How Important is a Website to You as a Gamer? MOO3 and Civ3 Sites Compared:

[yin26]

Below you will find a quick comparison between two sites, one for Master of Orion 3 and one for Civ 3. It is interesting to compare the two because they occupy roughly the same genre and are both in their 3rd appearances in their series. Although they are quite different games, and I by no means intend to say that a website in and of itself is a reliable indicator of the final product, it is quite fascinating to me to see the way that two companies took two such different approaches to the use of the Net. That is, one company is using the Net to actively inform and engage its audience (i.e. prospective customers) while the other is taking a bare-bones approach leaving potential customers rather clueless and isolated by comparison.

I wonder which is the better approach? When or can hype actually HURT your product? Does the time involved in site development / customer relations pay off in the end? Conversely, does the bare-bones approach potentially alienate gamers or represent much saved time, money and freedom from having to keep / break promises? As a quick overview, here are the main topics in each site to help you answer these questions in terms of MOO 3 / CIV 3:

MASTER OF ORION 3 WEBSITE (http://moo3.quicksilver.com/)

Game Overview

• Background Fiction
• An Overview
• First Impressions of the Design Document as told by the newst team members
• FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Official Comments

• Space Battles
• Macromanagement
• Multi-player
• Surface Combat
• Races, 05.24.01 Race Clarification Announcement, and official Race List
• Space Travel
• Technology
• Religion
• Leaders
• Galaxy Map
• Wild Stuff
• Real Time Strategy AI
• From the Art Director/Art Team
• From the Game Designers and Programers
• From QSI Management or Infogrames Entertainment
• QSI Posts on the Discussion Boards:
• Part One: Game Designers and Progammers
• Part Two: Art Director/Art Team and Management
• Part Three: Volunteer Developers

Press Releases

• May 11, 2000: MicroProse's MASTER OF ORION III Takes Galactic Empire Building a Step Higher
• May 11, 2000: MicroProse's MASTER OF ORION III Rebuilds the Galactic Empire Building Genre
• Voted 6th Best at E3

Cool Stuff

• Post-E3 Game Previews: Trust us, it has been worth the wait. All the goodies that have been under wraps until E3 are now being posted in this section. Keep checking back because we are releasing everything on a weekly basis until we've shown all that we can show. (There are some things we still want to surprise you with when the game is released!)
• Master of Orion III Novel Writing Contest! See who the winners are and read some of the winning entries.
• Concept Sketches: These are artists' pen-and-ink concept sketches for some of the races and their ships. Brand new sketches added February 22nd, 2001! Check 'em out.
• Star Lords: How would you like a free game? Better still, how would you like to see the precursor to the original Master of Orion? Here it is in all its ancient glory.
• COMING SOON... MOO3 Ground Combat Simulator: Here's a "play toy" showing simulated one-turn ground campaigns in MOO3.
• A team from the Wargamer, PiesTactics.com, and 10-David.com selected MOO3 as the best within the Turn Based Strategy category from all titles viewed at E3 this year. Read their review.
• GameSpy has announced its E3 Awards and MOO3 received one of the Runners-Up for Strategy Games.
• GameSpy said some very nice things about the MOO3 demo they saw at the 2001 E3 expo. Thanks, GameSpy!
• MOO3 has earned 2001 E3 BEST IN SHOW for Strategy Games! See what Gamersclick.com had to say about all the hard work we've put in thus far.
• There's a British computer gaming magazine that we really enjoy, PC Strategy Games. If you haven't seen an issue yet, you might want to check it out. (Our designer, Alan Emrich, writes a regular column for them too.)
• Here's a preview from ign.pc dubbed "Master of Orion III: The best space empire game gets another remake with some impressive changes."
• The MOO3 FAQ is now being hosted on the Orion Sector web site.
• This web site has stuff on MOO and MOO2, too, The Orion Senate.
• A nice retrospective of MOO2 can be found at IGNPC.
• Would you like to have that in Russian? Here's a web site that reports (in Russian) on MOO3 and other similar strategy games.
• Here's a brand new MOO3 Fan Site.

