New Versions

[arkantos6690]

Something I can't quite understand.......

Software, game or otherwise, comes out. It has pros and cons.
It is around for a while, so the producers KNOW what specific flaws it has, and they KNOW what people like and what they want changed.

So......the LOGIC says, you take the existing software, and simply TWEAK it to make it perfect.

But.....no. Why?

Instead, they come out with completely new software, a completely different game.

Why? Millions loved the old game and only wanted you to fix what you messed up the first time around.

People want a game to PLAY WELL.
They are not yelling for you to make it more "pretty" so they have to buy an entirely new computer to handle the graphics.

People invest not only money in a game, but thousands of hours of real time establishing MUSCLE MEMORY.

at the VERY least, the interface of the new game should be controlled by the user, so they can use the OLD interface they Already Understand.

Price goes up. Graphics are more pretty. Interface is now hugely confusing and NON intuitive, game play makes ZERO LOGICAL sense, new game costs TEN times more than the old one and offers NOTHING for the extra money.

Comparison: Civ 4 and Civ 5.
Civ 5 is so horrifically BAD, non intuitive ILLOGICAL, cumbersome that an entire series of PARODY videos have been put up on YouTube about this FAIL.

EXPLAIN the logic of excluding thousand and thousand of potential sales by setting the graphics requirements so high that MOST people cannot play the game at all?

 

[lymond]

I don't think there is any point I disagree with in your post. ha...if only the world worked that way...or more aptly ..corporations.

 

[AcaMetis]

The logic is that most people do want new stuff, rather than pay full price for basically a 1.5 version or "level pack" of a game they already own. Sure, there's time and effort spend adjusting to the new stuff, but it's better than playing the same game again and again. A functional formula can, over the course of a number of sequels, be refined to absolute perfection. But if it doesn't continue to evolve along the way people will eventually just write it off as a(nother) stale cash-grab. And when developers completely mess the mark on that required evolution, intentionally or otherwise, well...it ends poorly.

As for the focus on graphics and, to a lesser extent, increasingly more outlandish controller/screen gimmicks, it's a cheap way for a game to stand out in what is by now a very large crowd, and a way for corporations to make money off of an idea or mechanic that they entirely own, rather than something they have to share (and, in turn, compete) with everyone else. Basically, ask yourself how SE could convince the JRPG crowd to buy (and, preferably, pre-order) a full priced FF XVI, complete with Season Pass promising story DLC and who knows what else, when those same people could instead get their JRPG fix from FF I, FF II, all the way to FF XV, as well as God knows how many other JRPS that are readily available on Steam, consoles and a number of other platforms, offering a wide variety of mechanics, stories, and what-have-you. And in many cases for a (much) cheaper price than FF XVI will be marketed at, even before DLC. The simplest solution is to abuse the fact that hardware has gotten better since FF XV, so FF XVI can be sold on it's better, prettier graphics. As well as the fact that it's "new". A new world, a new story, etc.

At least, that's my understanding of it. Opinions/facts/etc. may differ.

 

[arkantos6690]

The logic is that most people do want new stuff, rather than pay full price for basically a 1.5 version or "level pack" of a game they already own. Sure, there's time and effort spend adjusting to the new stuff, but it's better than playing the same game again and again. A functional formula can, over the course of a number of sequels, be refined to absolute perfection. But if it doesn't continue to evolve along the way people will eventually just write it off as a(nother) stale cash-grab. And when developers completely mess the mark on that required evolution, intentionally or otherwise, well...it ends poorly.

As for the focus on graphics and, to a lesser extent, increasingly more outlandish controller/screen gimmicks, it's a cheap way for a game to stand out in what is by now a very large crowd, and a way for corporations to make money off of an idea or mechanic that they entirely own, rather than something they have to share (and, in turn, compete) with everyone else. Basically, ask yourself how SE could convince the JRPG crowd to buy (and, preferably, pre-order) a full priced FF XVI, complete with Season Pass promising story DLC and who knows what else, when those same people could instead get their JRPG fix from FF I, FF II, all the way to FF XV, as well as God knows how many other JRPS that are readily available on Steam, consoles and a number of other platforms, offering a wide variety of mechanics, stories, and what-have-you. And in many cases for a (much) cheaper price than FF XVI will be marketed at, even before DLC. The simplest solution is to abuse the fact that hardware has gotten better since FF XV, so FF XVI can be sold on it's better, prettier graphics. As well as the fact that it's "new". A new world, a new story, etc.

At least, that's my understanding of it. Opinions/facts/etc. may differ.

