So, When is a new BTS Patch comming?

[RedRalph]

Actual sales figures are hard to get (if you have some, I'd be interested in them), but AFAIR all Civ4 products fared better in the sales charts than their respective Civ3 counterparts (and that's not even taking into account that video game sales have increased in general over the last few years). The difference is most noticable for the first expansion - while Civ3tW pretty much tanked (it entered the NPD charts on #9, and fell off the next week), Civ4:Warlords did not only manage to lead the chart as #1, it also brought vanilla Civ4 *back* into the top 10.

Based on this data, I seriously doubt that Civ4 sold less copies in the two years after its release than Civ3 did in the same timeframe. But I'd be very interested in hard numbers if you can provide them.

I cant access anything more reliable than Wikipedia from here, pretty sure 3 sold 2 million and 4 sold 1, but I odnt know the time frames...

 

[MrCynical]

While wikipedia does claim 2 million for civ 3 and 1 million for civ 4, if you check the citations the Civ 4 number is from a 2K news item from March 2006, when it had apparently sold over a million copies. The Civ 3 reference is from mid 2005.

The civ 4 number is therefore from when the game had only been out 5 or 6 months, compared to Civ 3 sales for around 4 years.

 

[RedRalph]

I would have though (I admit this is purely based on guesswork) that games, moreso than music, do almost all the selling theyre going to do pretty early on? Correct me if I'm wrong, I fully admit to not knowing a whole lot about this

 

[Rusty Edge]

I'm confused. What is Civ Revolution that is so often alluded to ?


Is it Civ for Nintendo, or something?

 

[RedRalph]

More or less, yeah

 

[SanPellegrino]

I hope the next patch is really worth to install. the last one always crashed the game when in Civilopedia, I had to reinstall and go back to the one before.

After that I read here that the problem is known in combination with XP, but the patch is still on the official site!

 

[MrCynical]

I would have though (I admit this is purely based on guesswork) that games, moreso than music, do almost all the selling theyre going to do pretty early on? Correct me if I'm wrong, I fully admit to not knowing a whole lot about this

I'm not that certain either, but I don't think Civ 4 would have stopped selling quite that early. There's a fairly steady stream of newbies on this forum, even if not up to the peak back in October 2005. I do remember vanilla Civ 4 actually climbed back into the top ten best selling games when warlords came out.

 

[Psyringe]

I would have though (I admit this is purely based on guesswork) that games, moreso than music, do almost all the selling theyre going to do pretty early on? Correct me if I'm wrong, I fully admit to not knowing a whole lot about this

It's a bit more complex for games, and then the Civ franchise is probably a special case within the gaming context.

In general, games make most of their *revenue* immediately after release. However, that does not necessarily mean that they sell the most number of *copies* at that point. A successful game can sell *many* copies years after release, when it hits the bargain bins, or is packaged into compilations, or when a "Gold" version gets released. However, these releases typically don't generate as much revenue as the original release, even though (like the bargain release) they may sell lots of copies. The profit margin is simply much lower for bargain or bundled releases.

Of course there are still differences between games. There are hype products, which only sell as long as the producer is aggressively advertising it, and fall off the shelves soon. There are short-time products like games that accompany movies, the interest in the game declines rapidly when the movie loses media presence. There are, however, also classics which generate sales for a very long time. Diablo 2 is the textbook example for such a longseller, the game is seven years old and you *still* see it on the shelves.

Personally, I'd expect the Civ games to be longsellers rather than hype products.

If this assumption is true (I admit that it is an assumption, although imho a very plausible one), then I'd expect Civ4 to definitely outsell (or already having outsold) Civ3. Keep in mind that the Civ3 figure is from a time where two expansions, the "Gold" release, bundles like "Atari strategy collection", and a cheap bargain edition were already out for some time. The Civ4 number however is from a time where neither of the two expansions was released (and keep in mind that Warlords brought vanilla Civ4 back into the top ten of the sales charts), the Gold edition wasn't released yet, the bargain edition wasn't even thought about, and bundles weren't thought about either. Altogether, I think the numbers rather support the claim that Civ4 outsold Civ3.

Since much of this is speculation (however plausible), I'd of course still appreciate official numbers ... but as already said, these are hard to come by.

 

[Tiberias]

I wouldn't worry too much about the patch; Firaxis has a fairly solid record of supporting its games, especially successful ones (and as stated, they've already confirmed a patch in the pipeline).

If they ever want a lesson in how not to support a game, however, they can always take a look at the (now nearly dead) Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War forums. Relic pretty much decided to drop support for Warhammer 40k when they didn't see any more sales coming out of it. I for one will never buy another product from them. Contrast that with Blizzard, who supports games for years and years after release. Let's see, who's currently making more money . . .

