Just wrote worst review of the decade

[Thormodr]

I both agree and disagree. Yes, you are right saying Ara is a Civ challenger/Civ game does probably create the wrong expectations. Ara is very different from Civ. But at the same time...it kind of is a Civ game. It covers the same scope and most of the same concepts as Civ. It's a turn based historical 4X where you play as the immortal leader of a nation from ancient times up to modern times. You build cities, research techs to unlock new stuff, found a religion, move your scouts, settlers, and armies around, there's trade and diplomacy with other nations, and so on. From a top level perspective, you could use the exact same words to accurately describe both games. It's just that Ara solves things quite differently, and has a complex production system which is a major focus of the game. I said this during the alpha, playing Ara feels somehow familiar, yet oddly unfamiliar at the same time. Perhaps for some people it is too different, or there may be other aspects which turns them off, but I kind of love it. It is different from anything else I've played, and I see a lot of potential in it.

I find your point on making a sci-fi game based on Ara interesting. I think you are right it would be a good fit. Oxide games is co-founded by Brad Wardell, founder of Stardock, so it wouldn't be unfamiliar territory.

Personally, what I would really want now is a good fantasy civ-like though. Something similar to the Fall from Heaven modpack for Civ 4, or Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes would be great.

"Personally, what I would really want now is a good fantasy civ-like though. Something similar to the Fall from Heaven modpack for Civ 4, or Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes would be great."

Things haven't quite aligned that way, sadly. I loved the Fall from Heaven mods for Civ IV. Kael (Derek Paxton) was working for Stardock and could have made an awesome Fall from Heaven mod for Ara but alas he is now working for Amplitude on Endless Legend 2.

Mind you, Endless Legend 2 sounds like it is going to be awesome with Kael on board.

Space Ara sounds great. I could get on board with that.

 

[Thormodr]

My main problem is that it gets the act transition completely wrong. Instead of being a catchup mechanic like ages in civ 7, it instead eliminates the Civs ranked at the bottom. Which on higher difficulties is the player who has not yet caught up to AI bonuses. So basically if you make Act 2, you have more or less caught up and won the game. But there is still 2 acts out of 3 to play. (yes, I know that there is an option to exempt the player, but it feels like cheating to play by other rules than the AI)

Other than that, I feel like the balance is all over the place. Some things you make are completely overpowered, while others do not seem to be worth even the inputs required to make them.

Because Civ 7 does both of these much better, I find it to be much more fun.

You can turn off AI and player elimination between acts. Problem solved.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

"Personally, what I would really want now is a good fantasy civ-like though. Something similar to the Fall from Heaven modpack for Civ 4, or Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes would be great."

I'd like a History and Mythology hybrid turn based game: Sid Meier's Civilization Mythology. Age of Mythology always looked intriguing, but I'm not particularly interested in real time strategy.
Take the Heroes from Heroes and Legends mode and expand on that by recruiting heroes and creatures from their civilizations.

 

[KayAU]

My main problem is that it gets the act transition completely wrong. Instead of being a catchup mechanic like ages in civ 7, it instead eliminates the Civs ranked at the bottom. Which on higher difficulties is the player who has not yet caught up to AI bonuses. So basically if you make Act 2, you have more or less caught up and won the game. But there is still 2 acts out of 3 to play. (yes, I know that there is an option to exempt the player, but it feels like cheating to play by other rules than the AI)

I think the culling is a good mechanic, although I agree that there is not enough challenge past the first transition. The reason I like the culling, is that it creates some pressure in the early game to generate enough prestige to survive, driving the game forward. I also think it has a purpose in mixing things up a bit, as the culled nation's land and resources are now up for grabs, opening up new areas for expansion by those who can seize the opportunity. Finally, it provides a gameplay use for prestige. Without the culling, the fancy flexible scoring system would be reduced to little more than the score in Civ games, a number you may look at after the game is over. I actually wish they would do more with prestige, like triggering some kinds of beneficial gameplay effects.

While I like culling, I do think there is room for improvement with with how it is done, and maybe more interesting ways to handle the culled nations and their territories.