A lot of presumption there that the reader will understand all those acronyms.
Still does not make any sense.
If you do nothing but make the graphics more pretty, you automatically Block Out thouands of
potential sales of people who:

1. Cannot afford to upgrade their computer;
2. Care about story, game, mechanics, NOT flashy garbage.

You LOSE money by going to graphics that a huge number of people cannot run, and don't want anyway.

I actually paid money for CIV five, and HATE it with a passion. is it beautiful to look at? Yes, but the Interface is DOG SH*T confusing, sluggish, non intuitive gargbage.
And, as the YouTube parody series shows, the game is Immensely Stupid, NO LOGIC.

 

[arkantos6690]

A lot of presumption there that the reader will understand all those acronyms.
Still does not make any sense.
If you do nothing but make the graphics more pretty, you automatically Block Out thouands of
potential sales of people who:

1. Cannot afford to upgrade their computer;
2. Care about story, game, mechanics, NOT flashy garbage.

You LOSE money by going to graphics that a huge number of people cannot run, and don't want anyway.

I actually paid money for CIV five, and HATE it with a passion. is it beautiful to look at? Yes, but the Interface is DOG SH*T confusing, sluggish, non intuitive gargbage.
And, as the YouTube parody series shows, the game is Immensely Stupid, NO LOGIC.

A lot of presumption there that the reader will understand all those acronyms.
Still does not make any sense.
If you do nothing but make the graphics more pretty, you automatically Block Out thouands of
potential sales of people who:

1. Cannot afford to upgrade their computer;
2. Care about story, game, mechanics, NOT flashy garbage.

You LOSE money by going to graphics that a huge number of people cannot run, and don't want anyway.

I actually paid money for CIV five, and HATE it with a passion. is it beautiful to look at? Yes, but the Interface is DOG SH*T confusing, sluggish, non intuitive gargbage.
And, as the YouTube parody series shows, the game is Immensely Stupid, NO LOGIC.

People WOULDN"T have to pay full price for a version of Civ Four that fixes all it's flaws, since all that is needed is software tweaks.
Like buying new tires instead of a whole new car.

I don't think there is any point I disagree with in your post. ha...if only the world worked that way...or more aptly ..corporations.

 

[Windsor]

Free To Play games work that way. Just look at an old game like League of Legends, came out in 2009 and is still being tweaked.

 

[Jerrymander]

Instead, they come out with completely new software, a completely different game.

Why? Millions loved the old game and only wanted you to fix what you messed up the first time around.

In August of 2005, Firaxis Games was purchased by publishing giant Take-Two Interactive. Firaxis was a privately held company with the goal of providing a livelihood and meaning for its owners and employees, and accomplished that by producing a quality product with talented developers. Take-Two is a publicly traded company with the goal of providing an income stream to its shareholders, and accomplished that by producing any product that sells. Clearly, Civilization 5 holds more mass appeal than Civilization 4 and consequently represents a better investment for the shareholders.

This also happened when EA Games bought Maxis. The excellent simulation games from the early 90s were gone and we were left with the soulless Sims games and an endless tirade of overpriced crap and expansion packs.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Building on what Jerrymander wrote -- Both Civ V and Civ VI were written to use the Steam marketplace, rather than standalone CD/DVD sales. That trend (whether we fans of Civ IV like it or not) is moving forward in the industry, and is a component of the streaming market as well. Would you consider a reboot of Civ IV (fixing a few flaws, additional Civs) if it required Steam?

Steam also let them leverage other resources for multi-player games, make additional revenue from downloadable content (DLC) that can be released more frequently that full expansions, and reduce marketing costs with a common platform for all of the Take-Two games.

I'm happily playing Civ IV BTS on my new Windows 10 computer, through Steam, because I don't want to be tied to Windows 7 or earlier on older, slower computer(s).

 

[Petromax]

I've only played Civs 2, 3, and 4. There are things about Civ2 that I really wish hadn't been abandoned in later games. It seems like once something has been changed, it stays that way even if the change turns out to be not so good. Civ4 is so great because it's mainly focused on improvements rather than radical redesigns. Civ3 didn't really do that, I think. I understand that Civ2 was a very good sequel to 1 also.
There could be many reasons for this. I imagine that one is the fact that it's not the same people designing each game, so there's not much creative continuity. The fact that some company has a monopoly on the name "Civilization" does not mean that every game they make under that name will actually be similar to the original, and it doesn't really make sense to expect that. The name is not what makes the game
Copyright means they don't have to keep working on the game to profit from it. There's no incentive to improve it past a certain point, except love of the game. There are still people modding Civ4, long after it's been abandoned by the original developers. That's really the only way to have continual improvement rather than sudden shifts every few years, because the people working on mods do so because they actually care.

I think Test of Time and Civ3 have the prettiest graphics.