's like making a bet. If the game is good enough to get decent play time + enjoyment, you win. It's a pretty different concept than simply buying the game early. Developers/publishers/etc are, in that sense, selling on their track record.

 

[m15a]

hmmmm..... I definitely see people's points that it seems. Anxiety inducing, at the very least, to buy something without really knowing what you're buying.

On the other hand, I wish I had *all* the DLC for V, not just the major expansions (Babylon and Korea sound like they're borderline cheating overpowered, which can sometimes be delightful) so.... maybe.

Even outside the topic of this thread, it's smart from the perspective of most individual consumers to wait (the exception being those that will want the DLC and game no matter what - but then the topic of the thread comes into play). The deluxe edition by itself (ignoring other preorder sales) doesn't provide an incentive to preorder (except maybe immediately before release) since you can still buy it later on.

The other option is to wait for a sale on the DLC you want to get eventually but not right away. That takes more work, but the discount will almost definitely be greater than the deluxe edition offers and some point, probably less than a year after release. (I suppose there's an argument that waiting for sales is bad for the industry, too, though.)

 

[miaasma]

Spoiler :

Link to video.

Link to video.

Link to video.

this doesn't all apply to the civ franchise, and i wouldn't blame people for preordering civ 6, but there are definitely points to be made about preordering in general

 

[DJ_Tanner]

Here is an article I just googled now on the pre-ordering video game phenomena and how it hurts both gamers and games, etc. It's not the best or worst I've read, but its a good start.

I will edit the initial post to include this.

http://kotaku.com/5909105/stop-preordering-video-games-please

I gotta say that article really doesn't help your case. Besides the fact that Kotaku is run by Gawker Media, whose standards for journalism are questionable at best. The article is pretty old (2012 is ancient in the digital market) and much of what it claims is out of date or not that applicable.

Quite simply every game is 'rushed to market' there isn't a single dev out there that wouldn't love an extra year to perfect their game, and then another year on that, and another, and another. That happens regardless of preorders or not. Further the idea that once you have preordered the devs stop caring is just as absurd. Reputations carry and if they release a turd it will hurt the next game. This is true for any video game. However, this is especially meaningful in the franchise builders. Civ is one of the longest running franchises its laughable to think that since they got $X in presales dollars they would intentionally tank all that goodwill they built since the 90s.

Further, the other 'protections' people offer are pretty silly if you think about it. "Wait for reviewers", who the reviewers, bloggers, and youtubers who all are paid for their thoughts? Or "we need demos back". Really if a company was going to 'take your money and run' you think they could crop together a decent demo and then still just 'take your money and run'?

Realistically, presale dollars can (almost) have only a postive effect on a game (Outside outright fraudulent companies and the occasion where their eyes get too big for their stomachs). High presales can signal to a dev that a game, team, concept, etc. is extremely popular and/or will meet/exceed targets. This makes the decision to add MORE resources to the project an easier one.

With the availability of returns there is literally nothing to fear about preordering. It is in no way a necessity but is also, in its current form, in no way harmful to the consumer. Another valuable marketing tool for companies, and one that is typically free for them. Which, in turn, does not take away resources from what we all really care about, the game itself.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Do we still really have to preface everything "In my opinion" like we are in grade school? I mean, unless someone provides a reference to a scientific journal don't we just assume that anything they say is their opinion?

You would think not, but I've learned from sad experience the ideal is not always the case...even here on dear ol' civfanatics!

The idea of some corporate big-wig who knows nothing of the game (and has never played a civ title) telling the Dev team, "Release it tomorrow. End of Discussion!" When the devs know it isn't ready... that really pisses me off.

To be fair, the release date is set months or even years in advance; whether or not we pre-order doesn't have any impact on the release date. Plenty of games released in the 90s were buggy pieces of crap, that's nothing new, and again, pre-ordering doesn't have any impact on that.

I respect your decision not to pre-order, it's a good decision to wait and watch the LPs and all that, but for many people there are many other factors which go into pre-ordering. But I resent those who claim that the rest of us are actively lowering the quality of the games industry as a whole when we pre-order. Which of course is baloney.

Pre-ordering coupled with a desire for video game culture to be good or thinking it has no or positive effect on video game culture is irrational.

It is possible to care, want a good outcome, but then irrationally select an option that makes it worse instead. If you pre-order and believe it has no impact or a positive impact on the industry's culture, you are doing exactly that (evidence of willful purchases of unfinished product will reduce incentive to ensure a finished product on average. If you believe that not to be the case, be ready to defend dispute of this point).

As I have already mentioned in this thread and will again, there have always been unfinished games released and there always will be...regardless of pre-ordering. Publisher deadlines are set before pre-orders ever go live. It's paranoia to blame an imaginary problem on a practice which hasn't demonstrably had that effect. You're the one claiming it causes a problem, the burden of proof is on you. So prove it.

