http://www.sidgames.com/ac/#-44 (Jeff, round 2)

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Author Topic:   http://www.sidgames.com/ac/#-44 (Jeff, round 2)

yin26 posted 08-20-99 06:55 PM ET
Now it's "hardcore" gamers, not whiners. Interesting indeed.
OldWarrior_42 posted 08-20-99 11:47 PM ET
Thank you sir...you continue to find it all.
Imran Siddiqui posted 08-21-99 05:44 PM ET
Actually I agree with Jeff on this... (and before the catcalls on SMACophant show up, why don't you really ask yourself whether or not this is true! When as a casual gamer, I found no bugs in Civ2 [unpatched]. Now [bring hard-core gamer], installing it onto a new computer, I find many bugs. Don't laugh at something because you haven't totally thought it through!)
Darkstar posted 08-22-99 02:27 AM ET
I liked his interview on SidGames. There was a lot of interesting things in it. Such as he's the only QA person at Firaxis. And it's not his primary/only duties. Lots of interesting things. I'd recommend it to those that wanted a brief glimpse into the Corporate Machine Firaxis.
Imran, could you try that again? You didn't find/notice any bugs in Civ2 the first time around, but after exposure to the hard-core, you are now aware and noticing them on a second install?
-Darkstar
OldWarrior_42 posted 08-22-99 11:16 AM ET
Actually what Imran says is what I think JKM is alluding to in this article. He makes some points about the easy going gamer who probably doesnt notice half the things going on around him as to the hard core gamer who sees every single little detail and misses not a thing.
Bossman posted 08-22-99 12:32 PM ET
OW!
Jeff did not mention casual gamers. I myself am a CASUAL gamer but I can recognise a bug from a mile off and I know how to download a patch. I believe what Jeff is talking about is your average, off the street, dumb, and stupid gamers! They wouldnt even RECOGNIZE THE BUG!
Bossman
RLMULLEN posted 08-22-99 05:14 PM ET
Seems that JKM vocalized something that I've assumed all along... and something that is not specific to SMAC, Fiaxis, game software, or software in general. It is the concept of the statistical bell curve. Most purchasers of SMAC fall witin the middle hump of the curve and thus represent between 80% and 90% of sales. The "left" tail represents the gamers who did not like SMAC and returned it. The "right" tail represents us... the gamers who are willing to study and play this game extensively, for months and years.
Unfortunately for us, we do not represent a large enough portion of revenues to have any sort of influence!! Additionally, we cannot influence a large enough portion of the customer base to have any affect on future revenues. This is a cold, hard, fact of life that is applicable to any and all consumer products. Realistically it would be a poor business move to attempt to pacify all of us. An example of this is the "hard-core" flight sim market. The hard-core flight sim, by definition, attempts to be the most realistic simulation of a given aircraft. Many flight sims over the past two years have floundered because of 5 to 10 pesky inaccuracies that were not acceptable by the hard-core market. As a result, many companies are losing money trying to create these beasts. Companies that lose money will either go bankrupt or move to something else. Origin just canned their Jane's A-10 sim because they didn't think that they could make a profit on the effort. This is a sim that was eagerly awaited. With the exception of a couple of sims that are already long in development, the hard-core flight sim market looks like it will disappear in about 18 months. Conversly, the "light" sim market is doing well.
Back to SMAC... If you were to survey the gamers who fall within the hump of the bell curve, I beleive that you would discover two facts. First, most of these gamers have not played SMAC in several months, and second they would tell you that they got their money's worth. Most of these gamers will buy SMACX or they will get it for Christmas... Firaxis will make money! And that is what business is all about, making money.
Personally, I'll continue to point out errors in SMAC with the hope that they are fixed, but I won't lose any sleep if they aren't. I'll buy SMACX out of curiosity. If I find it enjoyable... great; if not... oh well. Thrity dollars simply is not a significant amount of money to me. I'm still quite upset with Firaxis' denial of bugs and subsequent silence on the matter, but that is the gamer side of my being. The business side of me understands completely why we are being ignored... it is because we are insignificant. Sad but true.
