• Civ7 is already available! Happy playing :).

Vote for Sid Meier's Civilization I and II (MGE & Test of Time) to be added to GoG

The official Civilization social media account across all sites posted about Civ1 today.. probably too much to hope for that this is a sign they'll re-release Civ1 & Civ2 in the buildup to Civ7 but ya never know.. naturally I'm commenting on them that they need to release them.. I encourage others to do the same!

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Civ is like the opposite of valve software, it starts at 3! 😁 come on 2k, at least do civ 1 in dosbox. It would be so easy.
 
Next day we got another one about Civ1 with no real explanation.. oh well I'm hitting the comments again lol.. I'm seeing others in the comments asking them to put it in stores and others asking why they're posting about Civ1 so much.. it's fascinating.

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I think they're gonna do little factoids about each game in the series slowly making their way to present day (hence the video with the scrolling hexagons with all the logos on).
 
Why would anyone want a free game to become not free?

Blake, or any other person, who did add civilization 1 to GoG would probably not make profit from it.

Why?

Also nobody would want to buy a game with poor graphics from 1991, so no new players. The community would become even smaller over time.

I see no reason to add civilization 1 on GoG
 
Why would anyone want a free game to become not free?

Blake, or any other person, who did add civilization 1 to GoG would probably not make profit from it.

Why?

Also nobody would want to buy a game with poor graphics from 1991, so no new players. The community would become even smaller over time.

I see no reason to add civilization 1 on GoG

Way to complete miss the point of the thread mate, which is to get more people playing again and more people visiting this community again. Thousands of other (less successful) retro games are being sold on Steam & GoG so why not classic Civ? Also I don't know how you think I'd make money from it lol, I'm trying to talk the license holder and companies that specialize in reselling old games to sell it on Steam & GoG. Since you clearly skim-read this thread I'm not going to waste time typing up another whole post that you may not read as well.. so I'll just repeat what I said earlier to the last guy who also completely missed the point.. sigh..

"legalities of 'free' abandonware sites (who's links are not permitted on CFC so our stance is clear) aside, the bigger point that pops into my head is that total people using abandonware sites versus total people using digital stores like Steam and GoG to buy old games is not even a close comparison. Probably because the common gamer doesn't knows about warez sites or avoids out of fear of viruses, spam and dodgyness (whether that be right or wrong). Either way.. Civ1&2 communities are pretty quiet these days and that's due to both time since last sold in stores in the 90s and current availability (or lack of since most people don't visit warez sites).

So sacrificing availability to the masses to please the few who use those sites is just not right. Getting the games back out there into stores injects new & returning players back into the communities again helping this place! THAT is the reason I'm doing this, I don't need the games in stores for myself, I already have them, so I'm doing this to right a wrong and help the community I care about regrow. And for those that can't see past their own preferences (and I've had plenty of those comments across social media sadly) a larger community means more mods, more scenarios, more fun discussions which then increases your enjoyment too. So in the end everybody wins... you just have to see the bigger picture.

Plus I wouldn't worry... because most of those abandonware sites are soooo legal and conscious about breaking laws (that was sarcasm) they've still got plenty of old games for download that are being sold in stores these days (eg you can still find Sid Meier's Colonization and Master of Magic on nearly every abandonware site these days despite them being rescued from exile and put on Steam and GoG) because the license holders did not go after them (because of the above point about the stores vs warez user totals not being comparable and big enough to warrant a threat). This reason this thread exists is because 2K don't care enough to re-release the games, so I think it's safe to say that even if someone like GoG or Firaxis or someone else successfully pushes 2K to release these games they are not going to care enough to go chase after abandonware sites hosting Civ1&2 meaning nothing will change for warez site users but everything will change for everyone else."

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Yeah... What you are saying kind of makes sense.

But out of a million people browsing GoG or Steam, how many of them would buy civilization? Probably zero. I'm not sure what the price will be.

It is impossible to just remove illegal copies of a game, because of all the telegram groups and .onion. Those will always exist.

Nobody would buy a strategic turning game from 1991 with bad graphics... maybe a few yes

Nobody really wants (probably) this game. There are a lot of games that are for more people more fun.

There would probably be low star reviews, because it would be boring to most players also the frustrating RNG. When other people will see those reviews, they will not want to play this game.

People often want to play games with large communities and not those with like 10 active people in the community.
 