Do you routinely pre-order movies on DVD months in advance, knowing they're in development? Do you routinely pre-order music that you purchase? Do you expect that if everyone were to do so, the quality of movies would improve or remain completely unchanged?

Many people pre-order movie tickets months in advance, especially for a big blockbuster (i.e. AAA title). For just 3 people you've already spent over $60. There are plenty of crappy big-budget movies, but that is no different than the way it was before.

And yes, the market setting the bar far below my preference in quality is a concern of mine. There's not a lot I can do about it, but it's still a concern. I have watched it directly influence developer priority on the quality of the title before and after release.

The bar has always been low. It's just more obvious now because we have so many more games than we did before. But that also means there are tons of extremely good games being made. Video gaming has never been better - there's someone developing a game for every niche and every level of gamer.

 

[ash88]

To be fair, the release date is set months or even years in advance; whether or not we pre-order doesn't have any impact on the release date.

True. But delaying a release is a common occurence, and usually well respected. Also - having a team that manages the feature list to ensure that the features that are delivered are done (often at the expense of more superfluous features) is something that happens in every. single. game.

Plenty of games released in the 90s were buggy pieces of crap, that's nothing new, and again, pre-ordering doesn't have any impact on that.

Although true I would argue that 90s games were buggy pieces of crap for different reasons, typically, then AAA titles of today.[/quote]

I respect your decision not to pre-order, it's a good decision to wait and watch the LPs and all that, but for many people there are many other factors which go into pre-ordering. But I resent those who claim that the rest of us are actively lowering the quality of the games industry as a whole when we pre-order. Which of course is baloney.

And I respect that there are lots of reasons to preorder. The biggest one being the % discount. I remember being a cash-strapped student that jumped at stuff like that. Hell, I remember being a cash-strapped new-dad that jumped at stuff like that.

I don't think that any one person choosing to preorder is actively lowering anything. I think that the pre-order trend overall lowers the quality of finished games. I respect that whether for financial reasons, or time reasons (pre-downloads are awesome) or any number of other reasons preordering may be the right decision for the individual.

That said - recognizing that the non-pre-order people are making a sacrifice for the good of us all, the only thing I'd ask is that, if pre-ordering is the right decision for someone personally, that they support us and our efforts (and our painful, painful sacrifices).

As I have already mentioned in this thread and will again, there have always been unfinished games released and there always will be...regardless of pre-ordering. Publisher deadlines are set before pre-orders ever go live. It's paranoia to blame an imaginary problem on a practice which hasn't demonstrably had that effect. You're the one claiming it causes a problem, the burden of proof is on you. So prove it.

I don't want to reinvent the wheel. You can honestly Google it and find articulate people explaining it better than I ever could. Few people claim that Preorders are "good" for us gamers. I haven't seen one, but in a world where people tell me the earth is flat I'm sure they are out there.

The point is it is an old discussion at this point with "proof" a-plenty. Unless you need a scientific article reference for proof... then no... no proof. But again - no one can "prove" the earth isn't flat to some people.

In anycase - I enjoyed your counterpoint.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

As I have already mentioned in this thread and will again, there have always been unfinished games released and there always will be...regardless of pre-ordering.

There will always be traffic accidents while people are driving cars, regardless of brakes.

Publisher deadlines are set before pre-orders ever go live. It's paranoia to blame an imaginary problem on a practice which hasn't demonstrably had that effect. You're the one claiming it causes a problem, the burden of proof is on you. So prove it.

Publishers set deadlines they expect to get away with setting, and hold developers to them based on anticipated sales.

You're trying to convince us that paying for something that isn't finished with a long history of said product remaining unfinished is somehow having a positive effect on it being finished. However, once the product is out the incentive shifts to DLC and future titles, not fixing the release state of the game past a minimum standard.

Many people pre-order movie tickets months in advance, especially for a big blockbuster

Okay, never mind. I guess the film industry has managed to take consumers to the cleaners via irrational decisions too. Unfortunate, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

The bar has always been low. It's just more obvious now because we have so many more games than we did before.

I'm aware that people today aren't too different from people 15 years ago on average. The market's low standards impacting consumers who are above that lowest common denominator predates all of us.

That doesn't mean I have to like it or condone contributing to it.

 

[ash88]

I gotta say that article really doesn't help your case. Besides the fact that Kotaku is run by Gawker Media, whose standards for journalism are questionable at best. The article is pretty old (2012 is ancient in the digital market) and much of what it claims is out of date or not that applicable.

Fair Enough. I honestly just googled and put in a link after skimming a few. If you don't think that article is worthwhile, is there one you see that is? I mean, this is an old old topic. Nothing new. I honestly thought that the initial person who was asking was more just trolling - I had no idea that it wasn't well known in gamer circles.

