Infinite business wisdom

In all honesty,
if you want to look at future of PC gaming,
look at Europe and indie.

Witcher 2, Torchlight, Minecraft, Terraria, Jamestown, Who's That Flying ???!, Magicka, Elemental.

Civ V is a fine game, I even play it more and more since the last patch (after not playing it for more than four months due to boredom). Dragon Age 2 is more accessible, got more fun moments, and altogether feels not like a chore that is Dragon Age: Origins.

Mind you, in majority, there are two kind of PC Gamers right now: Grown up PC gamers that need to work and therefore have less time playing games if they want to balance their work, family, and gaming time and new generation of PC gamers that were brought into the scene already messed up first person shooters, mediocre games, and buggy releases.

The grown up PC gamers need to balance things, hence the need to have a quick fix. I was playing colonizations non stop for 4 years because I can have my TBS fix start up after five minutes and end it ten minutes later after finishing ten turns or more and finish the whole shebang it in two hours. I used to play Command and Conquer:Generals:Zero Hours for the same reasons: Fire it up in five minutes, finish it in ten, close it, and go to work, go to sleep, or satisfy the mistress.

The new gamers have choices: PC games where you can find loads and loads of RPGs, RTS, or TBSs, or console games where the cool games are all at. Many non-heavy gamers choose console, and so the new gamers went to console in flocks.

When they grown up a little, they got bored by their consoles and seek fulfillment in PC. Their mentalities are still that of console gamers: short fix, big boom, and have a bit of shooters mentality, or if not, on the rail RPGs. So they choose to play something that can supply that. They choose shooters because on the rail RPGs are rare in PC.

Strategy games are far from their minds.

So when they see a game, famously called Civilizations, they got curious and try it.

If the game is as complicated as fully expanded Civ IV, will they play it till the end and not moving back into shooters? Doubtful there.

And so thus born Civ V: Civilization with heavy emphasis on battle mentality at first.

Only later when the game sold in millions and peace-loving players found it to brutal and started to shout out loud to firaxis did they balance things out.

Now the game feels more completely strategic.

How many early adopters that love the battle emphasis of the game are now flabbergasted by the change brought upon the latest patch? Severe penalties on happiness and things are more spread out, making them thinking about it more.

If the statistics are showing that less and less people are playing the game after it made more strategic and less kablooey, don't blame Firaxis if Civ 6 will be more fast paced and streamlined.
 
In all honesty,
if you want to look at future of PC gaming,
look at Europe and indie.

Witcher 2, Torchlight, Minecraft, Terraria, Jamestown, Who's That Flying ???!, Magicka, Elemental.

Civ V is a fine game, I even play it more and more since the last patch (after not playing it for more than four months due to boredom). Dragon Age 2 is more accessible, got more fun moments, and altogether feels not like a chore that is Dragon Age: Origins.

Mind you, in majority, there are two kind of PC Gamers right now: Grown up PC gamers that need to work and therefore have less time playing games if they want to balance their work, family, and gaming time and new generation of PC gamers that were brought into the scene already messed up first person shooters, mediocre games, and buggy releases.

The grown up PC gamers need to balance things, hence the need to have a quick fix. I was playing colonizations non stop for 4 years because I can have my TBS fix start up after five minutes and end it ten minutes later after finishing ten turns or more and finish the whole shebang it in two hours. I used to play Command and Conquer:Generals:Zero Hours for the same reasons: Fire it up in five minutes, finish it in ten, close it, and go to work, go to sleep, or satisfy the mistress.

The new gamers have choices: PC games where you can find loads and loads of RPGs, RTS, or TBSs, or console games where the cool games are all at. Many non-heavy gamers choose console, and so the new gamers went to console in flocks.

When they grown up a little, they got bored by their consoles and seek fulfillment in PC. Their mentalities are still that of console gamers: short fix, big boom, and have a bit of shooters mentality, or if not, on the rail RPGs. So they choose to play something that can supply that. They choose shooters because on the rail RPGs are rare in PC.

Strategy games are far from their minds.

So when they see a game, famously called Civilizations, they got curious and try it.

If the game is as complicated as fully expanded Civ IV, will they play it till the end and not moving back into shooters? Doubtful there.

And so thus born Civ V: Civilization with heavy emphasis on battle mentality at first.

Only later when the game sold in millions and peace-loving players found it to brutal and started to shout out loud to firaxis did they balance things out.

Now the game feels more completely strategic.

How many early adopters that love the battle emphasis of the game are now flabbergasted by the change brought upon the latest patch? Severe penalties on happiness and things are more spread out, making them thinking about it more.

If the statistics are showing that less and less people are playing the game after it made more strategic and less kablooey, don't blame Firaxis if Civ 6 will be more fast paced and streamlined.

Sounds like a self fulfilling prophecy to me.

Make it a streamlined, fluff game and then justify streamlining it even more in the next iteration because the game didn't sell well. :rolleyes:

Sounds like the long term fans are screwed. If it sells well, the decision was justified. If it didn't sell well, then streamline it even more.

Shame...
 
Firstly, as stated before, I enjoy CiV. That being said, I do wish it had more depth! Perhaps a future patch will add it, perhaps not.

