Do you agree with Will Wright? Is Civ 4 too daunting?

[Solver]

If you want to believe that game developers are saints that don't care one bit about money and success and are only in it for the creative challenge, look at it this way: if they can make even 1 game that sells 100 million copies, they can spend the rest of their lives doing whatever the hell they want, coming up with the most imaginitive and original titles they can conceive, without any worries about how it might do commercially.

That's the frakking problem. Will Wright, to use him as an example, made enough money with Sims to do anything for the rest of his life. So he goes and does what? Sims 2!! Then later he thankfully starts on Spore - a game that I will probably not like, but one that at least promises to be innovative.

Firaxis, actually, could also do a new game. The Railroad Tycoon remake isn't a bad thing, but I'm sure that Sid could still come up with something that's new and fun. But at least Firaxis, in the case of Civ4, made a sequel that really improved the series.

Speaking of developers, Valve is an interesting case. As of mid-2004, they had only ever released one game (Half-Life), and yet they were among the most famous and respected developers. That's also some success to envy.

[Imran Siddiqui]

[q=Locutus]Yes, developers are in it for the fun, but they need to pay their bills as well. I already said earlier that Civ4 is more newbie-friendly than any previous Civ game and this is by design. Civ4 too tried to appeal to a wider audence than Civ1-3 did -- this is simply good business practice, and also human nature: we all want to be successful.[/q]

No one is saying developers don't want to make money. You are missing the point. Making a game that 'appeals to the masses' is far different than simply trying to appeal to wider audience. Appealing to a wider audience may be to improve the graphics or rehaul the interface. Appealing to the masses means to dumb down games to make it simplistic enough for anyone to pick up.

Most game designers, while wanting to expand their potential audience (who may be put off by bad graphics), do not want to remove all traces of complexity from their games to simply appeal to the masses.

WTF? What are you smoking? Last time I checked 58 million units was still a LOT more than the 7 million the Civ series sold. Yes, they target different markets and there are good reasons for that, but numbers are numbers.

Since when is the 'Sims' series the same as the 'Sim' series?

And yes, like UR said, it was a complete accident that the Sims did so well. Simcity, Simearth, etc, made some decent money, but didn't really 'appeal to the masses'.

Will Wright is basing his whole argument on a serendipitous success. If he never stumbled on the Sims, I wonder if he would have said the same thing. As pointed out, the guy who made Tetris couldn't duplicate the success.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by fed1943
I am a newbie, as I know nothing of computers, actually I see computers as I saw wood in my old chess games.

But you are different, you are a chess player to start with.

[Rommel2D]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And yes, like UR said, it was a complete accident that the Sims did so well. Simcity, Simearth, etc, made some decent money, but didn't really 'appeal to the masses'.

According to the Wiki article I read, Simearth was a financial flop. Sure looks alot more interesting than Simcity, I'll have to give it a try sometime. This might even be an example of what Wright is talking about, speaking from experience about 'failed' sequels. But the analogy still isn't very congruous to the Civ series...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Locutus
Exactly, that's the whole crux here. This is what the gaming industry as a whole has been trying to figure out for years. Anyone who reads industry websites and magazines or who goes to conferences like GDC will tell you this. You might not like it, but there are a whole lot of people in the gaming industry (yes, developers too) who want to appeal to a wider market, because that's where the money is. At present 9 out of 10 games loses money, it's the 10th one that keeps companies afloat.

Perhaps they are doing this the wrong way, by patterning the gaming industry after Hollywood. You know, big budget, lots of glitz and eye candy, etc. Then they throw even more money into PR blitzs hyping up the game. I am not sure if that's the right way to do it.

Maybe Brad Wardell get it right. Keep the production cost down. Dispense with the marketing stuff. Sell the game over the Net to minimize costs and to cut out the middleman.

The thing is, the lower the cost, the easier it is for you to recoup and to make money.

Originally posted by Locutus
Civ4 too tried to appeal to a wider audence than Civ1-3 did

Maybe it does (not that I noticed, though ).

Originally posted by Locutus
-- this is simply good business practice, and also human nature: we all want to be successful.

Excellent point. The question to ask is, how do you measure success? It seems that the metric for a game developer is not how much money he makes.

Originally posted by Locutus
Why do you think many great actors flock to Hollywood? Creative challenge? 99% of Hollywood movies is crap, yet they still attract some of the greatest actors, directors, screenwriters, etc in the world. Even the most artistic people in the world want success.

Well, Hollywood is where the big $ is. Again, is it a good idea to pattern the games industry after Hollywood? Afterall, computer games and films are different: games are interactive, films are passive.

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Locutus
...they did it because they were tired of getting beat up in reviews about their ugly graphics, because this kept the GalCiv1 from selling more copies than it did.

Does anybody care about these reviews anymore? I mean, they rarely tell you anything that's helpful to the consumer. Just look at how many rave reviews were given to games that turned out to be lemons (e.g. Black & White). They don't tell you what's really bad in these game, perhaps that's because the reviewers haven't put in enough time in doing the reviews to find out. Either way, the main reviews on Gamespot etc. are useless to me. What's more interesting are the ones from the readers.

Originally posted by Locutus
I know we all want to think developers are these saints, these Van Goghs and Manets who only care about artistic freedom and creating the best games possible, but if this is so, how come there are hundreds of RTS titles that all play exactly the same? How come 90% of all shooters are basically clones of each other? How come the CtP series ever saw the light of day? How come more than half the games that come out are sequels?