There are many here who are trying to make SMAC a better game... I applaud their efforts and will assist where I can. There are also many who simply want to see Firaxis fail as a company; these people are going to be disappointed because SMACX will be a commercial success, Civ3 will be a commercial success, and "Sid Meier's Secret Project" will also be a commercial success. Success lies under the hump of the bell curve.
Apocalypse posted 08-22-99 05:58 PM ET
I believe Imran was talking about most people installing Civ2 on the average 486/66 of the time it was released and expirances no bugs because there were very few different hardware types at the time. Years later, when there are many hardware types, you see conflicts in civilization .
The Corporate Machine Firaxis is actually OSI and EA.

Also, the main reason that Jane's game was canned was because OSI needed those programmers doing other things.
Imran Siddiqui posted 08-22-99 07:06 PM ET
Well, not quite. Let me elaborate. First time installing Civ2, I never noticed any bugs. I installed all the patches, because I thought why not? There must be something that these patches fix, but I didn't know what it was at the time.
Then I get a new computer and play the unpatched version of Civ2, and realize why those patches were neccessary! Because of my saturation with games I can now see a bug.
Anyway, did anyone notice that Test of Time, basically a graphical update of Civ2 (not that bad though) had bugs! A game engine from 1996 still has bugs! So maybe we should stop blaming Firaxis for everything under the sun, eh?
OldWarrior_42 posted 08-22-99 09:01 PM ET
RLMullen...very well thought out post and eloquently put forth. I believe you and I feel the same almost completely. Bossman,when I first started playing computer games casually ,I couldnt recognize a feature from a bug if it bit me in the ass. I am not saying that this is the case for everyone. I also am not saying flat out that is what JKM was saying either. I merely pointed out what Imran might possibly be saying and that it was possible that that was what JKM was alluding to also. Just speculation and open thought on my part. I guess I should not speak out loud if I am just talking maybes and possibilities, huh.
OldWarrior_42 posted 08-22-99 09:17 PM ET
Anyway, my bad Bossman ...sorry.I need to be more specific and clear at times (I keep telling myself that but it doesnt sink in,oh well).
Shining1 posted 08-23-99 05:15 AM ET
Imran: CivII didn't need patching because it wasn't actually buggy. Nearly all the stuff worked well (I didn't get around to patching the game for around a year). Furthermore, many of the patches were actual enhancements, such as the addition of the Auto-Settlers (which, IIRC, took around 3 patches to get working properly). Some of it was game balancing, such as increasing the defensive strength of fighters. And some of it concernted minor stuff, such as the heralds animation not working under windows95 (a bug with which I was more than happy to put up with, all things considered).
SMAC is completely different. Firaxis' main (version 3 and 4, since version 2 was released simultaineously) enhancements added some minor features to the game and fixed some bugs. There are still many more bugs, but firaxis is not particularly interested in fixing them, unlike microprose with civII (a highly praiseworthy determination to make a perfect game).
So don't let the corporate jargon mislead you. Firaxis's enhancements are patches, while CivII's patches were enhancements.
Dick Knisely posted 08-23-99 01:19 PM ET
My how quickly we forget -- Civ2 was, in my view, at least as bug ridden when first released as SMAC. Brian (the guy who designed Civ2 and SMAC) provided great support, releasing 10 patches for 1.01 thru 1.11. Go back and review the readme.txt file for 1.11 and there are a substantial number of real problems that got fixed. And yes, some enhancements were added along the way as well.
Civ2 was not, and is not, perfect. Neither is SMAC or any other piece of software I've ever acquired. Today's software is a lot more complex, the computers of today are alot more complex and varied, and many of the users are a lot more sophisticated now because they've grown up with things like Civ2.
