Bugs: Without them, you'd stop playing Civ3. Right?

[yin26]

That's what the QA director at Firaxis thinks.

Discuss.

My final and most radical point is that the online gaming community, which most frequently identifies and evangelizes bugs, have strong interests in games not being 100 percent bug free. Let's say a title avoided major hardware conflicts and is produced by a company with the fiscal resources of Midas. The offering is highly anticipated and has a roll out of a quarter of a million units and 20 active fan sites eagerly digesting every bit of news. In this situation, the final product is actually an ending, and those who spent the last year or two following it are faced with saying goodbye to the friends they've made online and moving on to another title.

[yin26]

Markos, our fearless leader, seems to disagree:

1) communities and organized efforts created around the existance of bugs will turn into hordes of negative pr and much lower sales on the next title if the company doesnt address the issues
2) the longest living (sub-)communities on apolyton are the ones depending on positive things: civ2, ctp2 customisation, civ2/ctp/smac multiplaying, smac fiction writing. in fact, if you could take all the posts that where ever made on apolyton, bugs and troubleshooting would be a small number compared, to scenarios, modification and multiplaying...

Seems Markos is right.

[MarkG]

you really feel the need to see your name on the thread starter column dont you???

a point has been made on an existing thread. if everyone decided to make a new thread to reply to it what would this forum become?

[MarkG]

and yes, while i have my objections on the wording and the example that Jeff used to make a valid point(that part of the gaming experience is participation in internet communities), i posted my thoughts in a reasonable and logical manner in the right place.

i didnt start a new thread about it....