You're right, there's a big problem in the industry. Part of that is caused by the suits being in the driver's seat. You don't see that in some companies, such as id or maybe Blizzard. Some designers, such as Sid, has enough reputation to stand the ground, so their games don't get rushed (at least not as much) and they could even have the liberty to cancel games that they see as duds. However most developers don't have such previleges.

Originally posted by Locutus
Tell me with a straight face that's not about making money, tell me the guys who made that game truly saw a creative challenge there...

They try to make money. But chances are they won't. Though I am not sure if the sin lies with the developers or the publishers...

Originally posted by Locutus
WTF? What are you smoking? Last time I checked 58 million units was still a LOT more than the 7 million the Civ series sold. Yes, they target different markets and there are good reasons for that, but numbers are numbers.

As a said, if Will Wright was able to pull a more consistent performance, I'd give his words more weight.

Originally posted by Locutus
Actually, the Townend quote is "If you don't do it excellently, don't do it at all. Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun, and if you're not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there?" -- so according to him business IS about profit.

Yes, profit is a secondary goal. Townsend maintains that a business can only be profitable if it focuses on what it does, and does it excellently. Aiming straight for profit will be a recipe for failure.

Originally posted by Locutus
Ever wondered why there's only 1 Google in the world? That approach works for them and the whole world is jealous of that, but very few people can repeat it.

They focused on what they did, and did it excellently

[Ijuin]

Originally posted by Rommel2D

According to the Wiki article I read, Simearth was a financial flop. Sure looks alot more interesting than Simcity, I'll have to give it a try sometime. This might even be an example of what Wright is talking about, speaking from experience about 'failed' sequels. But the analogy still isn't very congruous to the Civ series...

I have had SimEarth since it first came out, and the main annoyance that I had with it is the life seems to evolve through all the stages up to civilization and then to the interstellar exodus without the player having to do a thing--as long as you don't kill too many of your creatures, advancement is inevitable--there was no need to balance much of anything unless your planet's temperature or atmosphere was so out of whack that you were getting mass extinctions.

[murphy54]

YES i AGREE WITH wiLL

[arthurdent2k]

Hm... I guess Wright's not that wrong.

You can sure have a nice out-of-the-box-experience with Civ4 and have some fun playing straight along but if you really wanna get all out of it you just have to invest some time.

A lot of time.

And that's just the Prob: Almost every "Gamer" i know personally wants to play right on, they're not against more complex games but won't invest the needed Time if the game's not fun from the first moment.

On the other Hand, he IS wrong: Civ4 is more beginner-friendly than its precedessors (hope thats the right word for "Vorgänger *g*).
Showed it to a few friends who resisted Civ3, half of them played a few (assisted) hours and are now into it

[greenday_234]

personally i prefer the way the civ games have expanded than some of Will Wrights games.

The Sims 2 is a perfect example. I bought and enjoyed to The Sims 1. I had all of the expansion packs which were voluminous and then the sims 2 came out. In this new version it added 2 new big features 3D and aging. Thats it. And then to make things worse they stripped all the features that had been put in the expansion packs for Sims 1 and started repackaging them in new expansion packs for Sims 2. Thats when I stopped playing. So for all of you who believe that Firaxis or 2k is greedy try Maxis on for size.

[Solver]

You can sure have a nice out-of-the-box-experience with Civ4 and have some fun playing straight along but if you really wanna get all out of it you just have to invest some time.

A lot of time.

And that's just the Prob: Almost every "Gamer" i know personally wants to play right on, they're not against more complex games but won't invest the needed Time if the game's not fun from the first moment.

Any gamer who won't invest the time in a game won't enjoy a strategy game fully, period. Strategy games exist for people who want invest time, and for people who want to figure stuff out. Civ4 is indeed playable out of the box, but you can't have a great understanding of all the strategy out of the box. I like Civ because I keep discovering new things months later. I have a game running in the background as I type this, and I tried attacking with massed Immortals for the first time, with very good success - love this stuff.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
But it's a totally flawed point from the get go. Games have NEVER appealled to the "masses" aside from sports games. As UR pointed out, the extention of his line of thought is dull, simplistic games that may appeal to the American Idol voter, but won't make any "Best Of" lists in 10 years times.

The Sims appeals to the masses and it certainly deserves to be on a Best Of list, even if I don't personally like it all that much.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by arthurdent2k

On the other Hand, he IS wrong: Civ4 is more beginner-friendly than its precedessors (hope thats the right word for "Vorgänger *g*).

Almost. That´s predecessor

And to answer the question posed in the thread title. I don´t really think that Civ4 is "too daunting". But, as always, it depends on what you´re comparing it to... Compared to Sims, SimCity and Snakes and Ladders Civ4 IS daunting. And it should be. Civ isn´t a game you master in 30 minutes. It takes interest, stamina and a strategic mind to be a good Civ player. But the same can be said for Chess and Go. And you don´t see a kids boardgame manufacturer complain that Chess and Go is too difficult...

[Solver]

Well, there IS a big difference between Chess and Civ. Chess has far simpler rules. All the rules of chess can easily be layed out on one page; you can't do that with Civ. Then again, Civ has (theoretically) more strategic depth. I mean, professional chess players play the first dozen turns by heart, all those openings have been tried and tried to death, and are thus known and have been analyzed a ton.

So chess and Civ are quite different. Chess is a completely brilliant game, though.

[Kuciwalker]

Also, people who make chessboards aren't game designers. They're game manufacturers. I suppose the closest analogy would be the people who burn the CD's and make the boxes.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by greenday_234
The Sims 2 is a perfect example. I bought and enjoyed to The Sims 1.

You did?

Burn the heretic!














j/k