Good Mechanics Sell Games Regardless

Let me know if this situation has ever happened to you... This morning I am ready for work around 8am but I don't need to leave until about 10 past 9, so I figure hey; why don't I play a little Civilization 5. Now, being the elite member of the PC master race that I am it is no suprise that I have Civ's 3 through 5 installed on my computer at all time and am never afraid to revisit any of them when I'm sick of the current games I'm playing, but more on that later. All of a sudden I look up and somehow I have managed to advance time an hour in the span of about 5 minutes. "One more turn" I thought to myself as I ended up having to run to catch my train in the nick of time.

The Civilization series have always sold incredibly because they have been made incredibly well. Despite being PC exclusive turned based strategy titles (how quaint) they have always garnered commercial success for developer Firaxis and publisher 2K Games. Anyone who says PC gaming is dead just take a look.

My brother's roommate is someone that "core" gamers aren't a fan of. He owns a PS3 and an Xbox pretty much so he can play Madden. He isn't a nerd, and doesn't really care about video games as an artistic medium or as a sub-culture. I have seen him play one other game on his laptop and can you guess what it is? Why would a jock type Madden person be so into a PC exclusive turn based strategy title?

Because good mechanics and excellent execution sells games.

You can have a lot invested in story, or spend a lot of money getting top notch voice talent (Ghostbusters comes to mind), but in the end if your game is fun it will sell whether it is Angry Birds on the iPhone or Civilization on the PC.

I have been talking about it a lot lately, but let's look at World of Warcraft. WoW has an approximate active subscription base of about 12 million people worldwide. That is more than the entire population of New York city. Many of those people are poor sods who never cared about video games, who cared even less about online and multiplayer, and who got sucked in by about as solid of mechanics as we will ever see in a traditional MMO (grrr Rift). Despite being about as nerdy a PC exclusive title as you can get the game grosses more than the GDP of some developing nations. When you have perfect execution it doesn't matter what genre your game is or the appeal of the venue; it will make you money and make you loved worldwide.

By the way if my boss is reading this I don't think I can come in to work today as I'm not feeling well.....