 

[ThichN]

@ThichN
It's true that video games used to be more expensive, and the price has not kept up with inflation. But I'm not sure how much sense it makes to compare Civilization 7's pricing directly with the early titles. Some things to keep in mind:

• Games used to be distributed on physical media, often in big boxes, with instruction manuals. There's a cost both to the items, and to the distribution itself.
• Games used to make their money off that initial sale, there was no DLC to provide a continuing stream of revenue.
• I think it is fair to say that people buy a lot more games these days, and with digital distribution reducing the unit cost to basically nothing, it makes sense that volume has gone up, and relative pricing down.

I think to compare apples with apples, you have to look at how current games are priced. Looking at my Steam front page, Civ 7 is the most expensive one there. If I go to new releases, Civ 7 is the most expensive one there. This is the price of the base game. They were also selling editions where they charged a significant amount of money for things like not having to wait an extra 5 days, and future DLC which I had no way to assess the value of. They really went all in with exploiting the most dedicated fans this time around. The price of the top edition of Civ 7 cost more than twice what I paid for the top edition of Civ 6.

From my point of view, 2K seem to be trying to tick off every box they can when it comes to anti-consumer practices, including releasing the game in a poorly finished state, using 3rd party DRM, charging for "5 days Early Access", cutting away content for day 1 DLC, and selling poorly specified/unspecified future content before the game is even released. And if the reviews are anything to go by, the DLC is probably quite overpriced. I just took a look at the reviews for the DLC, and if you think Civ 7 has gotten poor reviews on Steam...hoo boy. The Deluxe Content Pack currently sits at 23% positive, and may soon drop significantly, as recent reviews are at just 13%. Crossroads of the World is doing even worse, with all time reviews at 12% positive, and recent reviews at a whopping 10%. Admittedly, it's a very low review count, so it could change...but so far, people seem to be very unimpressed with the value of the DLC.

Please understand, I don't mean to attack Firaxis here. They have made so many of my favorite games, and I am actually glad they are trying new things. Surely they knew that things like civ switching would lead to some backlash, as these changes always do, and still they moved forward with new ideas. I am not sure if I personally will like those ideas, but I keep an open mind, and admire them for taking a chance. That said, I think Civ 7 has been hit by a perfect storm of being released too early, while introducing controversial changes, and with a publisher who is completely out of touch and trying to extract as much money as they can, in any way they can. It sucks, because Civilization is probably, almost certainly, my favorite games franchise, and I suspect that is the case for many of us on these forums. I think we need to be honest, though. This has been a very bad launch, and for 2K's part, I think the backlash may be entirely deserved.

Thanks for your reply @KayAU ! I see what you're saying. But you also have to account for these things, then:

• Dev teams have more members with more complicated tasks; general processing fees, production quality, tech, etc. is exponentially more costly, not to mention pay for larger teams
• There was DLC in very similar schedules to Civ7; as was explained above with another post on Civ5's release schedule
• Going back to Civ2, there were expansions. Civ2 had 2 expansion packs (each ~$25/pop at the time IIRC), another version ("Multiplayer Gold Edition") and then later Test of Time

I think accounting for these things, the pricing as it relates to the release state of the game are actually not that different, over generations of Civ. I can't look back at previous releases with rose-colored glasses. I remember dishing out for this stuff! I don't feel that this release is inherently worse. I think it is being perceived as worse for a variety of factors which I won't get into here.

The remainder of your thesis (on civ-switching, placing emphasis on steam reviews, overpriced, poor release state) -- I disagree with. But one thing I can certainly agree with you on is 2K's less-than-ideal policies -- especially on the DRM. Capitalism in overdrive. But I find the polarization overall interesting when put into perspective.

 

[j51]

@ThichN
It's true that video games used to be more expensive, and the price has not kept up with inflation. But I'm not sure how much sense it makes to compare Civilization 7's pricing directly with the early titles. Some things to keep in mind:

• Games used to be distributed on physical media, often in big boxes, with instruction manuals. There's a cost both to the items, and to the distribution itself.
• Games used to make their money off that initial sale, there was no DLC to provide a continuing stream of revenue.
• I think it is fair to say that people buy a lot more games these days, and with digital distribution reducing the unit cost to basically nothing, it makes sense that volume has gone up, and relative pricing down.

I think to compare apples with apples, you have to look at how current games are priced. Looking at my Steam front page, Civ 7 is the most expensive one there. If I go to new releases, Civ 7 is the most expensive one there. This is the price of the base game. They were also selling editions where they charged a significant amount of money for things like not having to wait an extra 5 days, and future DLC which I had no way to assess the value of. They really went all in with exploiting the most dedicated fans this time around. The price of the top edition of Civ 7 cost more than twice what I paid for the top edition of Civ 6.

