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SorvinoBackhand
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Am I the only one who thinks that this iteration of the Civilization series feels much more corporate than in the past? First came the GREAT LIE about Multiplayer, now Infogrames FINED a fan. What the hell is that? Fining fans of the game ?!
Civ used to be a lower overhead, more player-oriented franchise. Sid Meier apparently once had control of the broad direction of policy. But his mystique is fading in the tightening grip of the publisher and its marketing wing.
Clearly, Infogrames sees a cash-cow when it looks at sites like Apolyton, not devoted fans seeking a good game. It is a shame how far that fan loyalty is now evaluated, and exploited, as a direct dollar assest - a near-captive market - rather than as a equal and critical part of the franchise' success.
In their later work, I hope Sid and Firaxis will move on to a new publisher that does not regard the fan base with such contempt.
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ScottVib
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Read the German Translation Gaff thread, currently below this one.
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Bleyn
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Well given that the computer gaming industry is now, I believe, a multi-billion dollar industry, the corporatization of games is somewhat inevitable.
Back when the original Civ was released, a lot of games were still being made on showstring budgets by people who were more interested in making the game than in ever seeing any money off of it.
Now it typically requires a lot more time, a lot more people, and way more $$$ to make a video game. And while Sid may be doing pretty good, he's no George Lucas.
Unfortunantly, this means that good small design companies like Firaxis, QuickSilver, or Brian Reynolds' Big Huge Games have to work with big time publishers. And when you boil it all down, the people in charge at the publishing companies are business people who are out to make more than just a buck or two. And they are going to take actions to protect their percieved ability to make said money, even if it doesn't make sense to us.
And trust me, its not worth bothering. It will never make sense to us. I used to work in tech support for a computer company. More than once we had to suffer with the results of a bad marketting decision that we could have told them would hurt the company if they had bothered to ask us.
Will this change any time soon? Probably not. Is there anything we can do about it? Well unless you can manage to round up every person in Western civilization mis-trained by the skewed values of the corporate world (no doubt reinforced in no small part by similarly skewed values in business schools world-wide) and reprogram them to eschew personal greed and hold quality and long term gain as their highest values.... forget it.
My suggestions... hope that Moo3 and Civ3.x(or whatever we wanna call the now almost inevitable expansion) are better... maybe start a campaign to target video game publishers on the next Jake Day... Worship the False Bobs... Go do your Christmas shopping...
That last aught to really take your mind off of corporate greed 
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SorvinoBackhand
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I agree it is IG's right to pursue intended and malicious copyright infringements. But Kai (that poor German guy) contacted them, in good will, with his translation idea! And IG's first response was to fine him ?! Good grief. That is not how savvy marketing responds to zealous fans. We are the people who buy these games...
Indisputedly IG pursued Kai with excess.
MORE IMPORTANTLY IG'S OVERREACTION DEMONSTRATES JUST HOW FAR SID MEIER HAS LOST CONTROL OF THIS FRANCHISE.
To be sure, IG pulled back. The fee against Kai for IG's legal expense was waived (how generous of them), but Kai - probably some hapless fan who knows nothing of lawyers - was forced to acquire and pay for one himself nonetheless. Even worse, he was banned from further modifying the game at the risk of a future 10K FINE !! Holy lord. Who does Infogrames thinks buys these games?
And isn't the Civ series supposed to be mod-FRIENDLY? Should the guy who released the Roman Catholic Church faction mod for SMAC pay such a fine? He's probably running for the hills right now.
This is all very unfortunate for a game franchise that otherwise has been so promising and intelligent in the sea of so many mediocre PC games. Now where do we turn ?
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Deathray
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High Wycombe
Oct 2001
time: 05:16
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Of course Sid has lost control of his franchise. Interplay own the Civilization name. Its a shame, but there you go. A lot of franchises are bought up by rich publishers as cash cows. Personally I think that there should be a "league of developers" of something like that, in order to force publishers to adheer to certain rules (i.e. You will give me enough time to make my game. You will let me make the game I want. You won't pull the plug suddenly and without warning).
As for Kai, well, they're within their rights to sue him, but he doesn't really deserve it. IMO it was a very bad marketting decision. Basically, it amounts to the small number of sales that might be lost by people downloading the English Civ 3 and translating it to German versus the bad publicity they will get from this move. And if one of the gaming magazines gets hold of it, the results will not be good for Interplay.
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28-11-2001 18:22
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