Monte Cristo closing

[mentarman 14]

Originally posted by: jeje71

in my book, "they are offering something extra, I don't like it, so screw the whole game, I'm sticking with SC4." is not equal to "I never bought CXL because of its planet offer."

the "of its planet offer " of the second phrase can be replaced by " the single player was stripped of essential elements but not at all related to online content in favor of planet offer exclusivity", hence in my opinion the decision of not buying the game can be motivated due to the planet offer, because the single player experience was emptied because of it.

quote>

That may be what he meant, but if so, he should say it rather than let us guess (and project our own feelings about the game upon the situation).

Originally posted by: jazyje

I think that's one of the  main problems with CXL ---- I own the gamer and have enjoyed it quite a bit,,,,, BUT, after building a few cities, I've noticed they all starting to look almost exactly the same --- buildings get so much repeat it is ridiculous... With endless mods, SC4 doesn't have that problem.... 300-400 buildings in CXL is simply laughable.... My SC4 mod folder holds THOUSANDS of users-created buildings (8GB in size!) ....

quote>

But no new, off-the-shelf game is going to meet this standard. I think CXL would eventually have gotten there by offering modding and building design tools, if other parts of their business plan hadn't been so flawed.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

400 buildings is a very large amount. SimCity 4 only had 100 while Rush Hour added 3 times that and custom content added far more. If you do not like Cities XL because of its lack of custom content, please vote in my poll.

[piccboi824 1]

Ok I've read a bunch of different forums about this and it's really sad that people who like the game jump down the throats of people who didn't like and didn't want to invest in a game that wasn't going to satisfy what they wanted out of that type of game. No one else jumped down the throats of people who do like the game and frankly alot of the complaints weren't even that ridiculous and were pretty rational.

So to be constructive, I'll just say what I hope they do with the game or CXL 2011

-Unlock/include basic transit features like busses, trains, and el-rail/subway in single player from the get go. This was by far what really turned alot of people off from the game because these things were available even before SC4 so it's like a staple feature.

-The resource system and the services systems are good concepts, but allow the option of more micromanagement for the people who want to have a challenge

-As a single player type of game, it should really funtion as a stand alone single player game first, then add on the MMO aspect later. Like require a subsription in order to have access to custom comment, trade in a global economy with other players, and have sports leagues or and Olympics competition that would be better suited for multiplayer interaction.

-And of course fix whatever bugs there were.

These simple improvements I feel would satisfy alot of people turned off by the game initially and can atleast keep people more positive and open to the game until the more advanced improvements that we wished for come in. 

[Livin in Sim 83]

Hello, everyone.

One last time, the purpose of this thread is to respond to the news that Monte Cristo is closing its doors.  You may give a good thought to the employee, or express your disappointment respectfully. 

Anything else, such as arguing over why it has happened, saying you predicted it, posting humorous images, or insulting Monte Cristo, will not be tolerated.  There is also no point to list what CXL should have contained, or to make comments about members who either liked or disliked the game.  The company has closed.  The new company has not made its presence known.  The game is still being sold, so if you wish to talk about playing it, please use the other threads, or create one if you search and can't find your topic.  There is a pinned thread to review the game.

If posters persist in this, the thread will be closed.

Thank you.

--Liv

CXL Forums Moderator

[PatternRec 1]

I'm pretty new to CXL - I just bought and installed it a couple of days ago. I'm sorry to hear that the studio closed down. My heart goes out to the employees who are looking for work and who put their hearts and souls into the game.

Hopefully the community will keep the game alive and honor the work put into it. I'm having fun with it so far.

[Soviet779 1]

*respectful expression of dissapointment*

[Zoose 0]

Is it still worth it to get Cities XL now that Monte Cristo is closing?

[BurroDiablo 222]

A massive shame, I wish the team all the best for the future.

[This is my name 13]

My condolences to Monte Cristo staff who worked hard on this game. I hope the staff will have a better future ahead of them...

[Scratchy 0]

Wow!! well i just brought this game

I loved SimCity4 but i gotta say that this game (CXL) kicks that games a#$, im confused on how this game has closed down... Unlucky to produce a game that is addictive and fun and then having to sell it

... I dont know if i have the right to say this but their advertising could be blamed for it, i mean i only heard about CXL about a month ago

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: Scratchy

... I dont know if i have the right to say this but their advertising could be blamed for it, i mean i only heard about CXL about a month agoquote>

My brother in law is a store manager of a local game retailer. He never heard a word of the game through any of his regular channels, only from me, and he is really big into the city builder games. That was a huge problem for the game IMHO.

Now the good news. When I told him FHI had taken over the game this weekend, he instantly named off 3 titles of theirs and 2 that they still stock.

CXL is one of those games that I believe would sell really well off the shelf. $40 isn't really that bad of a price to pay for a game in today's market. It's a little on the high side of the "impulse buy" scale, but would still qualify. Hopefully FHI will push out retail units to the stores in the U.S. I think if that happens then 2011 will have much better numbers.

It's like I've said before: it's been 7 years since SC4 came out and the fan base has dwindled, mostly due to the age factor (age of the player). Any new city builder that comes out and wants to achieve comparable levels of success that SC4 saw needs to do some aggressive marketing to bring in new fans.

[mr-tom 2]

Originally posted by: IntoxiNation

Originally posted by: Scratchy

... I dont know if i have the right to say this but their advertising could be blamed for it, i mean i only heard about CXL about a month agoquote>

My brother in law is a store manager of a local game retailer. He never heard a word of the game through any of his regular channels, only from me, and he is really big into the city builder games. That was a huge problem for the game IMHO.

Now the good news. When I told him FHI had taken over the game this weekend, he instantly named off 3 titles of theirs and 2 that they still stock.