Darkstar posted 08-23-99 02:32 PM ET
Right now, computers are "In" and "Popular". I mean, let's face it, when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are doing movies featuring them and a well known ISP service, they are definately mainstream. Due to that, almost all subsectors of the PC market are undergoing serious growth. This isn't expected to seriously stop ever, according to the companies (certainly not in their planning). So, if you markey is growing faster than your customers are dissatisfied with you, you can simply pocket the money you WOULD have spent on "customer satisfaction" moves, be they PR, recalls and refunds, or patches and enhancements for free. Why? Simple economics. Too many new (read "stupid") consumers to know better. When computer games market was limited to just a few million (or less!) world-wide, customer satisfaction was a primary concern. People talked to each other, and placed serious value into each other's opinions. A little buzz on Fido net, or ARPA of "Ned's Night of the Ninja? It looked nice, but there is a serious bug in it at the start of level 2! Dont' buy, as you can't get around it!" and you'd have a company sweating its bottom off quick to verify and correct. That one statement, if collaborated, would be 10K to 75K units NOT sold. When your expected sales is 100K to 200K units, you are talking sink and swim differences. Anything more found, and not even free posters of Farah Fawcett would save it (true story). Not true anymore. Too many people out there that just don't know where to go for trust worthy reviews... the printed game mags often review products on babied by the developing company system, many times with custom code to keep them out of soon to be production, still being debugged code. Once the reviews are published, it's too late for the poor saps that buy such things.
And how many actually BUY them in the first place? How many are casual gamers that go into a shop, and see something interesting on the shelf? If the price is right, home it goes. I do this (if I haven't HEARD anything too nasty about it and I am interested [and it's not Sierra]), so how many others do? There are literally dozens to hundreds of sites to HELP educate you, but information overload is enough to guarantee you won't read them all. I can't see someone bothering with more than one, most of the time.
Beer and Pretzels is going to be the rule, as that is the majority of the consumers in this "You got mail" age of growth and computer use. Companies that figure that out and target that level of user, will be the ones that make the big bucks. Hardcore Flight Sims, Top of the line Strategic and Tactical "board" game translations, Serious Freaking Hard Sherlock Holmes Whodonits... any and all of the traditional games are going to disintegrate under the assault of SuperGreed to tap that Beer and Pretzel user who is imagined as just sitting down for an hour of two and filling the time between Monday Night Football, Prime Time Comedy/Drama, and going drinking with his buds on Friday. Its the married man/woman with children trying to gain a few hours privacy to relax, but who doesn't have the time/patience/interest in learning the complicated models of resources/strategy/tactics/whatever. Merely a couple of simple desicions, a few points and clicks, and then a couple of virtual nukes drop down an a stand-in asshole and KAPOW! That is the market they SEEM to think needs tapped. Not hard-core anything...
The times ahead look grim for HardCore. Or even the Medium-"I like a little World Empire/Conquest"-core players. But as game companies go for more "mainstream" and become interchangable for game design and play, there SHOULD be a counter-culture backlash. We've seen this before, with the early PC adopters. EA was formed on the counter-culture backlash against the mainline shops that had started chugging out the interchangable fight and adventure games. Will see it again as new companies form to make products too radical for the current market publishers feel safe in investing. It's only a question of, will you still be here to see it?
Civ has become a "mainstream" item in PC gaming world. Don't expect to see any departure from the old tried and true lines. Even if Brian and friends have RADICAL ideas for it, they won't get signed off by Upper Management. The last serious opportunity for serious revolutionary mutations to the game was SMAC. And we DID see some differences there with the SE and terraforming and whatnot. But expect the next jumps to be minor improvements and refinements, at least until Sid3...
As I see it as, Jeff got reamed last time by the hard-core element for his previous article. So this time around, he simply told us things as he knows them. If you don't like how Corporate Firaxis, and Corporate EA do things, then stop paying their bills. But they aren't going to change how they do things, so long as profits are up due to new customers entering the market. When the market growth stops being messured in the double to triple digits, then customer satisfaction will become a concern in the "how to squeeze more money from the market" efforts. Now, it's less expensive to let you go and bad mouth them. They aren't worried about your impact upon on your fellow customers, the newcomers to computer entertainment, as it will be minimum to none.
