evrett37
Prince
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2008
- Messages
- 346
Top 5 non-gameplay reasons to NOT buy civ 5
1. For the love of the Civ franchise.
Civ 5 and the franchise name is being used to bootstrap a social networking/marketing/distribution system with the Steam community as its foundation. While the benefit of belonging to this community can be debated, ultimately required membership does not benefit the civ franchise any more than the status quo. Simply put, Civ is primarily a single player game with a robust support and fan community and does not need to chain itself to a corporate “grand plan” to compete for the digital distribution social networking marketplace. Its already got these things from grassroots efforts.
2.Copy protection, offline use and privacy issues
After purchasing your copy of Civ 5, no matter whether you downloaded it or bought it in a box, you are required to log on to Steam and register it in order to ever use it. In order to ever update/patch it you will again be required to go log on to Steam. You will not be able to operate it on more than one computer at a time. It is unclear how the off-line option will function but many people believe that there will be unintended times of inhibit use. At any time Valve can ban your account (for example for cheating violations in another game and saying something wrong on their forum) and prohibit the use of your product. Valve (or any company) may in the future decided to do something you dont like with your user data.
3. As a protest for firing Firaxis and Rockstar developers.
As a reward for their work on Civ 5, Take two, the parent company of Firaxis, layed off 20 Firaxis developers. As a reward for their work on Red Dead Redemption, 40 developers were laid off at Rockstar by the parent company, which is also Take Two. Developers are real people with families and lives are not a disposable resource to be exploited and then discarded when the job is done to save a few bucks.
4. As a proclamation that customers are partners in the Civ family not Sheep
All the information about the game has not been provided by a customer service rep working with the developers but rather by marketing and advertising minions working for 2K games, the publisher. These salesman work literally 2000+ miles away from the developers, are not qualified to be involved with the development, have very little contact with the developers and exist only to spoon feed the long term marketing campaign to the community. They are not a conduit for communication and the information they provide is unreliable because marketing agendas and true dialog are often juxtaposed. And active fanbase like that which surrounds Civ is an asset to be nurtured not a resource to patronized and harvested. Players are the customers to be satisfied, not stockholders or executives.
5. Downloadable content and the “mod marketplace
Many games are using downloadable content to generate extra income off the game. Uusally this involves selling minor, non gameplay additions. Presenting the civilian Babylon as an optional extra crosses the line and opens the door for gameplay additions to become “optional pay for extras”. The marketing department has been quiet about mods and there is a fear the download marketplace may be used to generate income by selling game mods like one buys apps for the iphone. This would grant creative control and censorship power to Valve as well as turning fan based mod development into a for profit business. It would be difficult if not impossible once mods start getting paid for their work to step back to volunteering which means Vavle would have considerable hand over the modders, a huge part of the leadership in the fan community.
Meta point # 6 : There are many problems with the world today. They all have a common theme. People are uninvolved and uneducated about what is going on. People are focused on getting their needs met to a reasonable low level and not aspiring much beyond that. We have stopped aiming for the stars and demanding the best. By not being involved, we have surrendered our authority to those who are, and those people are often involved not because they seek excellence as a goal but rather they somehow see profit from said involvement. Point 1-5 are all about the player not being involved up till now. Our apathy has stolen our relevance beyond being a harvestable resource. Companies are aiming for our wallets not our hearts. Both with this game, and out their in the world. Some say we all cant save the world…but I’ve heard that many small efforts can bring about a larger change. Lets make one small change here, save our game by ridding it of a toxic relationship, and hopefully be part of a much larger change in the process.
1. For the love of the Civ franchise.
Civ 5 and the franchise name is being used to bootstrap a social networking/marketing/distribution system with the Steam community as its foundation. While the benefit of belonging to this community can be debated, ultimately required membership does not benefit the civ franchise any more than the status quo. Simply put, Civ is primarily a single player game with a robust support and fan community and does not need to chain itself to a corporate “grand plan” to compete for the digital distribution social networking marketplace. Its already got these things from grassroots efforts.
2.Copy protection, offline use and privacy issues
After purchasing your copy of Civ 5, no matter whether you downloaded it or bought it in a box, you are required to log on to Steam and register it in order to ever use it. In order to ever update/patch it you will again be required to go log on to Steam. You will not be able to operate it on more than one computer at a time. It is unclear how the off-line option will function but many people believe that there will be unintended times of inhibit use. At any time Valve can ban your account (for example for cheating violations in another game and saying something wrong on their forum) and prohibit the use of your product. Valve (or any company) may in the future decided to do something you dont like with your user data.
3. As a protest for firing Firaxis and Rockstar developers.
As a reward for their work on Civ 5, Take two, the parent company of Firaxis, layed off 20 Firaxis developers. As a reward for their work on Red Dead Redemption, 40 developers were laid off at Rockstar by the parent company, which is also Take Two. Developers are real people with families and lives are not a disposable resource to be exploited and then discarded when the job is done to save a few bucks.
4. As a proclamation that customers are partners in the Civ family not Sheep
All the information about the game has not been provided by a customer service rep working with the developers but rather by marketing and advertising minions working for 2K games, the publisher. These salesman work literally 2000+ miles away from the developers, are not qualified to be involved with the development, have very little contact with the developers and exist only to spoon feed the long term marketing campaign to the community. They are not a conduit for communication and the information they provide is unreliable because marketing agendas and true dialog are often juxtaposed. And active fanbase like that which surrounds Civ is an asset to be nurtured not a resource to patronized and harvested. Players are the customers to be satisfied, not stockholders or executives.
5. Downloadable content and the “mod marketplace
Many games are using downloadable content to generate extra income off the game. Uusally this involves selling minor, non gameplay additions. Presenting the civilian Babylon as an optional extra crosses the line and opens the door for gameplay additions to become “optional pay for extras”. The marketing department has been quiet about mods and there is a fear the download marketplace may be used to generate income by selling game mods like one buys apps for the iphone. This would grant creative control and censorship power to Valve as well as turning fan based mod development into a for profit business. It would be difficult if not impossible once mods start getting paid for their work to step back to volunteering which means Vavle would have considerable hand over the modders, a huge part of the leadership in the fan community.
Meta point # 6 : There are many problems with the world today. They all have a common theme. People are uninvolved and uneducated about what is going on. People are focused on getting their needs met to a reasonable low level and not aspiring much beyond that. We have stopped aiming for the stars and demanding the best. By not being involved, we have surrendered our authority to those who are, and those people are often involved not because they seek excellence as a goal but rather they somehow see profit from said involvement. Point 1-5 are all about the player not being involved up till now. Our apathy has stolen our relevance beyond being a harvestable resource. Companies are aiming for our wallets not our hearts. Both with this game, and out their in the world. Some say we all cant save the world…but I’ve heard that many small efforts can bring about a larger change. Lets make one small change here, save our game by ridding it of a toxic relationship, and hopefully be part of a much larger change in the process.
