No I am not mistaken. Last I heard, developers make games right? As in they are developing the game. I've heard from the industry that you can't blame the developers because it's the publishers call. Then I hear you can't blame the publisher because they didn't make the game. At what point is someone actually going to step forward and take responsibility for a poorly created product? I mean sure people can jump on me and blame me for whatever. I am not blaming Mr. Shafer for anything as I don't actually know what exactly he is responsible for. I actually mentioned I enjoyed his post in another thread, but i guess it's just easier to attack than anything else around here these days. I want to know when the gaming industry is going to stop pointing fingers in circles and then blaming consumers for their ill-conceived products (not talking Civ V specifically here).  It's a general question but feel free to sling insults as usual.

Sift enough sand and you'll find a speck of gold

Ah, my apologies then. I interpreted your post as a reference to Frogboy's, in which he specifically said not to blame Jon or Firaxis, which is a developer, not a publisher.

I wouldn't say it's the fault of any one of the three sides, as there are always options, but IMO most of the issues brought up in this thread appear to be the result of the publisher making demands, rather than Jon's design goals. That seems to be backed up by the comments of Wardell and Jon, as well.

So certainly blame lies with all parties. Jon could have refused and left the project; He did not. But I personally would attribute much of the blame to the publisher, and allow Jon to be judged based on his work in the future.

If I insulted you earlier, I apologize, as that was not my intent.

Well, there is something that I don't really undestand here, I didn't play Civ 5 but I have all the other. I read a lot about how "screwed" the game is, but how can you "fact" that a game is flawed? I can understand opinion, everyone will love or hate a game and hater's gonna hate but on what base could you actually fact that a game is bad? I'm more of a scientist so I care a lot about fact and in my humble little book, if you must blame someone for a bad game, you should at least tell on what base you think the game is bad. If the game work as intended but you dont like it, does it make a bad game? Just asking.

Chronologically speaking, that is perfectly true.  In terms of quality and entertainment value, well...

Yep and my post was in agreement with yours. Elemental also received mostly 4+ reviews from reviewers and 6+ from users.

The post was in reply to the analogy that moaning about a $50 game was like complaining about free ice scream. There is a big difference. If you can't see it, and want to argue that it's the same thing then go ahead - make more of an ass of yourself.

£40 is above average price for a PC game in the UK. I can make relative comparisons. £40 is what Xbox and PS3 games cost over here normally. PC games cost £30 (just risen to £35 for brand new titles in the past few weeks).

So £40 is a lot. Is a comparative..look the word up (if your old enough to be allowed near your parents books)

I believe that everyone has a strong opinion about this, so it's probably not good to add to the buzz, but people, seriously...

WTF???

Why do you criticise Brad's decision to enlist a person most of you I bet personally don't know?

You don't know why CIV V failed (at least for me personally, it failed). And even if you knew, you don't know what role, if any Mr. Shafer played in its failure. And even if it was chiefly his failure (which I strongly doubt), you cannot know that he will fail with Elemental again.

I believe Brad is in tremendously difficult position. The name of his company is at stake. His career as a games developer might be at stake as well. I am sure he is most careful with all his decisions now.

I know only that these people care about the game. And while Elemental is sadly still a failure for me as well (in a sense that it still failed to provide a lasting enjoyable experience), I am sympathetic to these people who create contrast to the faceless, uncaring, calculating corporate world that just writes of losses and moves on.

So I wish them luck and I am happy to have purchased a ticket to taste the result of their effort! Bring whatever works in and don't care what people say - you carry the burden and the responsibility, not the audience!

I'm sorry Monk that I find that claim unreasonable.  One only needs to do a Google search to find where I personally accepted responsibility for Elemental's poor state at launch. Over. And Over. And over again. 

Elemental was finished on launch. It just wasn't a very good game and it was very buggy.  We didn't know it was buggy. If you want to argue that I'm lying about that then there's really nothing else to discuss is there? The whole process that the games went through internally (as opposed to our non-games) was just poor. Period.

The infrastructure was not in place to handle a game project the size of Elemental. But this wasn't due to us not finishing it. It was finished. If the game had gotten another 6 months of dev time, it would have still been a buggy mess because it was a development process issue. You of all people should be familiar with how software projects can fail if the development process is broken.  