From my point of view, 2K seem to be trying to tick off every box they can when it comes to anti-consumer practices, including releasing the game in a poorly finished state, using 3rd party DRM, charging for "5 days Early Access", cutting away content for day 1 DLC, and selling poorly specified/unspecified future content before the game is even released. And if the reviews are anything to go by, the DLC is probably quite overpriced. I just took a look at the reviews for the DLC, and if you think Civ 7 has gotten poor reviews on Steam...hoo boy. The Deluxe Content Pack currently sits at 23% positive, and may soon drop significantly, as recent reviews are at just 13%. Crossroads of the World is doing even worse, with all time reviews at 12% positive, and recent reviews at a whopping 10%. Admittedly, it's a very low review count, so it could change...but so far, people seem to be very unimpressed with the value of the DLC.

Please understand, I don't mean to attack Firaxis here. They have made so many of my favorite games, and I am actually glad they are trying new things. Surely they knew that things like civ switching would lead to some backlash, as these changes always do, and still they moved forward with new ideas. I am not sure if I personally will like those ideas, but I keep an open mind, and admire them for taking a chance. That said, I think Civ 7 has been hit by a perfect storm of being released too early, while introducing controversial changes, and with a publisher who is completely out of touch and trying to extract as much money as they can, in any way they can. It sucks, because Civilization is probably, almost certainly, my favorite games franchise, and I suspect that is the case for many of us on these forums. I think we need to be honest, though. This has been a very bad launch, and for 2K's part, I think the backlash may be entirely deserved.

This is the best domestication of the whole situation I’ve read. Even if I don’t agree with all of it, it captures the nuance of everything. Kudos!

 

[Buckets]

@ThichN
It's true that video games used to be more expensive, and the price has not kept up with inflation. But I'm not sure how much sense it makes to compare Civilization 7's pricing directly with the early titles. Some things to keep in mind:

• Games used to be distributed on physical media, often in big boxes, with instruction manuals. There's a cost both to the items, and to the distribution itself.
• Games used to make their money off that initial sale, there was no DLC to provide a continuing stream of revenue.
• I think it is fair to say that people buy a lot more games these days, and with digital distribution reducing the unit cost to basically nothing, it makes sense that volume has gone up, and relative pricing down.

I think to compare apples with apples, you have to look at how current games are priced. Looking at my Steam front page, Civ 7 is the most expensive one there. If I go to new releases, Civ 7 is the most expensive one there. This is the price of the base game. They were also selling editions where they charged a significant amount of money for things like not having to wait an extra 5 days, and future DLC which I had no way to assess the value of. They really went all in with exploiting the most dedicated fans this time around. The price of the top edition of Civ 7 cost more than twice what I paid for the top edition of Civ 6.

From my point of view, 2K seem to be trying to tick off every box they can when it comes to anti-consumer practices, including releasing the game in a poorly finished state, using 3rd party DRM, charging for "5 days Early Access", cutting away content for day 1 DLC, and selling poorly specified/unspecified future content before the game is even released. And if the reviews are anything to go by, the DLC is probably quite overpriced. I just took a look at the reviews for the DLC, and if you think Civ 7 has gotten poor reviews on Steam...hoo boy. The Deluxe Content Pack currently sits at 23% positive, and may soon drop significantly, as recent reviews are at just 13%. Crossroads of the World is doing even worse, with all time reviews at 12% positive, and recent reviews at a whopping 10%. Admittedly, it's a very low review count, so it could change...but so far, people seem to be very unimpressed with the value of the DLC.

Please understand, I don't mean to attack Firaxis here. They have made so many of my favorite games, and I am actually glad they are trying new things. Surely they knew that things like civ switching would lead to some backlash, as these changes always do, and still they moved forward with new ideas. I am not sure if I personally will like those ideas, but I keep an open mind, and admire them for taking a chance. That said, I think Civ 7 has been hit by a perfect storm of being released too early, while introducing controversial changes, and with a publisher who is completely out of touch and trying to extract as much money as they can, in any way they can. It sucks, because Civilization is probably, almost certainly, my favorite games franchise, and I suspect that is the case for many of us on these forums. I think we need to be honest, though. This has been a very bad launch, and for 2K's part, I think the backlash may be entirely deserved.

