DWilson
Where am I? What turn is it?
Oh! Thanks, I didn't know that. Interesting!
Why is Firaxis so silent?
- Thread starter Falk
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The DLC03 is in the first list under number 512034 and the QA build is the first item in the second list.
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I recall IGN delayed their review because of the troubles people were having getting online. It was done by Dan Stapleton, who also gave a ridiculously glowing reviews to Civ VI (the latter was actually one of their GOTY nominees IIRC). Beyond that, I'll take your word for it.....while at the same time taking any bets on Civ VI reviews ever being revised in a downwards direction.
The thing about Civ games the hardcore fans seem to forget is that to casual players, the game is a cipher. They mystify its inner workings to such a degree that when the game behaves in a way that doesn't make sense, they may chalk it up their own lack of understanding. They ascribe complexity instead of inadequacy. And when they cream the game, they sure don't complain about that.
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Oh, an Update named "Valentine" would be nice...
Leyrann
Deity
The bold is just not true. You yourself said that we're talking about 19,000 reviews here. That's twenty times as big as the average political poll. It's at least twenty times as big as the test group of your average scientific experiment, and might even be a hundred times as big.
Let me make a practical example: Imagine that, on average, 70% of the players thinks the game is good (I'm using numbers that make calculating easy, btw, without regard of wheter they might make sense). On top of that, I assume that there are infinite players playing the game, as that eases up the mathematics. Considering I'm working with relatively small numbers and a player base that goes into millions, you'd need to look at a lot of decimals before noticing a difference. Now, lets take two different sample sizes.
First, we're going to look at 10 players being asked their opinion. If the representation is perfect, 7 will say the game is good, 3 will say the game is bad. What's the ratio of the chance, however, that only 6 people call the game good, and 4 people call the game bad instead of 7 people saying the game is good at 3 saying the game is bad? (6! * 0.7^6 * 4! * 0.3^4)/(7! * 0.7^7 * 3! * 0.3^3) * 100% = 24.5%
Now, we're going to look at 50 players being asked their opinion. What's the chance of a 30:20 compared to a 35:15? We multiply every number (except the 0.7 and 0.3) by 5: 0.07% chance. I can't go much bigger because I'm using a simple calculator to calculate this and I forgot the efficient way to calculate it, but remember that you have to go two hundred times as big, while I just only went 5 times as big and already saw the chance drop by a factor 350.
That is the strength of big numbers, and that is why a 19,000 sample size is more than enough.
And to return again to the bias: Positive people leave reviews much more often than negative people. This is called the "positive bias", and it works like this because of how people work. First off, there is a large group of people that doesn't use the review system. They are just not interested in it, and no matter what they think of the game, they won't use it. The rest of the people fall into several categories: First of all, there's a group that's enjoying the game, and they leave a positive review to get others into the game. Then there's also a group that doesn't enjoy the game. But they don't all leave reviews, even though they don't fall in the group that by definition doesn't use the review system. Many of them will certainly leave a negative review, but there's also people out there that tried the game, didn't like it, and just moved on. You could also say, with probably as much merit, that the more people play a game, the more likely they are to leave a review... And people that like the game keep playing it, while people that don't like the game just move on.
youngsteve
King
.[/QUOTE]
In all three replies above, the reviews from the less-than-thirty-days filter which serves your contentions is deemed to be valuable, while my illumination that it's a meager representation of the total audience is discarded. All three replies likewise elect to skip the part where I point out the actual total number of reviews is small enough to render the entire dataset of little value in indicating consensus. That all smacks soundly of confirmation bias.
As for bad publicity damaging the publishers. Civ VI is already a success, critically and commerically, and that it carried most of the gripes over from Civ V didn't impact that success. The list of gripes with Civ VI's AI simply don't compare to the launch issues with Sim City, as you yourself say that most games have positive receptions when released. Civ VI did, Sim City didn't.
TLDR: Like it or not, for better or worse, the game's doing fine and there's a dearth of evidence of any consensus that the game is in an unacceptable state.[/QUOTE]
It may will be a critical & commercial success, but Firaxis will be wanting to sell many DLC'S for the game, & also introduce further titles in the series. The damage the game has received so far is hardly going to help that. Like I said before, EA couldn't hardly sell updates to the Sim City fiasco, & has probably ended the series, particularly after the introduction of Cities Skylines. Perhaps some other publisher will fill the gap for civilization games. So serious damage can be done.
In all three replies above, the reviews from the less-than-thirty-days filter which serves your contentions is deemed to be valuable, while my illumination that it's a meager representation of the total audience is discarded. All three replies likewise elect to skip the part where I point out the actual total number of reviews is small enough to render the entire dataset of little value in indicating consensus. That all smacks soundly of confirmation bias.
As for bad publicity damaging the publishers. Civ VI is already a success, critically and commerically, and that it carried most of the gripes over from Civ V didn't impact that success. The list of gripes with Civ VI's AI simply don't compare to the launch issues with Sim City, as you yourself say that most games have positive receptions when released. Civ VI did, Sim City didn't.