Civ V is a fine game, I even play it more and more since the last patch (after not playing it for more than four months due to boredom). Dragon Age 2 is more accessible, got more fun moments, and altogether feels not like a chore that is Dragon Age: Origins.

On the contrary, the sales figures and 'Internet buzz' do not agree with your assertion that Dragon Age 2 had 'more fun moments' than DA:O.

Mind you, in majority, there are two kind of PC Gamers right now: Grown up PC gamers that need to work and therefore have less time playing games if they want to balance their work, family, and gaming time and new generation of PC gamers that were brought into the scene already messed up first person shooters, mediocre games, and buggy releases.

I find your position that there are 'two kind of PC gamers' offensive. I am certainly not in either of the sets you have described. While I am 37, married, and returning to college to finish my degree, I still remember playing strategy games on my C=64 long before the first Doom came out :-) Furthermore, my balance of work, family, and game time still cries for "depth before ease of play".

So when they see a game, famously called Civilizations, they got curious and try it.

If the game is as complicated as fully expanded Civ IV, will they play it till the end and not moving back into shooters? Doubtful there.

And so thus born Civ V: Civilization with heavy emphasis on battle mentality at first.

Only later when the game sold in millions and peace-loving players found it to brutal and started to shout out loud to firaxis did they balance things out.

Now the game feels more completely strategic.

How many early adopters that love the battle emphasis of the game are now flabbergasted by the change brought upon the latest patch? Severe penalties on happiness and things are more spread out, making them thinking about it more.

So, I think you missed the mark here. The vast majority of the shooter crowd, irrespective of age, does not and will never enjoy a game series like Civilizations. It is this idea that the business arms of game development shops do not seem to understand. As a result, game developers these days are telling us that since most people want games that require less emotional and/or intellectual investment they are going to chase after that market.

Luckily, CiV still does 'it' for me. Since the latest patch, I've found a renewed interest in the game. I can only hope that the coming expansions and patches continue to keep the game interesting, challenging, and engaging. However, based on the original poster's post, I worry about what Civ VI will look like! The facebook game Civ Worlds certainly does not instill confidence!
 
My god... Sid Sid Meier will have a heart attack, then start rolling in his grave. Civ VI a FPS? We have a damn overstock on FPSs, and Civilization is one of the greatest turn based strategies in history. (Admittedly Civ1 was the best, 4 was oercomplicated, and 5 was rather random...) How could they do such a monstrosity! I could imagine a Civilization where you are in command of a single unit, and follow it through the wars, upgrade it over time, or a single city in an empire.. but never being a single soldier. What happened to "stand the test of time"?
 
So, I think you missed the mark here. The vast majority of the shooter crowd, irrespective of age, does not and will never enjoy a game series like Civilizations. I


Like I said, some of them got curious with this series of PC game called Civilizations when it was released. Heck, probably tons of them are reading this forum front and back.

I am above 30, married, and enjoy turn based strategies and RPGs more than shooter, but occasionally I played RPG and shooters, sometimes at once (like playing Morrowind or Oblivion as archer or playing Fallout 3).

And to those who said that DA2 sales doesn't agree with my definition of fun, so be it. I have more fun playing Dragon Age 2 than Dragon Age: Origins and that's a fact.
 
It's hard to get facts on messageboards because people confuse it with opinion.

There'll always be a place in PC gaming for AAA titles, doomsaying aside. Blizzard and Bioware certainly aren't going anywhere. I think what's changing is the middle ground, it's harder for new developers to get attached to groups like 2k.

I actually see this as a good thing. Terraria and Minecraft came out of nowhere and have done very well. Digital downloads have made it possible to be viable without shipping cd's to a brick and morter store.

Best example is Paradox Interactive. They've carved out a very unique niche selling stragegy game (very hardcore stragegy games mind you, the kind 2k says is dead). And they do it self published.

Things'll change. They'll also turn out alright.
 
It's hard to get facts on messageboards because people confuse it with opinion.

There'll always be a place in PC gaming for AAA titles, doomsaying aside. Blizzard and Bioware certainly aren't going anywhere. I think what's changing is the middle ground, it's harder for new developers to get attached to groups like 2k.

I actually see this as a good thing. Terraria and Minecraft came out of nowhere and have done very well. Digital downloads have made it possible to be viable without shipping cd's to a brick and morter store.

Best example is Paradox Interactive. They've carved out a very unique niche selling stragegy game (very hardcore stragegy games mind you, the kind 2k says is dead). And they do it self published.

Things'll change. They'll also turn out alright.

Uhm, Bioware sold its soul to EA Games... DA2 was an utter abortion of a 'streamlining'. I know *many* a person who will not be pre-ordering another Bioware game. We'll see how Mass Effect 3 pans out, but some of the dev comments have been quite alarming. It was interesting to watch the format go from ME1 (mostly RPG) to ME2 (mix between RPG/FPS + streamlining). That being said, I think that the futuristic setting of ME lends a bit better to being a hybrid FPS/RPG.

How's SW:TOR going? I'm not a MMO fan after my 2 year addiction to EverCrack, but :)

--Randall
 
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