Counterpoint: lines of code and art asset counts have gone up over time.

 

[Evie]

Counterpoint: lines of code and art asset counts have gone up over time.

And are generally the biggest predictor (in the simplest form of byte size) of how much it costs to make a game.

 

[KayAU]

Counterpoint: lines of code and art asset counts have gone up over time.

Yes absolutely, it is generally a lot more expensive to make games now, at least for high production value games. I don't know what Civ 7's budget was, but I have heard rumors, and I believe it's a very large number. We could probably have a whole separate discussion about whether games really need to be that expensive and whether we agree with what is being prioritised in the budgets, but I don't really think it changes much with regards to the main points I was trying to make:
1. I don't think we can really compare the price directly with the early releases.
2. If we compare with other modern games - and I don't see what else we could reasonably compare it to, there is no getting around the fact that Civ 7 is at the very top of the price range. I have kept looking around Steam for more expensive games, and I have literally not been able to find one. I have found a few which are just slightly below, but none which cost the same or more. I don't see how one could argue that Civ 7 is not expensive, when it in fact costs more than other games.

As I mentioned, it is not just the base price which bothers me, and I think there's a lot about how 2K does things which is problematic.

 

[canadamufc]

Please understand, I don't mean to attack Firaxis here. They have made so many of my favorite games, and I am actually glad they are trying new things. Surely they knew that things like civ switching would lead to some backlash, as these changes always do, and still they moved forward with new ideas. I am not sure if I personally will like those ideas, but I keep an open mind, and admire them for taking a chance. That said, I think Civ 7 has been hit by a perfect storm of being released too early, while introducing controversial changes, and with a publisher who is completely out of touch and trying to extract as much money as they can, in any way they can. It sucks, because Civilization is probably, almost certainly, my favorite games franchise, and I suspect that is the case for many of us on these forums. I think we need to be honest, though. This has been a very bad launch, and for 2K's part, I think the backlash may be entirely deserved.

Thank you, KayAU, you have hit the nail on the head for the feelings of I and I'm sure many others.

The things that put me off aren't the mechanics, rather it's their monetization which is completely deranged and exploits their most loyal customers. The way this launch and the subsequent DLC has been handled is unbelievable.

 

[Siptah]

Thank you, KayAU, you have hit the nail on the head for the feelings of I and I'm sure many others.

The things that put me off aren't the mechanics, rather it's their monetization which is completely deranged and exploits their most loyal customers. The way this launch and the subsequent DLC has been handled is unbelievable.

The funny thing for me is that I was at this point with civ 6 already: after GS I felt that it's too much about maximizing profits and there isn't enough time/care for the game, to the point that the game suffers a lot because of this. Hence, I was sure that I would have no interest in civ 7 when I saw that it would be announced in August. Then I saw the big changes (which were also right up my alley), and thought: hm, so they are willing to take a risk and introduce new ideas instead of just capitalizing on the civ 6 formula with slight changes? I want to experience that! And here I am - happy that I jumped in, enjoying the game very much, but super annoyed by the monetization strategy and the obvious lack of time/care the game and DLC needed (even more annoyed than with 6 tbh). Of course, I didn't expect a game that has incredible creative sparks in conjunction with polish, fair pricing, and balance - it's civilization after all, not Mario (kudos to Nintendo for how they always got this right in the past years btw). But no, we have some creative sparks, a fun game, but no fair pricing, no polish, and no balance (except for the wrong one, i.e., balanced tile yields) - and it looks like it will continue that way.

 

[_hero_]

The things that put me off aren't the mechanics, rather it's their monetization which is completely deranged and exploits their most loyal customers. The way this launch and the subsequent DLC has been handled is unbelievable.

I think it's both for most people.

 

[itix]

Thanks for your reply @KayAU ! I see what you're saying. But you also have to account for these things, then:

• Dev teams have more members with more complicated tasks; general processing fees, production quality, tech, etc. is exponentially more costly, not to mention pay for larger teams

Dev teams are bigger, but so is the customer base. In 1991, using a PC with MS-DOS was not for everyone. Atari ST and Amiga were on the decline. Piracy was insanely big: almost nobody bought games or apps.

