AlpsStranger
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Funny thing is, DLC could make us more valuable than casual users. Hardcore PC gamers love DLC, right?
I kind of hope sales of this expansion are low....
- Thread starter Tapewormlondon
- Start date
Funny thing is, DLC could make us more valuable than casual users. Hardcore PC gamers love DLC, right?
Funny thing is, DLC could make us more valuable than casual users. Hardcore PC gamers love DLC, right?
I thought about this a bit when I wrote the previous post, but didn't touch it because I'm actually unsure if this is a significant factor. There are some hardcore Civers here who very strongly resent DLC and pretty much boycott it, or at least will only cherry pick the best parts. And then there are some of my friends and colleagues who play Civ5 maybe once every few months (or at least casually) and who have swooped up every piece of DLC because they like to have the complete game. So I speculate that this might balance each other out. (But hardcore players are nevertheless financially relevant because they keep the community going and make games seem alive.)
For myself, I bought all the DLC because I enjoy playing with and against the new civs (and really dig the map generation scripts from the Explorer's Pack), and the other stuff that I never even looked at (cradles) because I want to make it attractive for 2K to keep working on the game. Before DLC became the thing to do, I'd have bought a second copy of the game. Silly, I know! (But there aren't many video games I can play for hundreds of hours, seeing as most bore me after 2-10 hours, so I like to support the ones that manage to keep my jaded interest.)
I agree with you, dexters. I truly believe that Civ5 has outsold vanilla Civ4 in the same time frame. It is a different game and it truly is sad that those whom could not adjust or accept the difference continue to attack the game. As much as I loved Civ4 and BtS, they really had to change to hex-based 1upt, as well as make each element (units, resources, food, hammers, etc.) means something more valuable than the excesses of Civ4. Civ4 2.0 would've meant an expansion of the SoD, which is truly horrible to contemplate. Now we have to see would adding some of the worst features from Civ4 would do to Civ5.
Funny thing is, DLC could make us more valuable than casual users. Hardcore PC gamers love DLC, right?
DLC is just a distribution model for PC games add-ons, particularly given the shrinking market of PC gamers. I can't think of a single popular PC game that does not have at least one DLC. So what's the issue? This is not 2005 anymore.
markusbeutel
NiGHTS
In a little bit over 2 years (2 years, 4 months) vanilla CIV IV sold just over 3 million copies according to Take-Two. In just under 1.5 years, CIV V has sold around 1 million copies according to VGchartz, (not the most accurate measurement - but most likely in the ballpark).
IMO, people continue to attack the game because they felt they were mislead as to what the game would be like when they originally purchased it. And yes there was a demo they could've tried beforehand - but this was Civ - and they thought they knew what they were getting.
"The thing is, Civ V is a big sloppy kiss/love letter to our fan community. We want it to be for the hardcore. We want to make it as accessible as possible, but Civ Rev kind of took care of that route. It’s for the people who want the kind of Civ-lite [experience]. Civ V is for hardcore PC." Dennis Shirk
http://www.vg247.com/2010/07/09/interview-civilization-vs-dennis-shirk/
This one contradictory comment, combined with the supposedly streamlined gameplay of CIV V, alienated a lot of hardcore fans, and you can see this if you visit any of the major Civ sites, (WePlayCiv, Apolyton, Realms Beyond, CivFanatics - and virtually all foreign Civ sites), during the week or two period when CIV V was released. Consequently, the CIV V sections of these forums are now all but dead, (CivFanatics being the exception) - although CivFanatics traffic is nowhere near what it once was. Many of these disgruntled players still post on the forums in hopes that Firaxis will do a 180 of sorts on any future expansions or versions of the series - and in a way they've succeeded.
Religion is coming back, despite the devs stating that it didn't coincide with their vision of diplomacy in CIV V upon release. On that front, Diplomacy itself was made less of a black box, in that we now know why a Civ likes/dislikes us. This too went against the initial stated design goals regarding diplomacy and how it was supposed to be "mysterious." Without all of the negative posts about CIV V that bemoaned it's lack of features and overt streamlining, we might've been getting a very different first expansion.
And yes, CIV V is still loved by many in the community, and it's highly played on Steam, and not all hardcore players hate it - but it's alienated a greater number of players than any Civ before it. (And yes, CIV IV and III also alienated players of earlier versions, but not to this extent, and not for this long). The question is, has CIV V brought in enough new players to replace those that have now left the series?
alienated more players? Is this opinion because you state this as if it's fact
I have no qualms admitting I like CIV 5. But if you are going to make a statement like that give us some facts to back it up. You started of with giving us sales and at least linking sources, so where is your source for alienating more people?
Like I stated earlier I like civ 5 and didn't enjoy civ 4. You win some you lose some.
But I know my opinion doesn't always mean it's the majority
Bibor
Doomsday Machine
I'm pretty sure Civilization V with expansions will be the best game in the series.
Well, at least one person´s sure then. 
That´s... ridiculously low compared to previous Civ releases...
That´s... ridiculously low compared to previous Civ releases...
Well, at least one person´s sure then.
That´s... ridiculously low compared to previous Civ releases...
Again what is your source?