Designer's Diary

• February, 2001
• May, 2000
• June, 2000
• July, 2000
• August, 2000
• September, 2000
• October, 2000
• November, 2000
• December, 2000

Beta Testers

We're deluged with e-mail from people requesting to be added to list of Beta Testers. Here's the official word on Beta Testers:
We have no Beta Tester list at this time. Please don't ask us to be a Beta Tester right now. We're probably looking at the Summer or Autumn of '01 for that, so just cool your jets, people. What you should do is watch this space. When there's an announcement, you'll read about it right here. Right now, we're not even sure if there's going to be an open beta test or not. Stay tuned...

About and Contact

• About the Master of Orion III Team
• Contact Information: Thank you for your interest in Master of Orion III! This web site is maintained by Alan Emrich. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about Master of Orion III, please send a message to aemrich@quicksilver.com. For technical problems regarding the web site, please send a detailed message regarding the issue to harvesters@quicksilver.com. Should you have press inquiries, please fill out the form below. Be sure to include your contact information to ensure that a Quicksilver representative can get back to you as soon as possible.

CIV 3 WEBSITE(http://www.firaxis.com/civ3/)

The Legacy

• (...a few blurbs about past glories... --Yin)

Game Updates

• 5/11 Game Update: Resources in Civilization III
• 3/1 Game Update: Diplomacy in Civ III
• 1/8 Game Update: War and Battles in Civ III

Gallery

• (...3 screen shots and about 12 "development art" shots of a unit or leader... --Yin)

Downloads

• "Check back soon for desktop themes, screensavers, wallpapers, and other cool goodies for the Civ addict!"

Community

• "In this section, you'll find links to Civilization III-related sites, polls, and "Ask the Civ Team", where you can send in your questions and we'll answer a few of them each month." (...NOTE: The "we'll answer a few of them" thing never really worked out. --Yin)

FAQ Contents

I. Introduction
II. Website
III. General

• What is the status of Civilization III?
• What can we expect from Civilization III?
• What is the connection between Sid Meier's Civilization III, Civilization, Alpha Centauri and Call to Power?
• Who's publishing the game?
• When is Civ III scheduled for release?
• What will Sid Meier's role be in the making of Civilization III?
• What will the system requirements be for the game?
• Are there any plans for Civilization III to be made for the Mac, Linux or other gaming platforms?
• Will there be multiplayer support for Civ III?

The MOO3 site is absolutely overflowing with information and a chance to interact while the Civ 3 site is more or less simply fulfilling (or, in some cases, forgetting) its purpose as a tool for informing / interacting with the public on only the most basic level. Which site approach is or will be more successful in your opinion? Do web-sites even matter to you, Joe Gamer?

[- Groucho -]

For me, most pre-game sites are just eye-candy. I like to poke around and look at them, but really - they're just an elaborate ad so I don't put too much stock in their promises. The reviews are what really help me make a purchasing decision.

In the past I bought a lot of games that I later wish I had not paid for. I have found that I really do not like first person shooter (Duke). I have Duke, but never play it. I like the X-Com series but not the space one. I have the King Quest series 1-7 but never Finnish even one on them. Have LOM, never Finnish a game.
Have Warcraft 1 & 2 I did Finnish no. 2. Had StarCraft sold it. At one time or other have own every Simtitle Will has produce. Still have most of them. 3 Police Quests gave away. Space Quest 1, 2, & 3 still have them. Several Star Wars game, properly will not buy any future Star Wars. Several Star Trek games have not brought any of the current games. Jagger Alliance 1 & 2. Finnish JA 1 but never Finnish no. 2. Gave No. 1 away. Have most of the Janes title, play one in awhile. First 3 Red Alert games did not buy the last one, no interest. Mechs whatever series gave away.
Panzer series gave away, did not buy last one. Gave Myst away. Still have Wing Commander Paophecy. I will not give any more game away. I now wish I never gave a game away. The games that really like and still play when not at this site is Civ 2, and CTP 2. Also have all of the Coaster game. Have Caesar III, Pharaoh & Cleopatra, Zeus they are fun. Have both Crusader games, would buy no. 3 but is was cancel. Any body here remember Rex Nebular, High Seas Trader, Afterlife, Rama, Rise and Rule, Dig? Have all four of AoE, AoK.