-Darkstar
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Author	Topic: http://www.sidgames.com/ac/#-44 (Jeff, round 2)
yin26	posted 08-20-99 06:55 PM ET Now it's "hardcore" gamers, not whiners. Interesting indeed.
OldWarrior_42	posted 08-20-99 11:47 PM ET Thank you sir...you continue to find it all.
Imran Siddiqui	posted 08-21-99 05:44 PM ET Actually I agree with Jeff on this... (and before the catcalls on SMACophant show up, why don't you really ask yourself whether or not this is true! When as a casual gamer, I found no bugs in Civ2 [unpatched]. Now [bring hard-core gamer], installing it onto a new computer, I find many bugs. Don't laugh at something because you haven't totally thought it through!)
Darkstar	posted 08-22-99 02:27 AM ET I liked his interview on SidGames. There was a lot of interesting things in it. Such as he's the only QA person at Firaxis. And it's not his primary/only duties. Lots of interesting things. I'd recommend it to those that wanted a brief glimpse into the Corporate Machine Firaxis. Imran, could you try that again? You didn't find/notice any bugs in Civ2 the first time around, but after exposure to the hard-core, you are now aware and noticing them on a second install? -Darkstar
OldWarrior_42	posted 08-22-99 11:16 AM ET Actually what Imran says is what I think JKM is alluding to in this article. He makes some points about the easy going gamer who probably doesnt notice half the things going on around him as to the hard core gamer who sees every single little detail and misses not a thing.
Bossman	posted 08-22-99 12:32 PM ET OW! Jeff did not mention casual gamers. I myself am a CASUAL gamer but I can recognise a bug from a mile off and I know how to download a patch. I believe what Jeff is talking about is your average, off the street, dumb, and stupid gamers! They wouldnt even RECOGNIZE THE BUG! Bossman
RLMULLEN	posted 08-22-99 05:14 PM ET Seems that JKM vocalized something that I've assumed all along... and something that is not specific to SMAC, Fiaxis, game software, or software in general. It is the concept of the statistical bell curve. Most purchasers of SMAC fall witin the middle hump of the curve and thus represent between 80% and 90% of sales. The "left" tail represents the gamers who did not like SMAC and returned it. The "right" tail represents us... the gamers who are willing to study and play this game extensively, for months and years. Unfortunately for us, we do not represent a large enough portion of revenues to have any sort of influence!! Additionally, we cannot influence a large enough portion of the customer base to have any affect on future revenues. This is a cold, hard, fact of life that is applicable to any and all consumer products. Realistically it would be a poor business move to attempt to pacify all of us. An example of this is the "hard-core" flight sim market. The hard-core flight sim, by definition, attempts to be the most realistic simulation of a given aircraft. Many flight sims over the past two years have floundered because of 5 to 10 pesky inaccuracies that were not acceptable by the hard-core market. As a result, many companies are losing money trying to create these beasts. Companies that lose money will either go bankrupt or move to something else. Origin just canned their Jane's A-10 sim because they didn't think that they could make a profit on the effort. This is a sim that was eagerly awaited. With the exception of a couple of sims that are already long in development, the hard-core flight sim market looks like it will disappear in about 18 months. Conversly, the "light" sim market is doing well. Back to SMAC... If you were to survey the gamers who fall within the hump of the bell curve, I beleive that you would discover two facts. First, most of these gamers have not played SMAC in several months, and second they would tell you that they got their money's worth. Most of these gamers will buy SMACX or they will get it for Christmas... Firaxis will make money! And that is what business is all about, making money. Personally, I'll continue to point out errors in SMAC with the hope that they are fixed, but I won't lose any sleep if they aren't. I'll buy SMACX out of curiosity. If I find it enjoyable... great; if not... oh well. Thrity dollars simply is not a significant amount of money to me. I'm still quite upset with Firaxis' denial of bugs and subsequent silence on the matter, but that is the gamer side of my being. The business side of me understands completely why we are being ignored... it is because we are insignificant. Sad but true. There are many here who are trying to make SMAC a better game... I applaud their efforts and will assist where I can. There are also many who simply want to see Firaxis fail as a company; these people are going to be disappointed because SMACX will be a commercial success, Civ3 will be a commercial success, and "Sid Meier's Secret Project" will also be a commercial success. Success lies under the hump of the bell curve.
