Horrible Civilization V marketing

While the company may think it is being cute, they are giving me reasons not to buy their game. They are emphasizing how the game ruins lives.

I bought Civilization I the day it came out. And I bought the ‘re-releases’ such as Civ-Net and Civilization II and Civilization II Gold and so on. I bought Civilization III and IV the days they came out.

I am not going to buy Civilization V.

I greatly disliked Civilization IV. I thought it was just me but the Amazon reviews also have tons of people disliking the gameplay. With Civ V moving to hexagons and all, I get a sense that the Civilization developers are out of control. They are losing what attracted people to the game in the first place.

The last thing I want from a game is it to ‘become so addictive’ that it messes up my life. Can you imagine WoW ads like that? And we know WoW is far more addictive than Civilization ever was. What Civilization V is advertising is something they shouldn’t be advertising at all. I don’t’ find their ‘addiction’ commercials cute or funny. I find them scary and stupidly written.

One thing civilization players have noticed is that the game has become far more time intensive to play a round since Civilization III. I know they have tried to fix this problem in Civ IV, but honestly every time I try to play through Civ IV I get so bored I quit the game.

Currently, I played through a game of Civilization II. It was definitely archaic in some AI ways (especially the worker/settler AI and movement AI), but the game is still very playable today. And it is way more fun than Civilization IV. I bet it will be more fun than Civilization V.

See the above? That is FUN! I like the female foreign advisor declaring that there will be no more gods and that women will rule (no wonder my cities entered civil disorder).

See the above? That is the Wonder video for Shakespeare’s Theater. The videos were far more fun before everything became CGI. I like the older Civilization games better because they seemed more interested in the content (i.e. civilization history) than the later games (who appear more interested in lame gameplay innovations). The later civilization games are not as ‘magical’ as the first ones.

And after four games, does the company not realize that gamers have woken up to the pattern of making us buy the same game multiple times? There is the vanilla version of Civilization. Then there is an expansion pack. Then there is another expansion pack that includes the previous expansion pack. And then there is a ‘gold version’ that has the full game and all the expansion packs. Yeah, even if I was interested in Civilization V, there is no way I am buying the first version.

Farewell Civilization…