Canadian History mod for Civilization III

[MarchHare]

From the people who produced the heritage minutes comes this:

A video game simulation based on Canadian history is launching Thursday with high hopes the youth-friendly technology will make the country's past come alive for students.
HistoriCanada, developed by Toronto media firm Bitcasters, runs on the platform of the well-established Civilization III strategy game. Thomas Axworthy, HistoriCanada co-creator, said he hopes the game will engage Canadian youth in their own history.

"Canadian history is sometimes portrayed as dull as dishwater, and there's a perception that history is only interesting if there are a lot of battles," said Axworthy, the chair of the Queen’s University Centre for the Study of Democracy.

"But one of the things about civilization is that it's not just a war game, and that there's a complex interaction of economic, religious, social and military choices."
By putting those choices in the gamers' hands, Axworthy said, the new game will allow players to reshape Canadian history in a more interactive "what if?" approach.

"One of the most appealing elements of the game is anyone can win. If you are a skilful player playing as the Mi'kmaq, Atlantic Canada can be yours. And that's an important thing, because too often we tend to look at history as inevitable. But if you looked at a map in 1640 it sure didn't appear that way," he said.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...oricanada.html

Hmmm...I'm intrigued. Too bad it runs on Civ III and not Civ IV, though.

Also, what's with this?

The million-dollar project has been 10 years in the making, with active development for the past two years. Funding has been provided by Telefilm Canada and supported by Historica and Canada’s National History Society.

How can what basicly amounts to a simple scenario mod for Civ III have cost a million bucks? I suspect the development of the entire Civ III game didn't cost much more than that.

[Bobblehead]

I'm wondering if they didn't just use the CivIII engine and develop on top of that. Because otherwise you are right and there is no way it should have cost that much.

And Civ 3 was only released in '01, how the heck could this have been in development for 10 years. Something tells me the reporter was fed a line or doesn't have a clue.

But I will be trying to get a copy.

(no battles in Canada? Check the War of 1812. Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane were a couple pretty big battles)

[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

I suspect the development of the entire Civ III game didn't cost much more than that.

I dunno, it probably had a team of at least 15 guys and you don't make peanuts in that industry. Assuming a year development cycle and an average wage of $100,000/yr and you're already over a million. Add in advertising, promotion, etc and it's way over that.

[MarchHare]

I'm wondering if they didn't just use the CivIII engine and develop on top of that.

I'm pretty sure that's what they did. The article is kind of vague, but it sounds like this is just a custom scenario mod for Civ III.

And Civ 3 was only released in '01, how the heck could this have been in development for 10 years. Something tells me the reporter was fed a line or doesn't have a clue.

The article did say that active development work on the project has only been going on for the last two years, but it was likely in the concepual stage for much longer than that.

(no battles in Canada? Check the War of 1812. Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane were a couple pretty big battles)

I don't think anyone said that there were no battles in Canadian history, but we certainly have a less bloody past than many other countries. Peacefully gaining our independance by signing a document instead of having a violent revolution certainly contributed a lot to that.

I dunno, it probably had a team of at least 15 guys and you don't make peanuts in that industry. Assuming a year development cycle and an average wage of $100,000/yr and you're already over a million. Add in advertising, promotion, etc and it's way over that.

The average programmer/designer/artist/etc. working on a computer game earns *much less* than $100k per year. I know several people who work in the game industry, and none of them are in it for the money. Civ III certainly would have cost more than $1M to produce, but I don't think it would have been more than $2-3M, if you only factor in the costs of actually developing the game (i.e. excluding marketing, packaging, distribution, etc.).

Since anyone who owns a copy of Civ III can create a custom scenario for virtually no money, I really don't understand how this could have cost $1M to produce.

[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

The average programmer/designer/artist/etc. working on a computer game earns *much less* than $100k per year. I know several people who work in the game industry, and none of them are in it for the money. Civ III certainly would have cost more than $1M to produce, but I don't think it would have been more than $2-3M, if you only factor in the costs of actually developing the game (i.e. excluding marketing, packaging, distribution, etc.).

Huh, I would have assumed more.

Since anyone who owns a copy of Civ III can create a custom scenario for virtually no money, I really don't understand how this could have cost $1M to produce.

That I completely agree with. But then again, isn't this a government project?

[Teh_Bandwagoner]

The article makes it sound like a full custom expansion pack, equipped with new tribes, and I assume it also includes Canadian wonders.

And I don't think $1 million is unreasonable if they've been working on this for 10 years. Say they burned about $200k/year in the last 2 years, and then $75K/year prior, that's not really all that much.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Teh_Bandwagoner

The article makes it sound like a full custom expansion pack, equipped with new tribes, and I assume it also includes Canadian wonders.

And I don't think $1 million is unreasonable if they've been working on this for 10 years. Say they burned about $200k/year in the last 2 years, and then $75K/year prior, that's not really all that much.

A lot of it is really simple modifications, which I believe you could do if you wanted to create your own scenario in civ 3 (man I don't think I've played #3 in a few years).

To justify that amount of money, it should be very significant in scale/design.