Just wrote worst review of the decade

[madeirabhoy]

Ara is $60. The game released with a plethora of bugs and a ton of shallow mechanics which they have been patching little by little (sitting now on "Mixed" on Steam after months of release btw). This is only $10 less than Civ7, which is a long-running franchise with a much larger development team and budget. I'm not saying these practices are right, by the way. I'm just saying that the anger towards Civ7's release is oddly outsized imho, an easy target, if you will, without consistency on the state of the overall industry you describing.


Exactly. This is the point. It all evens out. Civ1 adjusting for inflation was above $70 for those pixels you're mentioning. Also, your post assumes piracy is a thing of the past, when it is very much rampant in contemporary gaming, at numbers far higher than those of 1991 (just as w/the playerbase #s). It's all relative. My point is that $70 for a computer game in 2025 is not a tear in the fabric of space-time. It's a little on the pricy side, but by no means abnormal. A cursory search of "games that released at $70" will bring up dozens of examples and reasons for this pricing formula.

We could talk about the different editions, pricing schemes, and DLC, beyond the base game. This is where I think Civ7 flounders, but I also think literally every single 4x released in the last decade and all Civ iterations (except Civ1) have practiced the same. Old World, my favorite 4x of recent years, has a ton of DLC. The Endless series. Paradox games (ugh...). I spent probably more than $150 back in the day on Civ2 (Civ2, Conflict in Civilizations, Fantastic Worlds, Multiplayer Gold Edition, and Test of Time)... this would be something like $270 today. SMAC was $50 on release, worth about $85 today. Alien Crossfire expansion was $30, which would be $50 today ... in total, $120 for SMAC complete.

Again, not saying any of this is moral or right, but just that the blowback is outsized for this particular game. The fact is, people willingly shell out for this stuff and have for decades before the word "DLC" existed. And I have no idea if DLC cost is relative to their production. But let's be honest here: Civ7 is certainly not an odd duck.

and strategy games in general, not just civ competitors. Compared to some, Civ is a mere amateur. Just checking Steam, and all of the DLC for Tropico 6 would be 132 euro, and cities skylines dlc would now cost 262,64 but most of thats on 50% off so over 500 euro. eek.

 

[KayAU]

Also unlike the latest civ game Ara gave all pre-order's a nice 10% reduction in cost

Thank you, this was a point I forgot, but I think it matters. It's not a huge amount, but I think it's a nice acknowledgement that you are giving them a bit of extra trust and support by pre-ordering. As far as pre-order incentives go, this is a nice one.

 

[acquiredlizard]

Civ’s player base is global enough that I think the regional pricing matters too for evaluating how aggressively priced 7 is. Buying the at-launch premium version of Civ 7 in Brazil cost the equivalent of paying over $500 for it in the U.S.

As others said, perhaps the biggest limit is just that there are so many more games on the market now even compared to 2010. And there’s a hard limit on how many different games someone can fully get into. There’s only so many hours. Consumer sensitivity is greater for an aggressively priced, unfinished product. Differences of $10 or $20, combined with day-one DLC, are enough to push people to decide ‘I’ll buy something else instead, or stick with what I already own’. Especially with a controversial base game underneath the pricing model

Also agree the end of Civ 6’s lifecycle was the first hint that this would be the future direction for pricing. 6 was an unexpected success for how many sales it got, and by the end it was pure profit mining from a large player base

 

[itix]

Exactly. This is the point. It all evens out. Civ1 adjusting for inflation was above $70 for those pixels you're mentioning. Also, your post assumes piracy is a thing of the past, when it is very much rampant in contemporary gaming, at numbers far higher than those of 1991 (just as w/the playerbase #s). It's all relative.

In absolute numbers, yeah, it is bigger today. Relatively, it was worse in the 90s. 0-day warez was a thing, sometimes even earlier.

My point is that $70 for a computer game in 2025 is not a tear in the fabric of space-time. It's a little on the pricy side, but by no means abnormal. A cursory search of "games that released at $70" will bring up dozens of examples and reasons for this pricing formula.

They can ask $70 for a game, but Civ 7 is not the only game in town. I have many games on my shopping list, but not so much time.