I think you'd be surprised with how many would buy a copy and return to it even said return is fleeting for some, as nostalgia is a powerful thing. I run the Colonization and Master of Magic fan communities and they were ghost towns when the games weren't available anywhere (except on abandonware) but once they arrived on GoG and then more so on Steam (due to it's market dominance) it was just a game changer and it's guaranteed a steady flow of returning players coming to the groups to talk about the games and grab mods etc ever since. Recently EA released all the classic C&C and Red Alert games on steam and it was crazy as thousands of people bought copies and flooded the C&C communities posting about how happy they were to be playing the old games again, which of course attracted comments from the veterans/regulars saying "what is going on around here??.. EA released these games for free a decade ago and free legal copies of them are on all the fan sites??".. and the answer is Steam aint just a site that sells games, it's also a massive marketing platform that reaches so many people, and so when a big publisher releases a bunch of old games (you'd think everyone would already have or has forgotten about) it usually makes mainstream gaming news and brings in all those casual gamers out there who don't know the things the hardcore fans do and can't resist buying that game they loved so much when they were young even if it has newer sequels.

Despite having better sequels nostalgia always brings me back to Civ1, Heroes of Might & Magic 1, C&C1, Dune 2, Warcraft, Doom and plenty of other old games (RPGs etc) every decade and when I visit their communities to reminisce I always seem to find others doing the same. I think sometimes people crave the simplicity too as we're all busy in our 'old age' and playing a hardcore deep modernish 4X game after a long day at work can be not so great forcing you to leave it till the weekend, whereas an older simpler strategy game is not so bad on a weeknight when you're tired. Obviously there's a bunch of us here still enjoying, playing, talking about and modding Civ1 despite zero effort by the publisher to sell or market the game anymore so I'd love to see how many more would come if the games were on Steam & GoG.

Of course I know you'll probably say that Civ has superior sequels with better advancements than a lot of those other games I've mentioned, however part of the work I do here for CivFanatics has me sharing our front page news across all the big Civ groups out there with tens of thousands of members in them and so I regularly see what's going on in those groups and oh man.. not a month goes by that I don't someone posting screenshots of their latest Civ1 or Civ2 game and then you look in the comments and it's filled with people saying how much they've missed them or that they're still the best ones in the series resulting in lots of debates as every fan has their own different favourite iteration of course heh.

When you consider that other publishers made the effort to sell games from the friggin 80s that look even worse than Civ1 and entire companies out there survive on a business model that revolves around reselling old games (that in many cases look terrible lol) I'm sure Civ1 would sell enough to make the effort of them slapping it in dosbox worth it (as surely it wouldn't take them long to do it).. the sales won't be be anything amazing of course, but I think I'd be more than the next to none you're suggesting. Especially if mainstream media picked it up due to Steam and 2K posting news about it. However sadly we may never get to find out if I'm right as who knows if 2K will ever do anything sadly.. but I'll keep pestering them every year as I'd really love to see what would happen here in this community if they did something.
 
Another thing to remember here is that CivFanatics is one of the larger fan sites, which means there's a lot of visibility. Firaxis and 2K know about it and even post here from time to time. With that in mind, they have to do things by the book. The main Civ fan site can't be seen to be actively supporting piracy of any kind, that would embarrass 2K/Firaxis and I'm sure would provoke a stern response!
 
Some good news on the Civ2 front!

While portable copies of DosCiv1 and Test of Time were already possible (as outlined in the OP), Civilization 2 MGE (Multiplayer Gold Edition) was still a bit of a problem. However FoxAhead has just released a new version of Civ2UIA with lots of new GUI/info improvements but best of all he's added CD free music support for MP3s and other formats. Videos already worked locally so with this music can now work locally too making Civ2 MGE completely CD free and portable if you wish! I've updated the OP to reflect this wonderful change and I think this makes a good excuse to go email the guys at GoG again, not to mention pestering 2K, Atari, Nightdive and Retroism again too. :)
 
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Completed my big email'athon over the weekend pestering GoG, 2K, Firaxis, Atari, Nightdive and Retroism again. As usual 2K support said they couldn't help me :rolleyes: , all the Firaxis and Retroism emails bounced (as their emails were likely terminated after their parent company acquisitions), and GoG and Atari gave automated replies. However interestingly Nightdive support who've given me silence over previous years have now got back to me this time. A support staff member with both Nightdive & Atari in his sig thanked me for my ideas & support of Nightdive and that he'd forward my emails to their team. I made the point to them that if Nightdive & Atari have already managed to somehow publish Sid Meier's Colonization then why not go for Sid Meier's Civilization 1 & 2 (+Test of Time) as well since they're bigger more successful games that made more money and it's possible that Atari may even still own them too and if not then surely 2K would not ignore a request from Atari (unlike how they seemingly ignored Firaxis & GoG). So hopefully the Nightdive support fellow will indeed put this in front of the right eyes there and maybe just maybe they'll try to do with Civ1&2 what they did with Col! :) And let's not forget that Nightdive quite like doing remasters too so it would be very cool if someone there started looking into this and waking Atari up to the issue as who knows what could happen. As always it's an absolute almost futile long shot but Nightdive and Atari have both been very busy in the retro space over the last few years and whoever there pushed for the Col deal is surely a Civ fan too. So I have a better feeling about this latest email'athon than previous ones!
 