[yin26]

joseph1944:

Did the official websites affect your decisions on any of those games or are you with Echinda that these websites are just "elaborate ads" that can be safely ignored?

Echinda:

Interesting statement. I wonder how many others agree? Certainly most sites are nothing more than elaborate ads (and some hardly even elaborate), but doesn't that just mean that the companies aren't using the Net well enough? In other words, are all sites BY DEFAULT just (worthless) ads?

[Rasputin]

wow joe you sure have bought lot of games , hope you didnt pay for them all.. !!

I have played most of the ones you liste, but only ever bought King Quest 1-7 (collectors edition) Space Quest 1-V1 (collcetors editoin) Police Quest 1-3 (collectors edition again !!)
Sim city 2000 , civ 2 , civ 2 MPGE. and that sit all the others i played for free..

[Urban Ranger]

Joseph,

If you don't want to pay for the wrong game again I guess it'd be wise to pay more attention to reviews than to the silly website babbles. I prefer Game Domain reviews although GameSpot/CGW isn't bad either. I myself have also wasted a truckload of money on games.


Yin,

I generally don't give a hoot to what the website of a game says. The company should be busily writing the game, not the website.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well, I love the Moo3 site (I made a thread saying Civ3 needs some of this stuff), but I have to agree that sites really don't matter that much to me. The reason is that official sites make promises, but you don't know how well it will end up working. Something could sound really cool on the main site, but in the game could be horrible. I pay more attention to reviews as well, but as for Civ3 and Moo3, I'll probably be pre-ordering them both.

Originally posted by yin26
joseph1944:

Did the official websites affect your decisions on any of those games or are you with Echinda that these websites are just "elaborate ads" that can be safely ignored?

Echinda:

Interesting statement. I wonder how many others agree? Certainly most sites are nothing more than elaborate ads (and some hardly even elaborate), but doesn't that just mean that the companies aren't using the Net well enough? In other words, are all sites BY DEFAULT just (worthless) ads?

I started to buy back in 1984. No web site then. I really did not go online until 1996 when I bought my P-1 166. I did buy the old Commodore Mag. until it stopped. And did received the old Sierra Mag. until they stopped it. I have been receiving CGW, for about 4 years and PCG, 3 years.
Most of the time, it was looking at the Box and hoping. Now that I kind of know what my taste is, I don't buy as much as I once did.
This was dumb on my part, I bought Dungeon and Dragon and never open the box. Gave it away about two year ago. You guys won't believe this but last summer I gave 18 game to the young guy that bought StarCraft from me. Some of the games were old in term of games. Like in the early 90s. My wife has said over and over, she wish she had every dime I have spent on this computer.
I do look at the two Mag. to sometime help. The only site that I go to one-in-awhile is Sierra, Activision, MicroProse (can't do that anymore), Firaxis, MicroSoft etc, Maxis (now there is a site), and poptop.

[Rollo_CH]

I have to say: Whats the fuzz about this MOO3 thing? I didn't really know what it was before (thanks Yin!), so i peeked at their site....well i'm not THAT impressed....look at their "Designers Diary" frequent updates from May 2000-December 2000, then February 2001, then nothing....? Does that mean they run out of steam?

Some quotes from their "Galaxy" explanation:
Gas giants can certainly have Earth-sized moons. In rare cases, you can even get a double planet; we've seen double Jupiters in our simulations once in a while.