Counterpoint: lines of code and art asset counts have gone up over time.

Thanks to better development tools and languages, I can manage larger projects and code bases than was possible in the 90s. Information is available: in the 90s I had to read it from books but today I can check StackOverflow or other programmer resources for answers. Or use ChatGPT to solve the problem.
It is probably making assets that ballooned development costs. In Civ 1 you had 16x16 pixel art for units. Now it is animated 3D.

 

[KayAU]

The funny thing for me is that I was at this point with civ 6 already: after GS I felt that it's too much about maximizing profits and there isn't enough time/care for the game, to the point that the game suffers a lot because of this. Hence, I was sure that I would have no interest in civ 7 when I saw that it would be announced in August. Then I saw the big changes (which were also right up my alley), and thought: hm, so they are willing to take a risk and introduce new ideas instead of just capitalizing on the civ 6 formula with slight changes? I want to experience that! And here I am - happy that I jumped in, enjoying the game very much, but super annoyed by the monetization strategy and the obvious lack of time/care the game and DLC needed (even more annoyed than with 6 tbh). Of course, I didn't expect a game that has incredible creative sparks in conjunction with polish, fair pricing, and balance - it's civilization after all, not Mario (kudos to Nintendo for how they always got this right in the past years btw). But no, we have some creative sparks, a fun game, but no fair pricing, no polish, and no balance (except for the wrong one, i.e., balanced tile yields) - and it looks like it will continue that way.

I can relate to this. I have often complained about how they prioritised monetisable content for Civ 6 over much needed refinement, integration and polish of what was already there. It's one of the main reasons why I was a bit wary of Civ 7 initially, and after they started taking pre-orders and I saw their pricing and DLC offerings, I decided to take a wait-and-see approach this time around. With Civ 6, I pre-ordered the top edition. This time, I hope to buy it at a sale when it is less expensive, and hopefully in a better state. It would also be encouraging if they removed Denuvo. I don't know how much I actually need to worry about it, but at this point, it might be a good idea for 2K to show some willingness to listen to feedback.

 

[ThichN]

2. If we compare with other modern games - and I don't see what else we could reasonably compare it to, there is no getting around the fact that Civ 7 is at the very top of the price range. I have kept looking around Steam for more expensive games, and I have literally not been able to find one. I have found a few which are just slightly below, but none which cost the same or more. I don't see how one could argue that Civ 7 is not expensive, when it in fact costs more than other games.

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.

Dev teams are bigger, but so is the customer base. In 1991, using a PC with MS-DOS was not for everyone. Atari ST and Amiga were on the decline. Piracy was insanely big: almost nobody bought games or apps.

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.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Civ V is the only game I ever bought on release. I paid $60. Later in its life cycle, I paid $30 each for the two big expansions. Only very much later, when they were on a good sale, did I pick up all of the little one-civ releases, so that I eventually had the entire game.

In retrospect, I was perfectly happy with that financial model. Together, the two expansions gave me what I felt was the equivalent of a new game (so, worth the additional $60). By not initially buying the futzy little releases, I wasn't missing anything critical to gameplay, just one or two fewer civs to play with/against.

And the biggest thing. Because the total conception of the game was eventually to have those two major expansions, they kept the programming team in place after the initial release, and in the period between the two expansions, that meant they could fix bugs and rebalance the game. So the game kept getting better in little ways even before the major expansions appeared.

The game was disappointing to veteran players on release. In fact, the narrative was that it was such a dud that the lead designer had to be fired and a new designer had to "rescue" the game. I wasn't a discriminating enough player to be able to see it as a dud, but I did see some of the early problems and I was happy that they got addressed in early patches. So from my point of view, the game kept steadily improving.

I assume that the long-term vision for Civ VII was something along those lines, and it's a model I could live with, because it would mean that even if the Steam player-counts and reviews are indicating serious problems, there exists the will and the resources and a mechanism to try to address those.

The two things that maybe complicate that model this time around are 1) how early in the life-cycle the new content is coming as DLCs rather than patches. In Civ V, when it was patches in the early going, I just felt the company kept giving me things; now it sounds like people feel they are instead primarily charging for things. And 2) maybe trying to cover all platforms, including mobile, is stretching a 4x further than it really can be stretched in search of a new customer base.

