Civilization 5 Announced

[Gold Ergo Sum]

You're comparing apples and oranges there. The figure given for Civ5 above is for PC sales only. I don't know where you are getting a 6.5 million figure from but presumably it's for all platforms.

Sorry, I should've clarified. I was talking about sales across all platforms. And it was $650 million in sales in the first five days, so my guess is that is closer to 10-12 million copies sold in less than a week.

While that might be comparing apples and oranges, Civilization is forced to be a PC only game due to the complexity of its mechanisms and its UI. Obviously that puts it at a real disadvantage compared to other genres, since it appears that the "install base" for PC games is far lower than for console games (ironic).

I take this to mean, that for Civilization to be able to afford to keep any kind of extensive development team, it had better appeal GREATLY to its target audience. I guess the question is whether we are the target audience, or if there is a whole passel of more casual gamers that are buying Civ? But that is a dangerous game, because casual players move on. I suspect they don't buy much DLC, many expansions, and only sporadically pay attention to sequels, whereas the more hardcore gamers can sustain the lifespan of a title for years, and will build the hype for a sequel.

It seems to me that because of Civ's unique necessity (along with the RTS genre etc.) to be a PC-only title, this removes much of its margin for error.

[Zed-F]

SI guess the question is whether we are the target audience, or if there is a whole passel of more casual gamers that are buying Civ? But that is a dangerous game, because casual players move on. I suspect they don't buy much DLC, many expansions, and only sporadically pay attention to sequels, whereas the more hardcore gamers can sustain the lifespan of a title for years, and will build the hype for a sequel.

You know, I really doubt that casual players buy fewer of those things. They just have different expectations in what they buy. In fact, I would tend to suppose that casual players buy more of those things precisely because they move on; they get tired of any one game and need a more constant stream of new stuff to capture their interest. As a result they buy more stuff, and switch from one product to another and back again, as expansions and DLC rekindle their interest.

Certainly in aggregate, casual players represent a far greater share of the market than the hardcore playerbase does.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

We'll just have to disagree there. I would be shocked if much of the DLC and expansion pack sales come from casual players. But without figures to back it up, I have no idea.

[Krill]

As soon as game consoles enable mice and keyboards, then they are absolutely fine for civ. All that matters is the input controllers.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

There have been several game consoles that allowed mouse and keyboard. I used to play "Typing of the Dead" on Dreamcast with my wife (we're nerds). But I think the general fear is that the console makers don't want to un-level the playing field by letting people play FPS with mice and keyboard.

[T-hawk]

As soon as game consoles enable mice and keyboards, then they are absolutely fine for civ. All that matters is the input controllers.

This is absolutely true. The brick wall obstacle to console Civ (and RTS) for a long time was the size of the save games, rendering it impossible up through the PS1 generation (a memory card slot is 8 KB) and at best cramped on the PS2 generation (8 MB for one entire card.) But any console with a hard drive or even just the Wii's 512 MB flash memory can handle that easily.

The other obstacle, not insurmountable but serious, was and is the resolution of a TV. Standard definition TVs just can't display large amounts of readable text, like are required in the Civ main interface. HD TVs can, but are still a minority of the overall installed base of TVs. (I'm playing my new Wii on a plain old 32" CRT screen.) No smart console game studio will make a game that requires HD for several more years yet. A Civilization main screen with text can be made playable on a standard def TV (Civ Rev did it), but it's still not a great experience from a couch.

Any interface limitations are a problem of physical setup and market acceptance. The SNES supported a mouse. The Famicom had a keyboard controller. It takes practically speaking no computing power to handle those devices. But the market has not geared itself towards keyboard and mouse setups in the living room. The Dreamcast had a mouse and keyboard which were supported by several games (mostly PC ports like Quake), but they didn't catch on in the market. It's the usual chicken and egg problem; nobody will require those peripherals until the mass market buys them, who won't buy them without a library of games that they're worthwhile for.

[sunrise089]

@THawk - We can fix that install base problem at the launch of the next generation. Either:

1) Do what 90% of the market has done and bundle whatever controllers you want to support. If "XKeyboards" and "XMice" come with the Xbox720 or whatever then problem solved.

2) Do what Nintendo did with the Nunchuk - make it understood that it's an official peripheral, you will need it to play some games, but technically it's optional. Then on launch day when Family Puzzle Game, Halo 4, and Civ6 are available have "Official Mouse+Keyboard Optional" and "Official Mouse+Keyboard Required" stickers on the games, with the keyboards+mice boxed up on the same isle.

I guess the other option is to do what Nintendo did with the Donkey Kong drum game and Mario Kart Wii controllers - raise the price and bundle them with the game.

I agree 100% that expecting consumers to just plug $20 USB mice and keyboards into their consoles is expecting way too much from Mr. and Mrs. Kinect purchasers.
____

PS - I strongly suspect the next console generation won't require an HDTV. I think it's questionable whether the following one even will.

[Krill]

Hmmm. Digital TV is now the only way to recieve TV signals, right? So aren't most people replacing old none HD TVs with new HD, digital TVs anyway?

[Rowain]

I think HD will become far more spread this Christmas. Afterall Blueray is starting to spread and to really appreciate this you need a HD-TV.

But for consoles the newest trend is to go motion-controlled up to the point with no controller at all (Kinect) so I doubt that adding KB+Mouse is high on the list => more games developed for motion-controllers less for classical input.

About customers: Steam is perhaps a chance to gauge interest. At their statistic Civ5 is curently place 4 (behind Black OPs multiplayer but before Black OPs singleplayer and Fallour New Vegas). Also to add that Civ5 peak number is 1/3rd of that of Black OPs.

About SG's Civ5 is far more casual then Civ4. Casual players seldom visit fori and seldom join SG's so a part of the lack of SG's is for that. A second is ofcourse the idiotic Save-problems, third the missing of any incentive, interest-sparking Game like RB1 or Sullla's walkthrough and fourth the game in itself .

[Mist]

Hmmm. Digital TV is now the only way to recieve TV signals, right? So aren't most people replacing old none HD TVs with new HD, digital TVs anyway?

You can get a set-top box to convert digital signal. I have one of those, and it's much more wallet friendly option if you don't want to cough up for a new TV.