Should I get founders or deluxe editions?

[AntSou]

Huh, so there is literally no reason to pre-order.

Probably like NFP. Slightly cheaper to buy it all bundled than the parts separately?

 

[Kjimmet]

Huh, so there is literally no reason to pre-order.

Is there ever?

 

[Disgustipated]

I would say wait until we have more information. The game looks amazing, but I still have some fears that the game will be all about pretty stuff, and the gameplay may not match up to how gorgeous it is. I will almost certainly buy it unless streamers games look really bad just before launch, but I'm not paying extra for the other editions.

 

[Chapel]

Re the OP I'm also confused. Will the founders edition save me money if I'll buy all the dlc anyway? At the moment I'm going for the deluxe edition.

I don't think we have that information yet but I am open to being corrected if wrong.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

The thing that's annoying me about all these editions is the personas. Before watching the Ashoka first look, I hadn't quite appreciated that the personas were more than just skins. Now I want all the personas, but don't want to buy the Founder's edition just for a couple of extra ones, especially when I don't care about cosmetic things or early access and can happily buy the DLC packs later. I really hope the personas will be available separately at a later date as well.

 

[Siptah]

The thing that's annoying me about all these editions is the personas. Before watching the Ashoka first look, I hadn't quite appreciated that the personas were more than just skins. Now I want all the personas, but don't want to buy the Founder's edition just for a couple of extra ones, especially when I don't care about cosmetic things or early access and can happily buy the DLC packs later. I really hope the personas will be available separately at a later date as well.

I doubt that we get clarity on that before release, as alleviating the FOMO might hurt sales. The deluxe upgrade pack will stay available afaik, and probably will also be discounted at some point so that you don‘t feel as if you would be paying for cosmetics. I‘m not sure whether the founder‘s upgrade will ever be sold again. I mean, the very point of the pack seems to be „exclusive stuff for people that hopped on the train as soon as possible.“ Maybe at the very end of the development cycle? Or FXS takes a PDX turn and adds it for free to all owners in 2030.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

I wish there was a "Simply Get Everything" pack, which would include all the DLCs and later expansions for the game, as something we could pre-order or buy on release. I wonder, why it's not an option?

 

[Leyrann]

I wish there was a "Simply Get Everything" pack, which would include all the DLCs and later expansions for the game, as something we could pre-order or buy on release. I wonder, why it's not an option?

That's what the Founder's Edition is.

They haven't included anything beyond, what is it, September 2025 or something, because they haven't locked in what content they'll work on by then, when it will release, and what price it will be.

 

[Siptah]

I can see them adopting a season pass model à la CK3 or Anno 1800. For example, in September they announce two more civ packs and one expansion by name only that will come out until summer 26 and offer a package. Instead of 20+20+40 = $80, you pay $70 and get a free exclusive persona if you pre-order the season pass. I wouldn‘t be surprised at all if something like this will happen. A full preorder for all content seems wild (and what would you pay? $500?)

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

That's what the Founder's Edition is.

They haven't included anything beyond, what is it, September 2025 or something, because they haven't locked in what content they'll work on by then, when it will release, and what price it will be.

It's absolutely not. It has some of the DLC content but not all that will ever be in Civ 7. And definetely none of the expansions.

A full preorder for all content seems wild (and what would you pay? $500?)

I was thinking something closer to $350. 3x of Founders Edition with a 10% discount for paying upfront for everything. Seems to be fair, considering there will be 2 major expansions. And yes, that's a lot of money to put upfront for a videogame and one wouldn't do it for most of the titles, but Civilization franchise has enough trust of the player base to offer such deal. I'd consider it much more preferable than constant milking with DLCs. I want to play the game with all the content, not spend my time and attention on bazzilion individual offers.

 

[Isengardtom]

It's absolutely not. It has some of the DLC content but not all that will ever be in Civ 7. And definetely none of the expansions.



I was thinking something closer to $350. 3x of Founders Edition with a 10% discount for paying upfront for everything. Seems to be fair, considering there will be 2 major expansions. And yes, that's a lot of money to put upfront for a videogame and one wouldn't do it for most of the titles, but Civilization franchise has enough trust of the player base to offer such deal. I'd consider it much more preferable than constant milking with DLCs. I want to play the game with all the content, not spend my time and attention on bazzilion individual offers.

