QS screwed up the MOO3 project by being too ambitious

[DanS]

Was Civ III a successful Civ 2.5?

[ravagon]

Well they are making an expansion. Of course, much of the content should have been in the original, but thats something you may be able to say about a lot of expansions...

I guess the real test will be the number of expansions they manage to sell to those who weren't too put off by the initial Civ3 release.

[Ozymandous]

Well, there was a lot of information and "stuff" in the Civ2 expansion that should have been in the original as well, but it wasn't.

*shrug*

If the expansion add's enough value people will buy it, if it doesn't then people will not. People can complain about MP and other things not being in the original, but they weren't in the original Civ or Civ2 so why buck the trend?

[TCO]

It's just a financial decision. it takes a certain amount of effort to make MP and you get a certain amount of money for having it.

The Civ3 fiasco was that first they said it would have MP and then they took it out and wouldn't repsond to questions until the last possible moment about wether it was in. They basically lied...

[DanS]

GP: I'm trying to imagine a successful x.5 model. Do you have any examples?

[TCO]

maybe civ2 itself?

[TCO]

Tombraider series?

[ravagon]

Originally posted by GP
The Civ3 fiasco was that first they said it would have MP and then they took it out and wouldn't repsond to questions until the last possible moment about wether it was in. They basically lied...

Wasn't the lack of MP announced several weeks before it came out? About the time Uber/AH adopted their new avatars...

That I could live with. They didn't actually indicate that it was included in the box they sold it in. The (lack of a) scenario editor though was a bit of a shock to most of the scenario community as most of them didn't know about it. The darned box advertising scenario's etc on the back didn't help either.

[TCO]

It becomes Clintonian trying to pin these guys down.

The scenario editor was just another example of the same trend. They claimed it was a robust editor and it wasn't even useable to maekscenarios. Basically more like a place to put settings for changeing random games.

The problem was that they initially said MP would be there. Then they knew FOR A LONG TIME that MP was gone but tried to hide it. Inclduing for a while refusing to asnwer questions. Even in official interviews.

[DanS]

GP: Was Civ 2 as fun as Civ I? Not as I remember. Re Tombraider, there's also Might and Magic X or whatever...

I think any game x.5 sounds great from a conceptual, business school weenie point-of-view. But Civ 3 set out to be Civ 2.5 and still didn't meet those lowered expectations.

We could go on lowering expectations, but I think we should focus more at the senior management level. Is Infogrames any good at managing these designers?

[Eurhetemec]

For my money, Civ II was considerably more fun than Civ I, and SMAC, post X especially, which changed things more, was more fun than either...

As you say, .5 games look great on paper, and can be very successful, especially if you have an audiences of fanatics, especially non-gamers, who buy your product for reasons other than the gameplay (Tomb Raider, for example), or if your product always had very tight gameplay, and the main interest is the addition of new features (Street Fighter 2, 3, etc., but even in that case, there were so pretty massive leaps and changes).

However, many of the 2.5s that are extremely successful are action-type games, and many have their main market on the consoles, not the PCs. What might be accomplished by a mod or patch on a PC game, can take a new release on a console.

AFAIK, Infogrames is pretty new to this "Strategy and RPGs" market, and doesn't necessarily seem to realise that these types of games take longer to make than the latest licensed-engine FPS, and both Civ III and MOO3 have suffered because Infogrames (whom we hoped would be better than Hasbro, sigh...) hasn't given them enough time, and then has cut off funding when the deadline is passed, meaning that they have to lose money or release and unfinished game, or both.

Frankly, though, and this is where the rant starteth, .5 is what is killing the gaming industry, slowly but surely.

Instead of creating new games, instead of pioneering, developing new genres, and so on, almost every company out there is content to release game X.5, time after time, and whilst this pleases fanatics, people who don't play other games, and people who play Tomb Raider for the boobies, it stifles the whole industry, sends hardcore gamers away, and unless it stops, the games we are playing now, albeit in flasher forms with snazzier graphics, sound, and ease-of-use features, will be the same bloody games we'll be playing in 20 years...

To wildly misuse a quotation, "better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all" - I would suggest that equally, better to try to break the mould, to come up with something new, than to sit around pathetically re-making the same game over and over, because you're assured a certain profit.

It's not even good business sense, in the end. Sure, .5s sell, mostly, but after the 2nd, which is usually bigger than the first, each one sells relatively less and less, so profit margins are increasingly poor.

Whereas if you create something different enough to truly renew a series, or a totally original game, you not only get the profits from that, perhaps massive ones, if you hyped it enough beforehand, but you get the potential of numerous sequels, spin-offs, and further profits.

Thus, whilst a MOO3 could have easily led to profitable expansion packs, MOO4, MoM2, and so on, a MOO2.5 leads nowhere but a MOO3.0, really a MOO2.5.5...

Rant endeth...

PS - Can anyone think of a "great game" that was delivered truly "on time", especially in recent years? I ask, because GP talks about reality and so on. I suggest he knows little of the reality of the computer game industry. Only two kinds of games seem to have been released "on time" of late, those being cookie-cutter junk (Wolfenstein), .5-style sequels (Tomb Raider, but even that has slipped sometimes), many of them of dubious quality, and those which were unfinished, but passed off as complete, of which there have been a huge number (from Hostile Waters to Civ III).

Every game released by "unfailing" developers like id software and Blizzard has slipped or had very, very, very long development times, and this is hardly atypical of the industry.

The reality is that innovative, high-quality, and well-programmed games slip, and that junk, dubious sequels and/or unfinished games always ship on time. Computer game design is not house-painting or fixing a tire, it's an art, and one where a lot of unexpected issues can come up.

