What to expect in the PTW editor

[Willem]

Originally posted by WarlordMatt
Firaxis are cheating weirdos that make you buy the XP just to get scenario capability. I'm startled there are people that greedy out there. They could have spent more time on the original release so the editor would already include snenario support. If they had only done that, it would have saved us about, say, FORTY BUCKS!

Oh boo hoo. If forty bucks means so much to you, then you shouldn't be buying games in the first place. You'd be better off using that money to make up some resumes, so you can get a better paying job.

Why is that everyong expects Firaxis/Infrogames to do something for nothing? Like it or not, and I personally don't, we live in a capitalist society, and everyone needs to make a buck. In the case of game developers, that's a several thousands of bucks. No money, no new games, it's as simple as that. Live with it.

 

[warpstorm]

Actually, they need to make a few million dollars just to meet the bills. Running a software company in the USA isn't cheap. According to their website they have 30+ people working for them. If you were only going to pay them $30k a year this would be a million dollars right there. In this part of the world programmers go can easily go for 2-3 times that much (although game programmers seem to willing for less than the going rate because they enjoy doing it). This doesn't include things like business expences, software development tools, taxes, rent of office space, insurance, etc. To make things worse, Firaxis doesn't get $40 dollars for every sale. I'd be very surprised if they even get $5 for each sale. Things like patches don't bring them any money and, in fact, cost them a lot of money to make.

Firaxis greedy, I don't think so. Realists who have to manage their money, yes.

 

[Willem]

Well yes, I was thinking of saying several millions, but I didn''t want to sound like I was exaggerating. And it seems that many of the people complaining don't seem to grasp the concept of large sums of money, so I brought it down to something they might be able to grasp.

The gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, not to far behind the movie industry now, and there's lots of competition taking place for people's gaming dollars. If a company doesn't have a good marketing approach, they will soon be left in the dust. And creating expansion packs that people need to buy is just good marketing.

When you consider that Civ II made the rounds for about 5 years, and Civ IV will no doubt take as long as that to produce, $80 for the original game and the XP is extremely good value for someone's entertainment dollar.

 

[Kilroy]

Originally posted by Willem

Why is that everyong expects Firaxis/Infrogames to do something for nothing? Like it or not, and I personally don't, we live in a capitalist society, and everyone needs to make a buck. In the case of game developers, that's a several thousands of bucks. No money, no new games, it's as simple as that. Live with it.

The expansion doesn't appear to be coming out until November or so. If they decide to require the expansion in order to make scenarios, I won't be nearly as upset about the extra cost for something I feel I should have gotten in the first place as I will be about the extra wait for it.

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by Kilroy


The expansion doesn't appear to be coming out until November or so. If they decide to require the expansion in order to make scenarios, I won't be nearly as upset about the extra cost for something I feel I should have gotten in the first place as I will be about the extra wait for it.

How many bugs did the original program have, and how many patches did it take in order to fix them? There's no point in trying to allow scenario support until the basic game is working properly. Same goes for MP.

So far, IMO, they've done a pretty good job in responding to what we, the players, felt were errors or just poor game design. Until they know that we're more or less satisfied with the game as is, adding the bells and whistles would be just a waste of energy and, more importantly from their perspective, money.

If you need a comparison, just look at Civ II. Did it have scenario support and MP when it first came out? No. Those didn't come along until well after the original game was released, and they had a chance to determine whether or not that extra effort was going to be worth the time and expense. Why should they do things differently this time around?

And who cares whether you have to wait or not? As I pointed out, Civ II was around for about 5 years before Civ III, and it's likely the same will happen with this version. Is that not enough time for you do your thing with the game?

Far to often I read people's posts whining about the lack of scenario support, yet they've haven't even bothered to explore what's available now. When I first got the game, I spent months just working with what I had at my disposal at the time. I actually had to put it aside since I wasn't getting anything else done. If you can't find something to keep yourself occupied while you're waiting, that's your problem, not Firaxis'.

 

[WarlordMatt]

Willem said:


Oh boo hoo. If forty bucks means so much to you, then you shouldn't be buying games in the first place. You'd be better off using that money to make up some resumes, so you can get a better paying job.

Why is that everyong expects Firaxis/Infrogames to do something for nothing? Like it or not, and I personally don't, we live in a capitalist society, and everyone needs to make a buck. In the case of game developers, that's a several thousands of bucks. No money, no new games, it's as simple as that. Live with it.

I was just blowing off my steam at Firaxis for not including scerio capibility in the first place. I really don't care how much it costs, and Firaxis is a pretty good company.

My God, I got like 20 replies in, say, a DAY?!