i'm not sure why a couple specific folks in this thread keep trying to move the goalposts and blaming "those people" or "most people" for being asses and unreasonable in demands.
Its not productive or respectful to just brush people's concerns away because you don't agree with them and then lump everyone in with angry internet nerds on a tirade. When people say "the devs" i think its fair to assume we as the customer are talking about they as the seller. Whether that's Ed Beach, Sid Meier, Pete Murray, some random 2K suit or CEO doesn't really matter. its their business and its contingent on them to work together and come up with an appropriate public relations strategy. Some customers think their chosen strategy is detrimental to the game and their experience, and because they like the product they are asking for something better. Please stop trying to discount people's opinions because you don't think they are asking the right specific person for the information.
If you want a business case for it, any company wants brand loyalty. That means long-term stability for future products. You want a relationship with your customer where your loyal customers will come back again and again and buy your new products simply because its yours. Think about Final Fantasy back in the day. There was a time where if you were an RPG player, you bought the new final fantasy. you didn't need to wait for reviews, you didn't need to rent it first to try it out. you just bought it because you knew what you were getting. This is a minority of any business' (not just video game developer's) customer base. Why they are important though is they are the folks who convince everyone else to buy and adopt your product. They extend the life of your product. They tell their gamer friends, "HEY! you like games, I think you need to play X game because its awesome and the people who make it are awesome."
Particularly in Civ's case, it takes a lot of work and effort to come up with a new main line iteration of the series, obviously. The longer they can squeeze dollars out of the previous version, the more time they have to put out the next installment. Its better for the company in the long run to have a game that can....stand the test of time... and means over the course of decades there's less money going into new game development. For example, say a CIV game is profitable for a company for 5 years, after which point they aren't getting enough income to support their business and they have to have a new one out to earn new money. But that new game isn't profitable right away, they have to recoup development costs arbitrarily lets say that takes 1 year of sales before you recoup those costs. But say if you put the effort forward, you can make a game profitable enough to sustain your company for 6 years rather than 5. That means over the course of 30 years you are gaining stability of cashflow overall.
If a game lasts 5 years but 1 year is spent recouping costs, that's 4 years you're earning pure profit. Over a 30 year period that's 24 years of earning pure profit. But if you can make that game last 6 years instead, that's 5 years of pure profit per game and over 30 years thats 25 years of pure profit. So how do you magically make a game's profitability last longer? You create a culture where people still buy your game years later because your own customers love it so much they are selling it for you. You do that by keeping your bleeding edge, your fanatics, happy and engaged and listened to. Again, this is a real basic example but this is how any small business aspires (or should aspire) to market and operate. It can apply to really any small tech company with only one or two main lines of products. big big companies are different and thrive of planned obsalescence like cell phone manufacturers or Assassin's Creed....but that's because they have the resources to support that type of business model. Firaxis OR WHOEVER does not, so its to their benefit to keep the community engaged. And its clear in the past they have done good enough because....look at Civ Fanatics. But i think what people are seeing now is a major departure...they saw an ultra communicative dev team prior to release and now nothing. "oh they are working fixes leave them alone." using that flawed logic, then WHY weren't they working on getting the game right the first try prior to release? Its because they have a marketing team that has chosen to shut down all communication after release for whatever reason. They don't want to deal with the drama? who knows. The drama is uncomfortable in the short term, but man does it increase the long term viability of your brand, which honestly i think we can all agree is something we want.