We don't have double stars; while such animals exist, our theory is that they're far less likely to contain habitable planets in stable orbits. And we already have lots of variety in the star types. If we want to implement multiple-star systems, we can simulate that quite effectively by simply placing two star systems really close together in the Galactic Map.

*Deep sigh*

Well its all fair and well....if they dont stick with realism...but seriously: should i want a "Space game" i'd stick with David Braben's Elite/Frontier series, realism like you've never seen and playability like nothing else....all the Galaxy with "double" (the most common constellation) yes even "quadruple" star systems, its ALL there....now yes yes, this is a completely different game but still..

Btw, i'd want a decent website anyway....MOO3 looks better...but you can make a site about gravel look marvelous...

[yin26]

Well, while we don't have enough numbers to come to any solid conclusions, so far it would seem that most people could live without an official site, choosing instead to rely on reviews of the game from a "trusted" source.

This calls into question, then, the company's need to make ANY site at all...or perhaps they only need the barest site, maybe one or two nicely done but not flashy or interactive pages.

I still believe, however, that at minimum a site should deliver what it promises. If you say "Monthly updates" then give the updates! And if you've changed your mind or will be late, post that as well!

It's one thing to have a sub-par site (in terms of content and interactivity). In fact, so far it looks like most people could care less. But it's quite another to publically record broken promises. I refer not only to the Firaxis site but numerous others over the years. It seems Webmasters tend to forget to go back and review their own work.

[Slax]

A game's website effects my decision in one way: A badly MANAGED site, to me, tells me the game may be poorly designed, and/or supported. I'm sure you can come up with many examples where this is not the case, but to me, if I see either a messy design of a website, or one where the site has been obviously left un-maintained (ie Civ III) I get a little nervous about the upcoming product. ("Gee, are they hurrying to get the product out by Christmas and can't update the site?")

If a website has zero graphics, but is updated frequently, I would think the GAMES are at least, well thought-out. There should be scheduled updates, even if very little can be revealed.

[Rollo_CH]

Well, how long does it take to make just a single little update involving two sentences for example?

About the time it took me to post this reply....7-8 seconds (and i'm slow)

Bottom line: Small notices should be done on the website, so that everyone knows there are someone nurturing it.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by yin26
Well, while we don't have enough numbers to come to any solid conclusions, so far it would seem that most people could live without an official site, choosing instead to rely on reviews of the game from a "trusted" source.

Too early to guess this, IMHO.
But I think you are mixing two different point, Yin.

Making a product as a game (not a commodity, but an entertainment, target oriented one) can be done considering many facet:

Design on a Market Need, also know as "chose what heck of a game you can do and some people will buy"
In the Internet era you can (should, probably must) interact with your potential customers. It's hardly to do with a new game (you haven't a customers base to refer, you must attract some from similar game area), quite easy with a sequel of a succesful game.
This is where all the hype effort live, true or not. Any company with a game new enough or not sure about the mood of previus version customers will put great effort.
My guess: Firaxis think its product is not very different and lot of fans will buy anyway.
Low care of Web Site: some Fan Forum did more than enough .

Make and Test for a Product you can Sell, AKA "anything you can sell without losing reputation must be selled, ready as designed or not"
In the Internet era you should (but probably don't want) interact with customers for early feedback, an alpha/beta test open enough to have right warning on game balancing, bugs, etc.
Here is where companies with some short timeline, or a fear for too much bugs to survive to bad feedback, will skip.
My guess: Firaxis started Civ III on a direct publisher request, so probably has some timeline/budget limit to cope with: if time will be in short (last interview: fall release? ), forget about open beta.
No care of Web Site: better be silent than let people start complaining too much.