CXL is one of those games that I believe would sell really well off the shelf. $40 isn't really that bad of a price to pay for a game in today's market. It's a little on the high side of the "impulse buy" scale, but would still qualify. Hopefully FHI will push out retail units to the stores in the U.S. I think if that happens then 2011 will have much better numbers.

It's like I've said before: it's been 7 years since SC4 came out and the fan base has dwindled, mostly due to the age factor (age of the player). Any new city builder that comes out and wants to achieve comparable levels of success that SC4 saw needs to do some aggressive marketing to bring in new fans.

quote>

I know it's already been pointed out, but FHI were one of the original publishers too.

That the game failed to attract the attention of the industry is surely down in no small part to them.

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: mr-tom

I know it's already been pointed out, but FHI were one of the original publishers too.

That the game failed to attract the attention of the industry is surely down in no small part to them.

quote>

FHI handled the Steam sales, but since they also do have a retail presence, hopefully they will use that to promote CXL 2011 more. I believe that if the game was sitting there on the shelf at your local Best Buy or Walmart, then sales would be a lot higher.

[mr-tom 2]

That's why I said one of  the original publishers.

If a manager who is in the industry and is a fan of the genre has not heard of the game, then none of the publishers did their jobs properly.

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: mr-tom

That's why I said one of  the original publishers.

If a manager who is in the industry and is a fan of the genre has not heard of the game, then none of the publishers did their jobs properly.quote>

I was simply pointing out that FHI dealt with only Steam and tried to point out the positive of their retail exposure. Being limited to that single online outlet also limited what they could do in marketing. Now that they have full reins, things could change dramatically, or they might not change at all. Only time will tell.

[mr-tom 2]

Suspect we will have to agree to disagree.

[G007 0]

I have a 2002 Monte Cristo game in my home. "Dino Tycoon." It is a really bad game, but it does'nt make sense, i play it since i was five years old, and stopped with it when i was seven. And know they close! Thank You Monte Cristo for helping me with information about keeping dinosaurs.

[Cob92 360]

Originally posted by: mr-tom

That's why I said one of  the original publishers.

If a manager who is in the industry and is a fan of the genre has not heard of the game, then none of the publishers did their jobs properly.quote>

I think the biggest problems were:

-No publisher at all for North America. That means that no one here except for devout SC4 fans would find the game and buy it.\

-Lack of marketing. I don't know about the other regions, but over here, there were no CXL ads outside of the game itself, and no clear strategy with them. If this game were aggressively promoted as the "SimCity Killer" and there were ads plastered everywhere showing it off, the sales figures would not have been so low.

[IntoxiNation 0]

Originally posted by: Cobhris96

I think the biggest problems were:

-No publisher at all for North America. That means that no one here except for devout SC4 fans would find the game and buy it.\

-Lack of marketing. I don't know about the other regions, but over here, there were no CXL ads outside of the game itself, and no clear strategy with them. If this game were aggressively promoted as the "SimCity Killer" and there were ads plastered everywhere showing it off, the sales figures would not have been so low.quote>

Those were huge problems. A lot of people also forget the selling capabilities of a packaged game sitting on the shelf. You take a bigger chance of getting that teenager to grab it and put his Christmas gift card money down on it than ordering it online, especially since a lot of teenagers don't have credit cards.

The other factor, which we will most likely never really know, is the build up to the release of the game. Marketing costs big bucks, and we already know that MC was facing financial uncertainty when the came came out. It makes you wonder how much may have been moved from marketing to the development budget.

So yeah - it's one of those things we may never know. There's a lot of pieces to the puzzle and, from the outside, it looks like they didn't all fit together as snug as they should have. But now that FHI has the full rights to the Cities XL franchise, and since they have a stronger source of income from other titles, I'm a little more optimistic than I was a couple of months ago. If 2011 is released as a rather stable game with some extra challenge to it, then maybe the money will roll in a little better this time and FHI will look at investing more into the future of the game.

[feelgood 0]

It's really sad. A game that has built my excitement after SC4 finally "goes down" - well, the company to be exact. I never thought the failure would be this bad. Honestly, I don't buy the game, not even download it as it failed to attract me after the beta. I got addicted with SC3 and SC4. There's a lesson to be learned here.

Since the new announcement, I think some ex-workers found their jobs already. Good luck for the rest in this economy. It's the business people that should really take the hit!

Glad we have CXL2011 with some features that we yearn for years. Gotta wait for October!

[Screwballl 196]

Originally posted by: Gregory_C

Current players shouldn’t be worried though! The solo game will keep on working and the online login system, mandatory to launch the game, remains in place. There is no change there.

Signing off,

- The Monte Cristo team.

quote>

this is the main problem... for how long is the server going to remain online... until someone finds a hack, that pretty much means the end of the life for this game. If you guys are closing your doors then there is no guarantee the server will stay online and active for much longer.

Someone had to have very short sightedness by requiring the login just to play the offline game which in my opinion has to be the stupidest thing any game publisher/programmer could have evcer done. This is worse than the Sony and other rootkits used for DRM for their games/music CDs.

This combined with the glaring bugs that never got fixed from beta is the main reasons why many of us never paid any money, this was MC trying to control aspects of the game and refusing to listen to the very gamers who you targeted with this game.

I wish you guys and the team good luck on future endeavors, I just hope the next projects they get involved with they listen to the target audience instead of going the way they think is best. Thi is why EA is failing and about to go under from lack of any real blockbuster titles.

[Alecz20 0]

This thread is old, but anyone reading it now should know that not only Cities XL 2011 is out, but recently, Cities XL 2012 is out.

See their web page: http://www2.citiesxl.com/index.php

So no more freaking out that the end of City simulators has come.

P.S. I was directed to this "old" thread because there was a link to it on simtropolis home page and I thought that it was more recent news.