TLDR: Like it or not, for better or worse, the game's doing fine and there's a dearth of evidence of any consensus that the game is in an unacceptable state.[/QUOTE]
It may will be a critical & commercial success, but Firaxis will be wanting to sell many DLC'S for the game, & also introduce further titles in the series. The damage the game has received so far is hardly going to help that. Like I said before, EA couldn't hardly sell updates to the Sim City fiasco, & has probably ended the series, particularly after the introduction of Cities Skylines. Perhaps some other publisher will fill the gap for civilization games. So serious damage can be done.
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Hail
Satan's minion
the reason that most games tend to have an overwhelmingly positive rating is self-selection bias that steveg "forgot" to mention. 57% is not really low, it is an abysmal rating, especially, considering conformity bias (the tendency of an individual to hide his personal opinion and publicly agree with the crowd and/or avoid disagreeing with popular opinion) that steveg again "forgot" to mention.
Leyrann
Deity
This is indeed what I meant.
Also @youngsteve, you might want to check your post again, it's very confusing to read with the broken quote.
Alternatively, the games are good (by a vote of popularity, not objectivity) and you're using the basics of psychological analysis to justify your own opinion trending to the negative.
Leyrann
Deity
A vote of popularity is not an indication of a good game. It is, first and foremost, an indication of how well the title is known. Many people that bought the game will have bought it because Civilization is a big title. A lot of them then realized the game was not nearly as good as they expected, and then left a negative review, despite, as Hail said, people being more likely to leave a positive review than a negative review, for several reasons.
I never said it was, though. Hence the brackets.
I was arguing against the logic that games only get popular votes because of some kind of peer pressure to conform. The entire existence of sites like Rotten Tomatoes prove that people give negative reviews freely, and in large quantities.
I was arguing against the logic that games only get popular votes because of some kind of peer pressure to conform. The entire existence of sites like Rotten Tomatoes prove that people give negative reviews freely, and in large quantities.
Leyrann
Deity
The entire existence of such sites proves that people don't give their negative reviews on official forums, steam, etc. You're countering your own points.
Leyrann
Deity
No, I'm explaining why you're wrong in saying what you're saying. I'm reactive, you're proactive, so if the argument changes, it's you. The only argument I have been trying to make in this thread is this: "Firaxis should either tell us what they're doing, or ask us what they should be doing according to us". For the rest, everything I have said, is calling out flaws in other peoples arguements.
Moderator Action: When posters in a thread stop discussing the topic and descend to talking about debate metaphysics (what is an argument?, have you addressed my points? what argument do you think you are responding to?, etc. etc.), the thread arguably should be closed, which I would prefer not to do. So please get back on topic, or if you've nothing more to say on the thread's topic, please let the thread die its own quiet death.
RealAntithesis
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2016
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- 239
Getting back on topic - someone from Firaxis did recently post in Reddit about some upcoming multiplayer live stream, though this was more in the nature of a marketing announcement than actual information.
Abraxis
☮
By now I hope it's obvious why Firaxis might not want to get involved in these discussions.
ThERat
Deity
Abraxis, nobody asks Firaxis to get into any discussions. What people would like to see (and appreciate), is some form of communication about what are their plans etc to improve the many issues the game has.
Many developers call that a roadmap and they release that, letting the community discuss without getting involved in the discussion too much.
Many developers call that a roadmap and they release that, letting the community discuss without getting involved in the discussion too much.
Abraxis
☮
No, that's what you'd like to see, and obviously others here, but you have to understand you're wrong. At least from where they're sitting, which is all that matters.
I'd prefer they ignore you and all these other people, not worry about getting involved with, and managing public perception. Focus on solving the problems they can fix without worrying about sticking to some silly road map created just to placate people for no good reason either by someone who doesn't understand the problems, or doesn't understand the people. To inevitable disaster in either case.
Better to just have never gotten involved with that in the first place.
I'm confused what's happened that has suddenly made this behaviour an issue. Firaxis is an old company, they have been operating this way for a long time, and we should know exactly what to expect at this point.
Of course the answer is these needs aren't actually motivated by the desire to be playing good games, or making good games. If that were the case you'd all be doing one of those things instead of being here complaining about games. Something else motivates you and it's not Firaxis' job to try and solve it. Thankfully, I expect they understand this.
I'd prefer they ignore you and all these other people, not worry about getting involved with, and managing public perception. Focus on solving the problems they can fix without worrying about sticking to some silly road map created just to placate people for no good reason either by someone who doesn't understand the problems, or doesn't understand the people. To inevitable disaster in either case.
Better to just have never gotten involved with that in the first place.
I'm confused what's happened that has suddenly made this behaviour an issue. Firaxis is an old company, they have been operating this way for a long time, and we should know exactly what to expect at this point.
Of course the answer is these needs aren't actually motivated by the desire to be playing good games, or making good games. If that were the case you'd all be doing one of those things instead of being here complaining about games. Something else motivates you and it's not Firaxis' job to try and solve it. Thankfully, I expect they understand this.
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ThERat
Deity
They were never shy to 'share' so many youtube videos up to the point where they released this game. Smart game on their side, maybe.
Maybe not so smart in the long run as there are some real big issues to deal with.
Maybe not so smart in the long run as there are some real big issues to deal with.
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