Go Gold and Sell, AKA "grab as many excited early buyers you can, pay some ads and hope on good review, then live selling on Name and Coloured box"
Paper magazines still rules here: casual buyers look at vote and stars, sometime spending few minutes at the newsagent (ehi kid, you are supposed to buy that, that's not a public library! :LoL:

In the Internet era you are sure to see one-way interview, some cool stuff released,etc. No real interaction with customers: questions aren't welcommed because you can't change anything if not with expensive (free for customers) patches/enhancement versions. Bad question can ruin the hype you pay lot of cash for with ads and reviews.
Some care of Web Site: ton of material can be show, because you haven't any more use for it anyway; lots of early, discarded drawn, sketches, dismissed idea... ehi, if they where so good, why you don't chose them? If aren't so good, why I'm supposed to enjoy them?
My guess: Firaxis will be best friend of everyone, lot of posts here, revamping of corporate site... very excited fans all around.

Customer support; AKA "forgive me, I'm been very sick" or "I have your money, you have like a product, this is business, honey"
In the Internet era you are sure companies can release some patches without distribution costs. Some can be very nice with customers, until their financial dep. will tell them cost and income lines are converging on the wrong way.
Interaction with customers largely depends of customers mood: if they starting ranting enough to make bad effect on game selling... well, we will be let alone

Some care of Web Site: some material added if marketing budget has some money left with great selling success, some patches available with game "added exciting features".
My guess: Firaxis will do slighty better than with SMAC... some fan will left in angry, anyway.
Please anyone left a personal mail address before to leave, do you agree Yin?

I still believe, however, that at minimum a site should deliver what it promises. If you say "Monthly updates" then give the updates! And if you've changed your mind or will be late, post that as well!

It's one thing to have a sub-par site (in terms of content and interactivity). In fact, so far it looks like most people could care less. But it's quite another to publically record broken promises. I refer not only to the Firaxis site but numerous others over the years. It seems Webmasters tend to forget to go back and review their own work.

True! Women and Men are always worth as their promises: too bad they lost themselves so often, in business world.

[MarkG]

yin, see
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=21245

[Grumbold]

For me, an official game website comes into its own after the game ships. Before that point the website is probably no more reliable than any of the magazine previews at predicting whether it will live up to expectations. It does not pay them to be honest so every site is presenting the best game ever. All you can tell are whether the key features appeal to you and whether they have someone who can be bothered to post web content once in a while. If they cant manage at least one message a week then it is not worth bothering IMO. Nothing worse than coming back a month later to find no new content. It gives the impression that the game is in trouble although nothing may be further from the truth.

Once the game ships then the website is essential. For every in-game problem I check the manual then head for the website for an answer. Has anyone else encountered it? Is it a bug? Is it being patched? Am I just overlooking something or was the information omitted from the manual accidentally? Are there new updates/add-ons promised that will prolong the life of the game? What do other players think of the game? Is there anything I know that is worth sharing with them?

If I cannot get these answers from a company website then I will go looking for 3rd party sites. There, where the developers have no content control, I can sometimes find enthusiastic players eager to swap tips and advice, like the EU site. Other times I find embittered frustrated players all sharing and reinforcing their misery over a flawed product. If the latter happens then I'm far more likely to return the game as faulty than I would had I never gone looking (yes I always buy the games I play).

Firaxis have an opportunity to run a good website where additional "official" civs, leaders, unit graphics and maps are made available. This has the potential to give the game the long lasting appeal that SimCity, Command & Conquer and its sequels etc have had. Without it they will have to rely on Apolyton & others doing it for them, but fan run sites tend only to be found by the fanatics and are not as appealing to casual gamers.

[Mahdimael]

Frankly, I'd rather have people working on the game and implementing all the great stuff they want to put in, rather than telling us all about all the cool features they want to put in.

I think Firaxis is being smart about this. If you release all the information about the game, how it plays, etc, etc - what is left to discover in the game? Especially a game like Civ. Part of the addictiveness of the games was discovering all the cool things you could do. Why would I want to know how to beat the game before I even get it? That's no fun.