Quite simply every game is 'rushed to market' there isn't a single dev out there that wouldn't love an extra year to perfect their game, and then another year on that, and another, and another.

Quite simply all insulation is made with asbestos....
Quite simply all car fuel has iron in it...
Quite simply a woman's place is in the home...



I hear you. And although I disagree with "every" I would agree with "vast majority". Minecraft is still in Beta right - Last I checked it was the most popular game of all time? What about Dwarf Fortress - much less popular, but 10 years in development? These are just 2 off the top of my head, and although I can even come up with "Yah, but that doesn't count because..." for both of these, the point is they are out there. (And for the record, I regularly support the DF brothers because... welll.... Dwarf Fortress).

The point is that there are other paradigms. Lots of them. Most of them are demonstrated with games that are loved. I think Civ would fit well into it's own paradigm. I mean, it has broken enough paradigms in it's history, why not one more?

Further the idea that once you have preordered the devs stop caring is just as absurd.

I have never said that the Devs stop caring. In fact - I've made it a central point of my posts to support the Devs. The point is that the Devs aren't the only people involved in the process of game making. Contrary to your statement I think that the Devs care the most when a game is preordered, but they don't always have the power to finish the product as they envision it. Lets give them that power.

Further, the other 'protections' people offer are pretty silly if you think about it. "Wait for reviewers", who the reviewers, bloggers, and youtubers who all are paid for their thoughts? Or "we need demos back". Really if a company was going to 'take your money and run' you think they could crop together a decent demo and then still just 'take your money and run'?

This is kind of tangental... but every review doesn't exist in a vaccum, and the people that truly care about these games know that. How much weight do I give IGN for it's review? Zero. How much do I give (off the top of my head) TotalBiscuit? A lot more. You can see a trend with reviews. Steam even has a thing called curators where you can subscribe to games curated be reviewers you respect / share similar interests with. I believe you can even get recommendations for reviewers who share similar tastes as you do --- but I've only seen the curator thing in passing some time ago, so don't take what I say here without checking it out.

Realistically, presale dollars can (almost) have only a postive effect on a game (Outside outright fraudulent companies and the occasion where their eyes get too big for their stomachs). High presales can signal to a dev that a game, team, concept, etc. is extremely popular and/or will meet/exceed targets. This makes the decision to add MORE resources to the project an easier one.

I've never seen this except in indy circles. Have an example? I've never heard of a company outside of indie circles saying, "Oh, more people preordered then expected. Lets hire some more people, make less money overall, and deliver more features then they are expecting." Even in Indie circles this is rare. I can think of a few examples with extended goals on Kickstarter - Pillars of Eternity being the most famous one. But no corporate fat cat is going to say, "Yes, lots of pre orders. I will give the dev team more resources so that they over deliver."

For the most part the video game industry is a modern sweatshop (big exceptions excluded, off the top of my head: Valve). People working in it are there because they love the games, not because they love the industry.

 

[Sprenk]

Thanks to this thread for reminding me I need to pre-order!

Seriously, I'm been a fanboi for this series since Civ II. I've got 2500+ hours on Civ V alone. I know I'm going to get my money's worth many times over. Buying a Civ game is one of the best investments I can make in terms of getting bang for my entertainment buck. Pre-ordering is the least I can do to show my thanks to Firaxis.

 

[LDiCesare]

I preorder games when I believe the developper needs the money. Such as kickstarter for Pillars of Eternity. And I know it's a bet.
Otherwise, I might in order to get a discount on a game I know I'll only trust my opinion (say, Dominions V if it ever was to be made).
For Civ, there's hardly any reason. I decided not to buy any DLC or expansion for Civ V because I really disliked the game. So, I'd rather go the route: Don't buy DLCs if the game is not good, even if these DLCs are supposed to fix the game. Preordering lets developpers have money and make the game. I don't think it's bad per se, and the examples of other models (minecraft, DF, or in my case dominions) only stand because of the tiny size of the development team (as in <= 2 persons, who happen to make a living out of something else).

 

[m15a]

Fair Enough. I honestly just googled and put in a link after skimming a few. If you don't think that article is worthwhile, is there one you see that is? I mean, this is an old old topic. Nothing new. I honestly thought that the initial person who was asking was more just trolling - I had no idea that it wasn't well known in gamer circles.

We're not all in "gamer circles". I think this thread was initially made more with the aim of targeting people that already agree with the goal (which is fine for what a pledge is), but it's not surprising that other people will see this thread and want to know your reasons for making the pledge and encouraging others to. A link to some article you skimmed isn't going to tell people what you specifically believe and it's not going to be targeted specifically at the Civ community at this time either.

Not saying you are obligated to explain your thoughts. But if you want to convince people that aren't yet convinced, then saying what you think is valuable no matter how much has been written in the past.