Apocalypse	posted 08-22-99 05:58 PM ET I believe Imran was talking about most people installing Civ2 on the average 486/66 of the time it was released and expirances no bugs because there were very few different hardware types at the time. Years later, when there are many hardware types, you see conflicts in civilization . The Corporate Machine Firaxis is actually OSI and EA. Also, the main reason that Jane's game was canned was because OSI needed those programmers doing other things.
Imran Siddiqui	posted 08-22-99 07:06 PM ET Well, not quite. Let me elaborate. First time installing Civ2, I never noticed any bugs. I installed all the patches, because I thought why not? There must be something that these patches fix, but I didn't know what it was at the time. Then I get a new computer and play the unpatched version of Civ2, and realize why those patches were neccessary! Because of my saturation with games I can now see a bug. Anyway, did anyone notice that Test of Time, basically a graphical update of Civ2 (not that bad though) had bugs! A game engine from 1996 still has bugs! So maybe we should stop blaming Firaxis for everything under the sun, eh?
OldWarrior_42	posted 08-22-99 09:01 PM ET RLMullen...very well thought out post and eloquently put forth. I believe you and I feel the same almost completely. Bossman,when I first started playing computer games casually ,I couldnt recognize a feature from a bug if it bit me in the ass. I am not saying that this is the case for everyone. I also am not saying flat out that is what JKM was saying either. I merely pointed out what Imran might possibly be saying and that it was possible that that was what JKM was alluding to also. Just speculation and open thought on my part. I guess I should not speak out loud if I am just talking maybes and possibilities, huh.
OldWarrior_42	posted 08-22-99 09:17 PM ET Anyway, my bad Bossman ...sorry.I need to be more specific and clear at times (I keep telling myself that but it doesnt sink in,oh well).
Shining1	posted 08-23-99 05:15 AM ET Imran: CivII didn't need patching because it wasn't actually buggy. Nearly all the stuff worked well (I didn't get around to patching the game for around a year). Furthermore, many of the patches were actual enhancements, such as the addition of the Auto-Settlers (which, IIRC, took around 3 patches to get working properly). Some of it was game balancing, such as increasing the defensive strength of fighters. And some of it concernted minor stuff, such as the heralds animation not working under windows95 (a bug with which I was more than happy to put up with, all things considered). SMAC is completely different. Firaxis' main (version 3 and 4, since version 2 was released simultaineously) enhancements added some minor features to the game and fixed some bugs. There are still many more bugs, but firaxis is not particularly interested in fixing them, unlike microprose with civII (a highly praiseworthy determination to make a perfect game). So don't let the corporate jargon mislead you. Firaxis's enhancements are patches, while CivII's patches were enhancements.
Dick Knisely	posted 08-23-99 01:19 PM ET My how quickly we forget -- Civ2 was, in my view, at least as bug ridden when first released as SMAC. Brian (the guy who designed Civ2 and SMAC) provided great support, releasing 10 patches for 1.01 thru 1.11. Go back and review the readme.txt file for 1.11 and there are a substantial number of real problems that got fixed. And yes, some enhancements were added along the way as well. Civ2 was not, and is not, perfect. Neither is SMAC or any other piece of software I've ever acquired. Today's software is a lot more complex, the computers of today are alot more complex and varied, and many of the users are a lot more sophisticated now because they've grown up with things like Civ2.