Is it confirmed there will be two expansions? I think I read somewhere that unlike with Civ 6, 7 will be more feature complete and that we will most likely get a future era expansion, but that the rest will be more small DLC like leaders, Civs, buildings, wonders, natural wonders,...

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Is it confirmed there will be two expansions? I think I read somewhere that unlike with Civ 6, 7 will be more feature complete and that we will most likely get a future era expansion, but that the rest will be more small DLC like leaders, Civs, buildings, wonders, natural wonders,...

It's all complete conjecture at this point, we simply have no idea.

 

[Leyrann]

It's absolutely not. It has some of the DLC content but not all that will ever be in Civ 7. And definetely none of the expansions.

Yes, I acknowledged that.

They can't put a price tag on content they don't know whether or not they'll create it. That's why it's not included.

Maybe there'll be two expansions. Maybe there'll be three expansions and twelve DLCs. Maybe it's just twenty DLCs and no expansions. Maybe the game flops and they don't release anything after the eight DLCs associated with the Founder's Edition. Maybe individual DLCs by 2027 are priced at 5 dollars. Maybe they'll be priced at 15.

You cannot put a price tag on any of that at this point. The most complete package that they know they will create and know how much they'll ask for it is the Founder's Edition. Anything beyond that is subject to change. They can't ask two hundred dollars because it might only end up being eighty dollars, and they can't ask eighty dollars because it might end up being two hundred dollars.

I want to play the game with all the content, not spend my time and attention on bazzilion individual offers.

I think it is highly likely that future DLCs will be presented as collections or season passes, allowing you to buy a year's worth of them at once, ahead of time.

If all you want is to purchase all content for the minimum price available, frankly, you should just wait five or six years and then buy the complete, golden, ultimate or whatever they call it package for 80% off. Right now, there is no way for Firaxis and 2K to know how much content will be in that final package, so there is also no way they can offer it, even if they want to.

 

[chaosprophet]

It's absolutely not. It has some of the DLC content but not all that will ever be in Civ 7. And definetely none of the expansions.

Just like Leyrann said, they don't do that because they have no idea how many expansions and dlcs, nor how often they will come out to make sense selling it that ahead. Especially considering where things go will depend on sucess and like take feedback from players.

At most we may see season passes from time to time, so you can pay early for content for about a year, as it is content they already have decided to make and can give us at least an idea of what to expect on them.

The closest to your idea would be the subscription model paradox uses on some of their games now, where you pay a monthly amount and have access to the game and all DLCs. Albeit that is only makes monetary sense when you have a game already out with tons of dlcs where entering gets very expensive, and for games like paradox where you can go play a couple 100 hours in a month and then not play for a few months so you only pay the subscription when you're on the playing cycle.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Is it confirmed there will be two expansions? I think I read somewhere that unlike with Civ 6, 7 will be more feature complete and that we will most likely get a future era expansion, but that the rest will be more small DLC like leaders, Civs, buildings, wonders, natural wonders,...

No, I'm reasoning based on the previous games here.

They can't put a price tag on content they don't know whether or not they'll create it. That's why it's not included.

Maybe there'll be two expansions. Maybe there'll be three expansions and twelve DLCs. Maybe it's just twenty DLCs and no expansions. Maybe the game flops and they don't release anything after the eight DLCs associated with the Founder's Edition. Maybe individual DLCs by 2027 are priced at 5 dollars. Maybe they'll be priced at 15.

Of course they can. They can include all this uncertainty into a probabilistic model, extrapolate from previous games, and come up with a reasonable estimate. If the players can buy a pack without knowing what exactly is there then so can the devs sell a pack without absolute certainty on what's inside. This would, actually be fairer as there is less information assymetry between the two parties.

I think it is highly likely that future DLCs will be presented as collections or season passes, allowing you to buy a year's worth of them at once, ahead of time.

Yes, season passes are somewhat of an improvement but still they introduce unnecessary cognitive labor which you don't have when you simply pay upfront for everything

If all you want is to purchase all content for the minimum price available, frankly, you should just wait five or six years and then buy the complete, golden, ultimate or whatever they call it package for 80% off. Right now, there is no way for Firaxis and 2K to know how much content will be in that final package, so there is also no way they can offer it, even if they want to.

