Tag: games

Why the Video Game Reviewers need to stop proping up bad or mediocre games

There is general idea among regular gamers that professional reviewers are basically being bribed to push game sales. While we cannot say that this is the truth in every instance, it is clear that there many journalists are no longer able to review games without trying to use them to prop up their factions in culture wars.

It seems to me that the video game reviewers have become more like political activists rather than people who are actually trying to play the games and show their thoughts on it.

Some of it is a cultural change in our culture. The video game industry was seen as a not serious industry by many governments. It was simply part of the entertainment industry, which in the highly technocratic era of the Post-World War 2, was not seen it as a threat to their power. However, more recently, people have started to take a closer look at video games.

Politics and video games do not really mix as video games unlike movies, were truly seen as diversions not were taken up by the avant-garde. This means that video games have been more a product of middle-class values and concepts

However, more recently, people who tend to be more political have been getting more interested into video games. With this attention, they are bringing along the baggage which has been hurting the industry and its ability to make games.

What we need to is to return to when Video Games were made for people playing games.

We do not need activists in our games. Neither should they be in any form of media. Activism in this age seems more of a way to help one’s side of an oligarchical system in America.

Video games should return to being about entertainment and telling an inspiring story that matters to people of all ages, races and abilities.

When the video game industry and its critics manage to stop being so elitist, then the industry will be able to make great games that people will purchase and cherish.

Civilization VII is a game without a soul or passion.

Creating video games is tough. Being a programmer in the modern industry is like walking on knives. You have so many obstacles that are getting in the way and rewards are either great success or a failure which prevents from really enjoying the act of making games. Unlike other programmers, who tend to be rather focused on dry ideas and concepts, programmers are artists not accountants. This means that they have a creative spark in them.

That creative spark in a company is difficult to maintain. Civilization VII represents a series that is increasingly become more casual and not for the original group of fans who kept it going in the 1990s up until the release of Civilization V in 2010.

Civilization V was seen by many to be a downgrade from Civilization IV. Some have said that Civilization VI is a reaction to Civilization V while trying to fuse Civ V and IV in one cohesive whole.

However, it is clear that Civilization VII was a reaction aganist such compromise.

The team on this game seemed to be more interested in change than in continuity.

However, they did not even seem to put enough effort to make the change worthwhile. It is not even competent enough in order to keep the interest of players. Right now, Civilization VI is ahead of Civilization VII.

The early 2010s Civilization V, is still able to garner many players and is not far behind in player counts when comparing Civilization VII.

Creativity without spark is simply being a person on an assembly line who makes competent pieces that fit into a grander whole. This game is not able to convey that to player.

Civilization VII is a game without a soul or passion. It is clear the video game industry is clearly rusting and it is going to take new thinking to get out of this rut it is in.

Civilization VII does not get it audience.

Civilization 7 is a game that seems to forget what made the previous games, in spite of their changes, worthwhile to play. By making us switch our civilizations in three mini games, the game no longer has the same gameplay loop which has gave rise to the phrase, “One More Turn”. It is this phrase which gave Civilization such staying power that many other games do not have. This is why Civilization has been so successful for so long and yet it seems failure has finally overtaken the mighty Civilization series.

Civilization VII’s peak Steam player count has stagnated under 100,000 while Civilization VI was around 162,000. This is a clear sign that Civilization VI was in better shape than Civilization VII at the same time of its release.

We also have to understand that Steam had a smaller userbase in 2016. While it was much bigger than in 2010, when Civilization V was released, it was still before the Coronavirus hit the industry and would be affecting many work flows in companies. Such delays were causing quality dips in many games, and we can clearly see that with Civilization VII.

However, it seems that in this time, companies are more willing to hide the incompetent nature of their jobs on a game. Firaxis Games, which used to be making incredible games, were now spending their time trying to make a political instrument, which one could see creeping in since Civilization V.

However, in Civilization V, this political activism is largely kept to the sidelines, largely in its manual, which talks about environmentalism.

By Civilization VI, it seemed that they decided to hide activism in more subtle ways, such as warmongering penalties, but Civ 6 seemed to be more of a return to form as the game did not explicitly attempt to demean European civilization.

Civilization 7 basically has India and China have three civilizations for each of the three mini games. England wasn’t even added until the latest patch and they did not even have the right leader for it. Choosing Ada Lovelace is not the right approach as he was not even a political leader in England at that time. Victoria was used in Civilization VI so another leader that could have been used could have been King Edward VII or King George V, however, they chose a woman wasn’t even influencing political events in the country in that age.

Civilization VII does not understand that its audience is largely male and is highly engaged in learning about history. Casual fans are not who make this franchise profitable in the eyes of the corporate people. It is the hardcore fans, who are a tough group but are the ones who support the series in a way that casual fans are not interested in the same way; they view Civilization as a means of recreation but do not have the same ties to it. The Civilization Revolution games, are a

This is one of the reasons why Civilization VI seemed like a return to form but Civilization VII saw the series return to the mobile game and console centric gameplay. This game was released on more consoles on release than any other title which is not actually helping it. By releasing it on so many platforms, the game is not polished on the platform which actually matters, the PC platform.

It is clear that Firaxis Games does not understand its own audience.

The need for game companies to grow beyond their fanbases is a double-edged sword in actual practice. We have an issue here where the video game industry is going through a cultural change. The game industry is more influenced by what they see on the app store than anything that one would have seen at the legendary conferences of the 1980s and 1990s.

The video game industry at this time is more about pleasing an invisible audience than anything sustainable. This is why many post-Covid games are flopping. Many companies simply have no passion and are throwing the sink at the wall in order to gain the biggest possible audience. They have forgotten the artistry and as a result many games are suffering because of it. Civilization VII is one such game and will be considered the “Dark Ages” of the series.