It's a bit more complex for games, and then the Civ franchise is probably a special case within the gaming context.

. . .

Personally, I'd expect the Civ games to be longsellers rather than hype products.

A solid analysis, I'll add a few points. Software titles have huge up-front fixed costs and very low variable costs. That means that hitting the break-even point--the point where they've sold enough copies at a high enough price to cover the cost of development--is absolutely critical. If they don't hit that, they face a huge loss; if they do hit that, it's almost pure profit from there on out. The low variable costs are also why they're willing to make steady price cuts; with very low printing costs (5$ a copy?) they can price all the way down the demand curve.

Consequently, game companies (that sell boxed games; subscription games are a different story) should be focusing on making very good games that are virtually guaranteed to hit the break-even point. But too many companies don't do that, they try and save money on development, then it's not a great game so it doesn't sell, then they have to aggressively cut prices to try and sell copies to recover any money at all. Blizzard and Firaxis have taken the other approach, investing what they have to in order to make sure most of their games are successes. Consequently, I suspect that they routinely cover their development costs for their game, and everything they sell after that is pure profit, and that's why they're still in business.

A big part of that, of course, is good ongoing customer support. If customers feel that every game put out is fully supported and will be for some time, they'll be much more likely to buy the game, and even buy it at release time at full price. There's no question that Blizzard will sell zillions of copies of Strarcraft 2, and why? Because of their reputation. Ditto for Firaxis and Revolutions.

 

[Doudon]

... You can't sell complex games without long-term support ...

Really? Have you ever bought a game from EA Sports and tried to get support? Their idea of "long-term support" is from the time the first unit is sold until the version they just sold goes gold. In other words, it's out of support before you buy it. If you want a fix you wait and buy the next edition, which has new features that need to be fixed so you buy the next version, etc., etc., etc.... They never fix a version for free!

 

[Renditelitan]

As of March 2007, over 1.5 mil copies of Civilization 4, from 2k Games Press Release:
http://www.2kgames.com/index.php?p=news&ID=228

I didn't find any non-wikipedia information on the sales figures for Civ 3. Looks like the vanilla sales from 6 months ago.

 

[RedRalph]

Does that include Warlords sales?

 

[Slax]

I think Fridays are often patch days...

 

[Öjevind Lång]

How about a revisit to Colonization? Or am I the only one that really liked that game?

I can wait on a Civ5, but a patch for some of the issues in BtS would be nice.

No, I loved Colonization too, though there were some really annoying things that need fixing:

1. The insane way most of your colonists ended up as cavalry surrounding the settlements of the other countries in the hope of annoying them into declaring war. Of course, only scout units should be able to move inside the city limits in peace time, and only for a limited number of turns.
2. In fact, it should not be possible to simply turn colonists into soldiers. I suggest that drafting a military unit in a city would not remove a colonist in the city. Instead, it would affect the amount of food stored, and also impair the productiveness of the city for a number of turns. And naturally, there should be a cost for military units. Equally as a matter of course, you should still need a store of muskets and, for cavalry, horses to equip the unit. You'd need a military academy with a military expert in it to produce veteran units, and the cost for building a veteran unit might also be a bit higher.
3. One should be able to contact the other colonizing powers without sending a unit to one of their cities.
4. The way the game simply ceased to function after you had won the war for independence; you couldn't found any new settlements, trade with Europe and so on, and the remains of the royal army that had "capitulated" kept invading you after the capitulation. I also think there should be an alternative where you, if you were very skilled, could achieve independence without a fight, like Canada, and where your victory consists in achieving a certain score based on various things.
5. Make it impossible to found a city only one tile from another city. The thought of that one still makes me mad.

I would also suggest some improvements:

6. An ability to simply assimilate Indian settlements if the influence becomes strong enough. The village/city would disappear and you'd gain an Indian citizen, or perhaps an ordinary citizen in grey. This should only be possible with villages inside a city's area.
7. I'd also like the King to look slim, smart and reasonable early in the game and then gradually become obese, stupid and unreasonable, both in looks and in actions.
8. The city view (London, Rouen, Seville, Amsterdam) should not be the same for all four civs. I should also like the King/Stadtholder to look different from one civ to another.
9. Perhaps, in addition to normal trade expeditions, one could also have trade routes à la Civilization.

I loved the music, though, and hope they'll keep most of it - not least the wonderful, haunting introductory melody.

Öjevind

 

[lionheart]

I haven't played BtS since the last patch, so I hope they bring out the new one fast.. The game continually showed odd combat results, making it completely unreliable and very frustrating (if you're a warmongerer at least)..

In any case, if there should be a new game Firaxis ought to be focussing on it should be Alpha Centauri 2.. (If only that were possible.. )

 

[MusX]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=243264 - probably very soon