Yep, I know. Quite often that's exactly what I do. And I'd be doing it less often if there was a complete edition of the game available for pre-order or on the release. Also offering a heavily discounted complete edition afterwards without first offering it for full price beforehand makes little sense from the perspective of the developper. So the situations seems weird to me - both people like me and devellopers would benefit from the existence of such deal. And yet it doesn't exist.

 

[Leyrann]

Of course they can. They can include all this uncertainty into a probabilistic model, extrapolate from previous games, and come up with a reasonable estimate. If the players can buy a pack without knowing what exactly is there then so can the devs sell a pack without absolute certainty on what's inside. This would, actually be fairer as there is less information assymetry between the two parties.

No. No, they absolutely cannot.

Any game before Civ VI is not a reasonable 'past performance' to use, just look at the huge differences between post-release support between Civ V and Civ VI. And a single data point is a horrible base for extrapolation.

Also, the risk of bad PR from people feeling like they aren't getting their money's worth is simply far too big to allow for this in the first place.

Yes, season passes are somewhat of an improvement but still they introduce unnecessary cognitive labor which you don't have when you simply pay upfront for everything

Do you also want to pay today for the groceries you might buy next year, on the assumption that you haven't moved away and are indeed still using your current grocery store? Because that's kind of what you're asking for.

Yep, I know. Quite often that's exactly what I do. And I'd be doing it less often if there was a complete edition of the game available for pre-order or on the release.

There. Cannot. Be.

It is impossible.

The combined price of all content that will ever be released for Civ VII can plausibly range (in my estimate) between anywhere from 220 and 500 euros (feel free to convert to your local currency if it's something different). You can't just slap a 350 euro price tag on an "all future content" package and pray, on one side, that you don't end up releasing 500 euros worth of content and get into financial trouble because people already bought it for far less, or on the other side, that you stop releasing content after releasing 220 euros worth of it and thousands of angry customers are breaking down your door demanding the 130 euros they paid you back, as they got no content for it.

Also offering a heavily discounted complete edition afterwards without first offering it for full price beforehand makes little sense from the perspective of the developper. So the situations seems weird to me - both people like me and devellopers would benefit from the existence of such deal. And yet it doesn't exist.

They usually offer that complete edition for the full price, and then put it on steep sales (50%, 75%, even more than that). But they can only offer it once they are done releasing content, because it's only then that they know what the complete edition is worth in the first place. Right now they just don't know it yet.

It would be a terrible idea for developers to offer it this early, which is precisely why it doesn't exist. If the game flops completely, they'll still have to make more content for it until they've satisfied the price tag of the complete edition. All content which they will make a loss on. This could genuinely bankrupt the studio. If the game does very well, the situation isn't as dire, but they'll still be locked into only releasing the content they were planning on for this complete edition, and then they can not continue producing content after that and make more money of the well-performing game, as doing so would require them to give it for free to anyone who at any point buys the complete edition. In addition, if they make content that is very unpopular with the playerbase (horse armor, anyone?), they might get into a PR debacle where people feel like they are being cheated. And you could argue that those people shouldn't have paid for content they didn't know details on, but that matters very little from a PR point of view.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

No. No, they absolutely cannot.

Any game before Civ VI is not a reasonable 'past performance' to use, just look at the huge differences between post-release support between Civ V and Civ VI. And a single data point is a horrible base for extrapolation.

You just add the trend of increasing post release support into your probabilistic model. You have multiple data points and can get a reasonable confidence interval.

Also I've just checked and platinum edition of Civ 6 costed only $18,58 more than complete edition of Civ 5. So even the most straightforward estimate, completely ignoring all the trends, wouldn't be so much off.

Also, the risk of bad PR from people feeling like they aren't getting their money's worth is simply far too big to allow for this in the first place.

Which would only happen if the game flops/ the company goes bankrupt, which is less likely when you already have customers who has payed premium for all the future content. Or if you suddenly just decide to release less future content for no particular reason and you can simply not decide to do that. Also as you've said yourself the trend goes in the direction of more DLCs not less, so it's a pretty improbable situation.

Do you also want to pay today for the groceries you might buy next year, on the assumption that you haven't moved away and are indeed still using your current grocery store? Because that's kind of what you're asking for.

I do buy things in bulk when I can. This seem to be the similar kind of situation.

But it doesn't matter how strange the type of customer I am. FRX can earn more money than counterfactually from such customers if they had such deal. This is what matters.