People have noted that the dissatisfaction concerns both the game-design and the business-model. I'm trying to put those two together and say that customers could be more patient with game-design development (as I was with V) if there weren't the alienating cash-grab elements of the business model.

Edit: Oh, and I suppose one more thing occurs to me, so 3). 3) given the design of Civ VII, civs don't feel as much like extra content that an individual player can just opt for or choose to do without. For those people who want historically viable pathways, fleshing out the game with additional civs feels like a necessary addition to the game content, rather than an optional one.

 

[KayAU]

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 strongly disagree with this characterization. Ara released with some bugs, but nothing excessive. It has an ambitious scope and innovative mechanics. It has received substantial free updates, and is pre-funded to keep receiving those for another 6 months. There were three editions at launch, fairly priced, with only things like cosmetics and a sountrack kept for the higher editions. You could get the full experience for the base price. There has been no paid DLC announced yet, their focus has been on improving the base game and adding free content. There is also no third party DRM.

With regards to reception, Ara sits at 68% positive, right below the "Mostly Positive" threshold, and is trending up, with recent reviews at 82%, "Very Positive".

I respect that the game may not be to everyone's liking, that's to be expected. But with regards to how the developer and publisher has behaved, I think it has been pretty darn good.

Also, I think there must be som regional pricing issue here, as Ara is 600 NOK here, Civ 7 is 829 (base game). Ara was discounted 50% during the recent sale, during which it was just a bit more than a third of the price of Civ 7.

 

[Kev1916]

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

 

[ThichN]

I strongly disagree with this characterization. Ara released with some bugs, but nothing excessive. It has an ambitious scope and innovative mechanics. It has received substantial free updates, and is pre-funded to keep receiving those for another 6 months. There were three editions at launch, fairly priced, with only things like cosmetics and a sountrack kept for the higher editions. You could get the full experience for the base price. There has been no paid DLC announced yet, their focus has been on improving the base game and adding free content. There is also no third party DRM.

With regards to reception, Ara sits at 68% positive, right below the "Mostly Positive" threshold, and is trending up, with recent reviews at 82%, "Very Positive".

I respect that the game may not be to everyone's liking, that's to be expected. But with regards to how the developer and publisher has behaved, I think it has been pretty darn good.

Also, I think there must be som regional pricing issue here, as Ara is 600 NOK here, Civ 7 is 829 (base game). Ara was discounted 50% during the recent sale, during which it was just a bit more than a third of the price of Civ 6.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Ara has received updates in the last few months on the very basics of its gameplay. A diplomacy update was just released last week which finally fleshed out that entire section of the game six months after release. It just feels a little like the pot calling the kettle black. While I appreciate the free content being released, this is an exception to the norm -- and really, given the bare bones of what was released last September (far more bare bones than Civ7 imho), it seems necessary.

Your reception comment is months after release, too. Ara received downright negative reviews upon its release, hence the mixed reviews half a year later. Let's not forget release states of games, and let's be honest about the situation.

I'd like to identify how Firaxis hasn't behaved well. They've listened to the community in just a month's time and are in the works of releasing patches to what many are criticizing. How is this any different? If you want to identify how 2K doesn't behave well with pricing schemes and 3rd-party DRM, as I've said, I can agree with those criticisms, but with the caveat that we not forget that nearly every other 4x publisher/game does the same, including previous iterations of Civ (DRM excluding).

Btw, all of the friends I play multiplayer with for Civ7 have "only" the base game and are enjoying it. I think 4x games these days have DLC, and you can opt in to them or not. Let's not treat Civ7 as an isolated case. I don't see at all how any of the additional content is required to enjoy the game. Again, not saying anything about the morality of this, or that it is right, but that it feels strange to critique one game and not all of the others for similar practices.

 

[KayAU]

I'd like to identify how Firaxis hasn't behaved well. They've listened to the community in just a month's time and are in the works of releasing patches to what many are criticizing. How is this any different?

My criticisms have been aimed at 2K only. I've tried to make that clear, but guess I didn't quite succeed. I can't say much about how Firaxis have behaved with regards to patching, as I have not really been paying close attention to that. My impression is that people seem to be mostly happy about it.

The only thing I believe I said about Firaxis specifically, was when I gave them credit for taking a chance on new mechanics which they knew would be met with backlash. I actually think that is a good thing, though I would have to reserve judgement on the mechanics themselves until I've played the game myself.