His 27000 stat I'm sure comes from looking at daily peak on steam which today was 19000
hazman79
Chieftain
I find sarcasm always works best when you have to point out that you are being sarcastic
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
How does 27,000 casual players vs millions of copies sold constitute ´a large playerbase´?
Because most people don't regularly play a game two years after release. The number might be comparable or greater for Civ4, but we'll never know just because there was no way to know (steam is the only reason we know for Civ5, we have no idea how many people play offline). Anecdotally speaking, I've run into more people who play Civ5 than I did for Civ4, but that just might be a different group of people I run into these days. I also know a guy whose family is friends with Brian Reynolds. I don't think he's played a version since Civ2.
This^
@JEELEN The simple fact that CIV is in the top ten games being played at any given moment this long after it's release speaks volumes. I don't know how that is not impressive to you? for a niche market it's doing well. This isn't BF3 or Call of Duty after all
But I'm not going to go around saying it's has a larger user base then CIV4. Why? Because there is no way to know for sure.
edit: those numbers are PEAK totals for one day. Which is competitive with TF2 which is a free to play game
How does 27,000 casual players vs millions of copies sold constitute ´a large playerbase´?
It's 27k at a time. Thats peak so lets say average is 20K throughout the day. If everybody plays an average of 4 hours in a sitting that works out as 6 x 20 for 120K people played Civ5 that day. It's actually massive after 2 years. Most games are lucky to get above 5K concurrent players. They must have sold well over a million.
Interesting thread.
I for one will not be purchasing the expansion for a few months at least... a year maybe?
I have not purchased any DLC either. Its not that I boycott or anything... its just the game still crashes... alot... in some cases it continues to crash at the same point even if I reload from an autosave [which I have it set to autosave every turn because the game crashes... alot].
[aside: I believe it has to do with the number of units the AI has built.... but I am only playing standard map size and standard number of civs etc...]
When it stops crashing I may consider DLC's & expansions.
[new balance $0.98]
I for one will not be purchasing the expansion for a few months at least... a year maybe?
I have not purchased any DLC either. Its not that I boycott or anything... its just the game still crashes... alot... in some cases it continues to crash at the same point even if I reload from an autosave [which I have it set to autosave every turn because the game crashes... alot].
[aside: I believe it has to do with the number of units the AI has built.... but I am only playing standard map size and standard number of civs etc...]
When it stops crashing I may consider DLC's & expansions.
[new balance $0.98]
markusbeutel
NiGHTS
alienated more players? Is this opinion because you state this as if it's fact
I have no qualms admitting I like CIV 5. But if you are going to make a statement like that give us some facts to back it up. You started of with giving us sales and at least linking sources, so where is your source for alienating more people?
Like I stated earlier I like civ 5 and didn't enjoy civ 4. You win some you lose some.
Fair enough - so take it as a subjective comment that's based on the amount of negative threads CIV V still conjures up to this day versus how many of these threads popped up 1.5 years after the release of earlier Civ games. Then take a look at how many dead CIV V forums there are versus active CIV IV forums on the same websites - Civfanatics is the only forum that still has both, (besides the 50 or so regular posters that frequent the 2K official forum).
Beautiful attempt, and I'll play.
As for the time frame, if you subtract the "little bit over two years" (the four months) from the "just under 1.5 years", you get approximately two years vs. one year rather than the implied "nearly the same period of time". It is twice the period, not almost the same.
While you do mention that these numbers are allegedly for the vanilla version, it is relevant that after two and a half years Civ4 already had had two expansions, both of which undoubtedly had a significant impact on the base game. It is also likely that this number includes bundles (base game and expansions), particularly the gold version that, as far as I remember, already existed two and a half years after the game's original release.
As for the numbers themselves, one of them (the one that favours the desired "Civ4 was more successful!" view) is marketing-tainted and thus likely to be inflated as it comes straight from the publisher. The other number (that favours the desired "Civ5 is less successful" impression) is from a source that, as you mentioned yourself, is unreliable and, in addition, seems to at least partly ignore that Civ5, unlike Civ4, had a likely larger percentage of digital sales (due to being exclusive to Steam, and as all copies required Steam activation, it is a reasonable assumption that more customers bought Civ5 directly from Steam, particularly because they had enabled preloading of the data).
So in conclusion I see very little evidence that Civ5 actually sold fewer copies. If anything, I feel that it may well have sold better in spite of a fairly large handicap (Steam). The fact that according to Steam there are 25k+ players who simultaneously play the game pretty much around the clock, even though there have not been any expansions yet, seems to indicate that Civ5 is quite popular.
I think the success of such mods as Rise and Rule for Civ III and Fall from Heaven for Civ IV illustrates that greater complexity than the base game in each case is not at all inherently a bad idea, and would argue that that particular value of streamlined and accessible is one that might better be provided by a Civ Rev port-and-enhance line of development separate from Civ V and putative Civ VI+.
I am definitely hopeful about this, too. I've played a fair bit of Civ V, there's much in it I really like and a fair bit I really do not, but on the whole I've been mostly playing Civ III this past few months (I am one of those who thinks Civ IV totally jumped the shark); if this expansion provideds a couple more levels of complexity it might well get me playing Civ V more
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
The number of people who play the mods is very narrow. While those people love it, it indicates a good model is an accessible base game that is easily moddable to the amount of complexity that is desired.
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