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Well done for persevering! At least with Night Dive being a smaller company, there's a chance someone with the actual power to do something might have a read and take an interest. Civ II is a tricky one because it needs fan patches to run (although some official releases do use them), but a dosbox release of civ 1 would be trivial once the rights were secured.
 
Yeah GoG have made deals with fan patch creators in the past to save them the hassle so there's hope there.

Got another nice reply, this time from the Licensing department at Atari who confirmed that they do not own anything in the Civ series anymore but that they would let their main team know about this campaign and hopefully my suggestions that even if they don't own Civ1&2 anymore then maybe they could do a deal with 2K. I also reminded them that the spin off Colonization series is somehow split between Atari (for Microprose original) and 2K (for Firaxis sequel/remake) so I hope they're darn sure they don't still have the original Microprose Civ games.

I also sent a reply to 2K's support about them saying they're unable to forward the request on to anyone and pointed out that the wall around them is so high that it's impossible for their fans voices to be heard. They replied again saying that apparently what we say on their socials does have an impact but yeah.. I've been posting on the official Civ socials about this issue for years, I've posted on steam forums for newer Civ games, and of course I've contacted their support multiple times. So I kinda doubt that! Nevertheless if there is any truth to it then I guess it's a reminder for everyone to remember to keep pestering them about the Civ1&2 issue in the comments of their official Civ FB and Twitter posts.

However I still think the best chance is with convincing a third party to do a deal with 2K as they're more likely to listen to other companies making offers than us fans complaining. So fingers crossed maybe the latest barrage of emails I've sent to Atari, Nightdive and GoG might kick off something. If not well.. I'll try again in another year haha!
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Had some more great replies guys.. quite surprising how much better things are going this time around compared to previous years 'emailathon's.

Firstly I had a really nice response last weekend from a guy in the Atari PR department (separate from the previous licensing and help desk emails I'd already got) saying that my proposal (of them doing a deal with 2K) is an interesting prospect and that he'll discuss it with their distribution team.

And secondly I just got a really good one from GoG again praising the campaign but then saying that I "will be quite pleased for what is coming next with our GOG Game Preservation program etc. Please watch the official comms!". Umm what?? Does that tease mean what I think it means???

Funnily enough just a week ago I was just looking over their excellent Game Preservation program and thinking "oh man surely they'll be making a play for Civ1&Civ2 for something like this" and have been crossing my fingers. So this sounds very promising! If anyone sees anything in the news LET ME KNOW!!!
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Civ 1 now is at page 6 of the GOG dream-list (Civ 2 is on page 7):

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Btw.: For the CFC banner contest I made that banner:

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Attention, indeed true! GOG has today revelaed its "Dreamlist", an official list where you can vote which games they should try to acquire and preserve!
The fight for the top spot is fierce! On first place we currently have "Black & White" with nearly 60.000 votes. Civ1 and Civ2 are somewhere on page 6 and 7, with 15.000 and nearly 14.000 votes respectively.
Vote here for Civ1, and here for Civ2!
 
Thanks for updating the OP The_J! Yup I'll clean up the post a bit more in the next day or so and remove the old vote links. Looks like the new Dreamlist system is a revamp of the old wishlist system and existing votes have been transferred so I was unable to vote again. That would also explain why Civ1 is ahead on 15,880 as annoyingly someone on GoG staff renamed the old combined Civ1&2 vote to just Civ1 last year so heaps of people's Civ2 votes went towards Civ1. I reported the mishap to them but they did nothing sadly (probably too hard to undo). Nevertheless the pure Civ2 only one is at 14,230 only a bit behind Civ1 so no big deal. Funnily enough we're approaching the 3 year anniversary of the start of this campaign in February so I was going to do up a post soon anyway but you sharing this development has saved me the trouble so thanks haha!

What's a bit concerning is they're missing 'Civilization II Test of Time' as we don't want that to get forgotten about if they managed to get regular Civ2 back out there, so I've submitted a request to have it added and will add the vote to the OP if & when it appears. Much like with the old vote system I'm seeing some duplication too.. eg someone has just added a new Multiplayer Gold Edition variant of Civ2 but that will likely get merged into the main Civ2 one by GoG staff, and weirdly someone has added the Nokia N-Gage Civilization 2 game too. EDIT: Civ2 Conflicts in Civ is now there as a separate vote too. Unlike the other wishlist system I can't find any way to report duplicates so things are probably going to get really messy again lol.
 
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