I suggest that publishers need to be more reasonable in their expectations about new and original games and sequels (if you ignore the oxymoron), rather than mindlessly putting in cut-off points.

As Microsoft knows, sometimes you have to lose a bit of money to make a LOT of money later on...

It's no wonder that the more original game designers, such a Molyneux, prefer to set up their own companies and do their own development, rather being at the whims of some random 35-year old MBA who doesn't even like computer games, let alone understand them...

[TCO]

Originally posted by Eurhetemec
For my money, Civ II was considerably more fun than Civ I, and SMAC, post X especially, which changed things more, was more fun than either...

Agreed. And it had some reasonable advances. But it was a sequel. The thing that made it great was already in civ1. It was just a shinier new model. But the advances were not more important than the core fun part already in civ1.

AFAIK, Infogrames is pretty new to this "Strategy and RPGs" market, and doesn't necessarily seem to realise that these types of games take longer to make than the latest licensed-engine FPS, and both Civ III and MOO3 have suffered because Infogrames (whom we hoped would be better than Hasbro, sigh...) hasn't given them enough time, and then has cut off funding when the deadline is passed, meaning that they have to lose money or release and unfinished game, or both.

The issue isn't with IG. It's with Firaxis for either making a poor estimate of time/money required to do the project. (Or more likely for having a personell dispute, i.e. Reynolds departure, which set the project back.)

It's not even good business sense, in the end. Sure, .5s sell, mostly, but after the 2nd, which is usually bigger than the first, each one sells relatively less and less, so profit margins are increasingly poor

Whereas if you create something different enough to truly renew a series, or a totally original game, you not only get the profits from that, perhaps massive ones, if you hyped it enough beforehand, but you get the potential of numerous sequels, spin-offs, and further profits..

But of course it costs less to make a low end sequel. So that tends to keep margins up. The devil is in the details. But you can't just consider the top line. Think about the expenses also.

PS - Can anyone think of a "great game" that was delivered truly "on time", especially in recent years?

donno...AOE?

I ask, because GP talks about reality and so on. I suggest he knows little of the reality of the computer game industry.

Granted. But my instincts are good for this kind of discussion...and I bring more of a business forcused mindset than the compulsive gamer...

It's no wonder that the more original game designers, such a Molyneux, prefer to set up their own companies and do their own development,

There are some potential advantages to in-house development. Espacially for creative ventures or R/D focused ventures. But realize there are downsides too. Maybe its good to have a mean, evil publisher who pushes the deadline and the bottom line. Lots of independant shops go belly up because they won't make the hard choices.

rather being at the whims of some random 35-year old MBA who doesn't even like computer games, let alone understand them...

I'm 36, ok!?

[DanS]

"The issue isn't with IG. It's with Firaxis for either making a poor estimate of time/money required to do the project. (Or more likely for having a personell dispute, i.e. Reynolds departure, which set the project back.) "

GP: I don't agree with you there. The problem lies primarily with IG. It's not like they can't structure a deal to minimize problems and then follow up to make sure things are on track. That's their job, isn't it? They've got to make sure their money is being spent right--nobody else will.

And personnel disputes should be a part of the risk calculus of IG. You don't start slashing and burning on a project because of personnel disputes.

"Frankly, though, and this is where the rant starteth, .5 is what is killing the gaming industry, slowly but surely."

I agree. On the other hand, I would really like to see a M.U.L.E. 1.5.

[Eurhetemec]

GP - Age of Empires.

One good game out on time, and not a particularly original game, at that. Not only was it not original, in fact, it was technologically primitive, being 2D, low-colour (256, IIRC!), and generally extremely simple.

That's at one end of the spectrum requiring almost zero R&D, because of the technological simplicity, and the stolen gameplay (typical RTS). All they needed to do was tune the gameplay.

Compare and contrast with a game like Black & White, which takes massive technological steps, is largely original, and requires significant R&D, and maybe even dramatic changes of direction, because you're venturing into uncharted waters. Such a game would be unlikely to be financed by a company such as IG, especially given the dev time.

So you can't compare the two very well, and if AoE is the only good game to come out on time and fully-featured of late, then that rather proves what I'm saying: truly innovative and technologically complex games need longer dev cycles, and need to be able to slip to accomodate technological changes, or reach their full potential.

When companies fail to realise this, that's where the problems start. You can't mindlessly blame it all on Firaxis for making a bad estimate of the time and finance required (if they even did), because IG are an experience company, and should have checked those figures, and got some of their own, to see if it was reasonable.

Indeed, they may simply have said: Make Civ III, you have until X, which is a foolish proposition for a TBS game, especially a prestigious sequel.

The main problem, though, is that companies like IG are *only* looking at the short-term bottom line. This is why they fold, change hands or have massive financial troubles almost as often as the independant dev studios!

I can't think of any risky games that have bankrupted any larger companies, or even, really, smaller ones (apart from Cavedog, perhaps, if you remember them). More often it's mass-producing some piece of crap that predictably fails to sell that does the damage.

Determining what is going to be a hit, and what is not, always seems to be difficult for big games publishers, but the fact is, almost all the "big hits" financially, of late, have been either entirely original and somewhat risky games (The Sims, for example, has raked in insane profits), or *proper* sequels with very long dev times (like Diablo II).

In the end, I challenge you to provide examples of the "big mean publisher" helping out, rather than screwing everything up, for both themselves, and for the developers.

Also, can I ask, what industry do you work in?

[Lemmy]

I agree. On the other hand, I would really like to see a M.U.L.E. 1.5.

http://www.gilligames.com/Space_Horse/TheGame.asp