At the same time, I can understand a desire for information. But the Internet has been the bane of computer designers. People want information about products NOW! But the designers are in a hard place: do they release every bit of information, hoping that none of the promised features get cut out of the game? Or do they release miniscule bits of reliable info, but risk the indignation of fans who have nothing better to do than dissect their every move on message boards? Before the Internet, designers did a few magazine interviews. They had a month or more before they had to release new info, if they released any at all.

The fact is, we've all become information crazy. I'm guilty of it as well. Why? Because it's fun to hear and learn about the things you're looking forward to seeing. It's happening in every type of media: movies, games, books- anything under the sun is right now being discussed by fans. The fans comments can be a useful tool for developers, but the requests for constant information are a headache.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Mahdimael
Frankly, I'd rather have people working on the game and implementing all the great stuff they want to put in, rather than telling us all about all the cool features they want to put in.

ah jesus, how many times have i heard such statements??

surely you can agree that 1 of the designers and the programmers can stop working on civ3 for one hour per (let's say) week to write an update on what's going on, right? civ3 wont be delayed that much will it?

[Rasputin]

maybe they too pissed off at end of week to let us know what is going on... i know somemtimes i feel like that and cant be bothered updating my webpages ....

[yin26]

For me, it comes down to BASIC professionalism. If you have a full-time Webmaster (hey, Firaxis even has a Web Wizard, can you imagine?), then you have a choice: Go all out and keep that guy busy with all kinds of fancy stuff and updates and monitoring the boards, etc., or your scale way back and do the minimum. Either one is fine.

What is NOT fine...and what is absolutely unprofessional and worthy of NO excuse...is hanging promises for updates and contents out there and then doing NOTHING about it. We saw it with the mailbag, now updates, and on and on.

While this Wizard is apparantly good at public disappearing acts, the larger issue is who is supposed to be keeping this Magician busy? But the people who make key decisions at Firaxis can't even say, "Hey, think you can pull a rabbit out of your hat, Wizard, and actually update the site THIS YEAR? Hell, at least take out those parts where you promised updates. That should take all of, say, 5 minutes." Or perhaps they HAVE said those things and the Wizard's power of evasion is simple too strong?

But it makes me think: If this simple web page can't even be maintained, how in the world am I to think that the game itself will ship as anything but a glorified beta? So, Firaxis will let HTML hang lose and irresponsibly but somehow, miraculously, the game code itself will be top-notch?

Thanks, Wizard, but it might be time to peruse the job-description again.

[Mahdimael]

I would not disagree that updates are a good thing and a desireable one. My feeling is that Firaxis is trying to prevent the following two situations from occurring:

1. Information overload - Do you want to be able to beat the game when it comes out? Do you want to know every single facet of information, every technology, every random event? I certainly do not. I rarely read the manual when I get a new game. If Firaxis gives us information on something new every day, this might take place.

2. Wrong info - as I stated before, this is a situation where we're given so many details that have not been nailed down that we as consumers become angry when promised or listed features are suddenly removed.

Even if they do update more frequently, we all know that all of the information given will be dissected at Apolyton in a matter of hours. they would have to update almost daily in order for there to be a backlog of information.

I'm not saying we need to get on our knees and be thankful for the scraps that Firaxis gives us, I'm just saying that instant gratification is not necessarily a good thing. Do you give a child candy every time he/she asks? No, only in certain situations. Not exactly a parallel, but it fits. Enjoy the expectation of that next sweet morsel of information.

[JellyDonut]

The web designers for these pages are just out to get into John Q. Public's wallet. A good Net presence that gets a lot of attention will get you lots of $$$. Just look at the "A.I." movie. Huge Net presence, plus mystery. Mystery helps too. Nobody really has a clue what the movie's about, but so many people are addicted to the A.I. Net thing and will pay anything to see the movie. I personally think the movie's just a bunch of hype and it probably won't be that great. I only buy games that I've heard are good in person from someone else (or that are a juicy sequel to a game I already have, like Civ3). I share Civ2 with a friend who bought it in '98 or '99. I'm a Mac user but have a Windows emulator so I can get it right when it comes out and be able to download all the Windows scenarios (and create my own) that they just won't have for Mac .