They usually offer that complete edition for the full price, and then put it on steep sales

This price is already significantly discounted, unless you think that all the DLC for Civ 6 together costed less than $40. By offering this deal beforehand they could've asked twice as much as they asked for the "full price" several years later.

The combined price of all content that will ever be released for Civ VII can plausibly range (in my estimate) between anywhere from 220 and 500 euros (feel free to convert to your local currency if it's something different). You can't just slap a 350 euro price tag on an "all future content" package and pray, on one side, that you don't end up releasing 500 euros worth of content and get into financial trouble because people already bought it for far less, or on the other side, that you stop releasing content after releasing 220 euros worth of it and thousands of angry customers are breaking down your door demanding the 130 euros they paid you back, as they got no content for it.

You are saying it as if it's not the developpers who will be deciding how much DLCs to release. Also you seem to simultaneously claim that noone will buy such a deal because it's as crazy
as buying groceries years in advance and that everyone will buy such a deal and therefore the devs will be worse off, losing all the tasty DLC money. Pick a stance, really.

It would be a terrible idea for developers to offer it this early, which is precisely why it doesn't exist. If the game flops completely, they'll still have to make more content for it until they've satisfied the price tag of the complete edition. All content which they will make a loss on. This could genuinely bankrupt the studio. If the game does very well, the situation isn't as dire, but they'll still be locked into only releasing the content they were planning on for this complete edition, and then they can not continue producing content after that and make more money of the well-performing game, as doing so would require them to give it for free to anyone who at any point buys the complete edition. In addition, if they make content that is very unpopular with the playerbase (horse armor, anyone?), they might get into a PR debacle where people feel like they are being cheated. And you could argue that those people shouldn't have paid for content they didn't know details on, but that matters very little from a PR point of view.

What would most likely happen if such deal was available as a pre-release/release day offer is that a bunch of weirdoes like me who has huge allergy on DLC model and would rather buy the full experience at a single price even if they have to wait several years for it, would buy it and then either get a very good deal out of it if the game is successful, or a much worse deal, if the game flops and the devs realease token DLCs for ridiculous prices just to justify the Complete Edition price tag (which they seem to be doing anyway, regardless of the success of the game). Most of the players would still be buying DLCs or subscriptions. And in expectation FRXs would earn more money, and, which is also important, sooner than counterfactually.

 

[UWHabs]

Generally speaking, companies that offer such a "lifetime" offer are often companies that need an influx of cash for a specific reason - maybe they want to scale out their servers, or they need a specific amount of customers to prove something to investors or shareholders, or something else. You get some weird psychologies of people when you offer a very expensive alternative - if you offer base, deluxe, founders, and super-complete editions, maybe they end up cannibalizing their founders edition sales and more of them end up switching back to the basic version instead of upgrading to the super-complete edition.

And the other point is that the vast majority of people would not want to commit to that. Like I would expect it's a very small fraction who opt even for the Founders Edition. These boards are some of the hardest fans of the game and I bet even on here the number of people who opt for that are pretty small. You can barely get people to commit to a 1-year DLC plan like that is.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

You get some weird psychologies of people when you offer a very expensive alternative - if you offer base, deluxe, founders, and super-complete editions, maybe they end up cannibalizing their founders edition sales and more of them end up switching back to the basic version instead of upgrading to the super-complete edition.

If this was true that would be an explanation for the lack of such offer. I don't see why it should be the case, though. Wouldn't, by the same logic, founders edition cannibalize deluxe edition sales? Are there some precedents that I can look up?

 

[UWHabs]

If this was true that would be an explanation for the lack of such offer. I don't see why it should be the case, though. Wouldn't, by the same logic, founders edition cannibalize deluxe edition sales? Are there some precedents that I can look up?

It's part of the Paradox of Choice. When you give a couple options, people make different choices than if they have more options.

I mean, you never know exactly. But I would guess that less people are getting the Deluxe edition than the Founders edition. My gut take is that either you go with the simplest option, or if you're buying the extra options, you will just say "whatever, give me the Founders Edition". But the paradox is that if you add another option in there, a lot of people are going to be "whoa, I don't want to spend 300$ on a game, so maybe I'll grab the base game and worry about the DLC later."

It's certainly not 100% of people that make those potentially counter-intuitive decisions. I'm no psychologist, but I know there's a lot of weird things that happen with people depending on what offers you put in front of them.