Do you think that PC manufacturers who ship crummy pre-load software that's buggy, slow, and constantly crashing thought their software "wasn't finished"? No. They just didn't have a proper development process in place to ensure quality.

Moreover, the GBOR (http://www.gamersbillofrights.org) has no concept of "finished" because it's too subjective. A very early draft had lots of vaguaries like that but it was streamlined back in 2008 by Chris Taylor and myself prior to Demigod being released to be less vague.

Instead, and as the co-author and co-signer of said document, it is set up as (wait for it) a list of RIGHTS for GAMERS.  Game developers and publishers cannot grant these rights nor take them away. The rights belong to the gamer inherently in our opinion. Hence: The GAMER'S bill of rights.

That is why each statement is provided as a right that a gamer has:

1. Gamer shall have the right to return games to the publisher that are incompatible or do not function at a reasonable level of performance for a full refund within a reasonable amount of time.

Did we not support this right?  Not only did we give full refunds to users who had technical problems with the game we even gave partial refunds to people who simply didn't like the game and didn't want to be bothered to even talk to tech support. 

2. Gamers shall have the right that the games they purchase shall function as designed without technical defects that would materially affect the player experience. This determination shall be made by the player.

Again, this is a right that GAMERS have. It is not a right that publishers or developers give. It is left to the game player to determine whether this criteria is met. Thus if a game fails for a given player (and Elemental did for a lot of people) then they go back to item #1.  Every game will have technical defects for some % of users. There is no objective threshold here. 

Each of the additional rights works the same way. Games should not do X. If they do, then GOTO item #1.

In effect, The GBOR is a consumer protection policy.

People forget that when this was written, the typical PC gaming experience was Starforce on the CD, games that wouldn't load for lots of people because they either were incompatible or flagrantly not finished (not buggy but I mean, you couldn't even finish the game because it had never been played through) and if a user ran into this, tough luck. No returns.

The GBOR isn't some empty vessel for people to fill with their own personal agenda. It doesn't promise that a game won't be buggy or that a game will be "good" (whatever that means in some universal sense). It makes no promises whatsoever. It is simply a state of rights -- a state of expectations that gamers should have and a pathway to a cure if their expectations are not met.

The GBOR is a good thing for our industry. It is good for gamers. it is good for studios. It is good for publishers.  But it is not good when consumers warp it into something it is not. 

I cannot promise to anyone that a given piece of PC software will work flawlessly on their computer. All I can do is promise that if a given piece of software WE make fails to work on their computer that they can return it for a full refund.  Next time you buy a computer game digitally (like say from Steam) try returning it and see how that works out for you even if it doesn't work for you. Many publishers explicitly state that there are no refunds under any circumstances. You buy it, it's yours.

..

Getting back on topic here:

Every game that a given person doesn't like has a different reason for why it is the way it is. There is no universal standard here. The same team that wrote Galactic Civilizations II all the way through Twilight of the Arnor worked on Elemental. Same people + new people.  Twilight of the Arnor is one of the highest rated games of all time. Many consider it the best 4X game of the modern era.  Elemental, by contrast, was awful on launch. I designed both. I was heavily involved in the design of Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod and some people love those games and others hate them and they've very different games.

In other words, there are a lot of different factors that make a game a "success" or "failure". Sometimes when a game doesn't meet expectations it's because of bad design. Sometimes it's publisher interference (i.e. "notes from corporate"). Sometimes it's a personnel problem. Sometimes it's a process problem.  

I took responsibility for Elemental's poor launch because fundamentally, it was a problem of development process. Project Management, QA process, and design implementation.  Another game we make that some people like and others don't is The Political Machine. The people who don't like that game don't like it because of its design. It was released precisely in tune with the game design.  Each time it's different.

I'm going to lock this thread in a few minutes because frankly, this thread is embarrassing. It makes our community look petty and bad and is not representative of what the Stardock community is capable of.  Our community, overall, is much better than this normally.  

We are passionate gamers. But we should remember that there are human beings on the other side of these screens. I've had people tell me I should kill myself because they didn't like Elemental.  Let's sit back and not dwell on some disappointment in the past.  I've already approved a full game team budget for Elemental for 2011.  We're releasing v1.11 today.  There's a lot to look forward to.  Character assassination is only detrimental to all parties involved so let's move on okay?

Hope this helps.