[Adm.Naismith]

Market is changing, so game developers must change too.

Into the professional market, a game is a product you produce to make money, full stop.

In order to sell your product you must fit a customer need, true or induced (by advertizing, law, whatever).

Back to old time of Ford Model-T Mr. Ford can have only black as available colour: now times are changed.

Customer care is a process you start before the product is bought: there are eligible customers, but only limited in numbers, when you compete against others companies to grab the best part of customer money.

A good product can't only live on word-of-mouth today, or resting on laurel of previus success, IMO. It shouldn't be difficult to understand for smart people as they are at Firaxis, AFAIK.

[JellyDonut]

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith


A good product can't only live on word-of-mouth today, or resting on laurel of previus success, IMO. It shouldn't be difficult to understand for smart people as they are at Firaxis, AFAIK.

Certainly not today, but after the communist revolution...

[yin26]

Of course, I totally agree that the Net can be used in a powerful way to generate interest and loyalty from your consumers. It takes time, effort and skills, of course, to do that. Or, I should say, it takes a dedicated decision in the first place, which is rarely the case.

[Urban Ranger]

Yin,

Just because a company has a "Web Wizard" doesn't mean this person's full time job is tending the website. It's highly likely that he's just another programmer - maybe a junior one - who has been pressed into the duty.

I agree with you that if they have a website and made promises about it, they should keep the promises. It's no big deal as keeping promises about the games themselves though. So many games just don't meet the hype and expectations, yet gamers have been very forgiving.

I reckon that gamers should punish companies about broken promises about games, not websites.

[yin26]

In principle I agree, of course. However: Is not an official Website a reflection of the larger company image? This, I believe, is why they hired that FULL-TIME Wizard to begin with. I'll never forget one of his best quotes:

"Well, would you rather have me not here and go back to the way things were before?"

HA HA HA! Let's see...

The Way Things Were Before: We hardly got updates, and the official Website was a rather sad display.

The Way Things Are Now: [please do the cutting and pasting yourselves].

[Urban Ranger]

I seriously doubt that Dan's a full time webmaster.

While you are correct about a company's corporate image, I am a dissident of any public relation school. I am of the radical opinion that the entire PR department of any company should be axed. The image of a company is affected a lot more by its products than any empty "campaign" they could possibly run.

[yin26]

Dan Magaha, Web Wizard
Dan Magaha joins Firaxis as the webmaster. Dan has several years of web development expertise, having worked for a global consulting firm as an electronic commerce consultant, as well as co-founding and developing Dimension-S, one of the top Sega fansites. He has a B.S. in Information Systems from UMBC.

I wonder if his top fansite has frequent updates?

As for PR, I agree that NO PR is preferrable to bad or slick garbage. But the hard work and trust that can be built from a company actively seeking to interact with and provide content for a gamer in a meaningful way is, well, both professional and profitable.

[Urban Ranger]

Most companies that have websites also have webmasters.

The question is whether it's a full time job. AFAIK most websites aren't big enough, or need changes frequent enough, to have a webmaster dedicated full time at it.

BTW I have more web development experience than Dan. Which isn't saying much, of course

[Harel]

Personaly, I don't think an official site is ANY kind of indiciation of a game... only the information available in it. I can certainly understand Firaxis approach: revealing so much information on SMAc hurt their sells (at least, that's what I heard).

Giving my opinion, I would also like to update Yin initial post. MOO3 infact has an official FAQ, but it is hosed and maintained by fans. Why? Well, I believe they pasted the 250+ question mark on it. Compare that to Firaxis FAQ with only 11 question...

But, again, I REALLY won't judge a game by a site. Let's just wait till both game ship before we pass judgement.