Darkstar	posted 08-23-99 02:32 PM ET Right now, computers are "In" and "Popular". I mean, let's face it, when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are doing movies featuring them and a well known ISP service, they are definately mainstream. Due to that, almost all subsectors of the PC market are undergoing serious growth. This isn't expected to seriously stop ever, according to the companies (certainly not in their planning). So, if you markey is growing faster than your customers are dissatisfied with you, you can simply pocket the money you WOULD have spent on "customer satisfaction" moves, be they PR, recalls and refunds, or patches and enhancements for free. Why? Simple economics. Too many new (read "stupid") consumers to know better. When computer games market was limited to just a few million (or less!) world-wide, customer satisfaction was a primary concern. People talked to each other, and placed serious value into each other's opinions. A little buzz on Fido net, or ARPA of "Ned's Night of the Ninja? It looked nice, but there is a serious bug in it at the start of level 2! Dont' buy, as you can't get around it!" and you'd have a company sweating its bottom off quick to verify and correct. That one statement, if collaborated, would be 10K to 75K units NOT sold. When your expected sales is 100K to 200K units, you are talking sink and swim differences. Anything more found, and not even free posters of Farah Fawcett would save it (true story). Not true anymore. Too many people out there that just don't know where to go for trust worthy reviews... the printed game mags often review products on babied by the developing company system, many times with custom code to keep them out of soon to be production, still being debugged code. Once the reviews are published, it's too late for the poor saps that buy such things. And how many actually BUY them in the first place? How many are casual gamers that go into a shop, and see something interesting on the shelf? If the price is right, home it goes. I do this (if I haven't HEARD anything too nasty about it and I am interested [and it's not Sierra]), so how many others do? There are literally dozens to hundreds of sites to HELP educate you, but information overload is enough to guarantee you won't read them all. I can't see someone bothering with more than one, most of the time. Beer and Pretzels is going to be the rule, as that is the majority of the consumers in this "You got mail" age of growth and computer use. Companies that figure that out and target that level of user, will be the ones that make the big bucks. Hardcore Flight Sims, Top of the line Strategic and Tactical "board" game translations, Serious Freaking Hard Sherlock Holmes Whodonits... any and all of the traditional games are going to disintegrate under the assault of SuperGreed to tap that Beer and Pretzel user who is imagined as just sitting down for an hour of two and filling the time between Monday Night Football, Prime Time Comedy/Drama, and going drinking with his buds on Friday. Its the married man/woman with children trying to gain a few hours privacy to relax, but who doesn't have the time/patience/interest in learning the complicated models of resources/strategy/tactics/whatever. Merely a couple of simple desicions, a few points and clicks, and then a couple of virtual nukes drop down an a stand-in asshole and KAPOW! That is the market they SEEM to think needs tapped. Not hard-core anything... The times ahead look grim for HardCore. Or even the Medium-"I like a little World Empire/Conquest"-core players. But as game companies go for more "mainstream" and become interchangable for game design and play, there SHOULD be a counter-culture backlash. We've seen this before, with the early PC adopters. EA was formed on the counter-culture backlash against the mainline shops that had started chugging out the interchangable fight and adventure games. Will see it again as new companies form to make products too radical for the current market publishers feel safe in investing. It's only a question of, will you still be here to see it? Civ has become a "mainstream" item in PC gaming world. Don't expect to see any departure from the old tried and true lines. Even if Brian and friends have RADICAL ideas for it, they won't get signed off by Upper Management. The last serious opportunity for serious revolutionary mutations to the game was SMAC. And we DID see some differences there with the SE and terraforming and whatnot. But expect the next jumps to be minor improvements and refinements, at least until Sid3... As I see it as, Jeff got reamed last time by the hard-core element for his previous article. So this time around, he simply told us things as he knows them. If you don't like how Corporate Firaxis, and Corporate EA do things, then stop paying their bills. But they aren't going to change how they do things, so long as profits are up due to new customers entering the market. When the market growth stops being messured in the double to triple digits, then customer satisfaction will become a concern in the "how to squeeze more money from the market" efforts. Now, it's less expensive to let you go and bad mouth them. They aren't worried about your impact upon on your fellow customers, the newcomers to computer entertainment, as it will be minimum to none. -Darkstar