42,000 users for Civ 5 peaked today on steam

[kpi]

Thats a lot of players taking advantage of 75% off, it can't suck that bad

Civ 5 gets a bad rap i feel. Its a great little game. 1UPT is phenominal, i do wish the huge map was 4 times its current size though.

They do need to fix the embark feature, sure its ok for workers and settlers, but its stupid for military units, you shouldn't be allowed to string tanks along the ocean from wherever to wherever. They should definately have transports like the previous games where you have to choose carefully where to coordinate and land your units.

I do love that it is expensive and hard to raise and deploy an army just like in the real world and that agressive expansion is hard too, I think they are getting the modelling much better, reflecting "real world"

Its almost like Civ 5 is the Windows Vista of the series. They changed so much stuff its too much for people to cope with in one release, so they complain. Hopefully G&K will be the Windows 7.

 

[aatami]

And yet some players still claim that V is a dead game...

 

[Shmike]

You could buy fast food for that money, that's why people bought it. I'm sure people that don't like civ 5 bought it at that price.

And I'm guessing when people say civ 5 is dead, they mean upcoming expansions not being able to surpass past civ games. Just a guess.

 

[gps]

You could buy fast food for that money, that's why people bought it. I'm sure people that don't like civ 5 bought it at that price.

Absolutely correct. I would have never accepted anything Steam and with all the negative comments about Civ V I could have lived perfectly without it. But for 5,97 - two beers or a cup of ice cream - at Amazon.de (GOTY edtion that is) I though, what the heck, let's see for myself if it's really THAT bad. They seem quite desperate to get Vanilla sold before the release of G+K...

 

[cain3456]

I was one of those that swallowed the "Steam is an abomination, Civ5 is dumbed down" arguments. Then I wanted to try the Warlock demo, so I gave in to Steam. Warlock refused to run, but the Civ5 demo ran fine. So I waited until it went on sale (actually got it at Gamersgate, and just bought the Babylon and Denmark/explorer map pack DLC) for 75% off.

Steam is tolerable, and Civ5 is not near as bad as portrayed. It does have its quirks compared to earlier civs--embarkation is going to take a while to get used to.

 

[Quintillus]

I wouldn't have tried it for eons without the 75% off... or the free weekend for that matter. If the 75% off had been all it had taken, they had one of those a few months ago.

The embarkation does seem a bit weird. I thought I'd at least be able to, y'know, protect one infantry with my battleship, or at least put my great general on a battleship instead of a dinky defenseless boat. Although maybe I'm missing something. Wasn't a big deal since my enemies put all their effort into an army instead of a navy.

Civ5's doing better than Vista in my book. I've been avoiding Vista and its successors for years, whereas I actually bought Civ5. Of course, it helps that it's easy to switch back to the earlier versions of Civ whenever I like to.

 

[BobDole]

Well, Civ V's always been in the Top 10 on Steam since it came out basically, so this isn't really news. If Civ V was really terrible, no one would be in these forums, and no one would be playing the game. Pretty simple.

 

[markusbeutel]

Thats a lot of players taking advantage of 75% off, it can't suck that bad

Civ 5 gets a bad rap i feel. Its a great little game. 1UPT is phenominal, i do wish the huge map was 4 times its current size though.

They do need to fix the embark feature, sure its ok for workers and settlers, but its stupid for military units, you shouldn't be allowed to string tanks along the ocean from wherever to wherever. They should definately have transports like the previous games where you have to choose carefully where to coordinate and land your units.

I do love that it is expensive and hard to raise and deploy an army just like in the real world and that agressive expansion is hard too, I think they are getting the modelling much better, reflecting "real world"

Its almost like Civ 5 is the Windows Vista of the series. They changed so much stuff its too much for people to cope with in one release, so they complain. Hopefully G&K will be the Windows 7.

There were 42,000 people playing because Steam had a free-to-play weekend for CIV V. These numbers aren't normal, (although numbers will probably average higher than normal for the next few days as many of these players probably bought the game on the cheap).

The expansion will serve as a true test to the games popularity, as it introduces a lot of features that detractors wanted included in the base game. Will be interesting to see if it brings back any of the players that were turned off by how "streamlined" CIV V was compared to earlier versions.

 

[gps]

Well, Civ V's always been in the Top 10 on Steam since it came out basically, so this isn't really news.

I would not overrate that fact too much. Civ V - unlike many other titels available on Steam - is Steam exclusive. So if you want to play it you have to do it via Steam. Other games might be played by hundreds of thousands of players at the same time but they don't show up in Steam statistics. So this is a rather weak comparison and makes only sense if you compare Steam exclusive titels with each other...

 

[Peng Qi]

I would not overrate that fact too much. Civ V - unlike many other titels available on Steam - is Steam exclusive. So if you want to play it you have to do it via Steam. Other games might be played by hundreds of thousands of players at the same time but they don't show up in Steam statistics. So this is a rather weak comparison and makes only sense if you compare Steam exclusive titels with each other...

Almost every game on that list is Steam exclusive, including Skyrim, which CiV is played more than.

 

[gps]

Almost every game on that list is Steam exclusive, including Skyrim, which CiV is played more than.

Skyrim is not Steam exclusive. You can play it on X360 or PS3. And the really interesting point is not the 100+ (PC-)games that are Steam exclusive, but the other thousands that aren't...

 

[Selous]

There were 42,000 people playing because Steam had a free-to-play weekend for CIV V. These numbers aren't normal, (although numbers will probably average higher than normal for the next few days as many of these players probably bought the game on the cheap).

12,894 players right now, that is back to "normalish" levels

but yea, free to play weekend is going to cause abnormal levels of players, real question is how many of these players are going to continue to play

 

[The_J]

I would not overrate that fact too much. Civ V - unlike many other titels available on Steam - is Steam exclusive. So if you want to play it you have to do it via Steam. Other games might be played by hundreds of thousands of players at the same time but they don't show up in Steam statistics. So this is a rather weak comparison and makes only sense if you compare Steam exclusive titels with each other...

...short check, top 10 right at this moment:

34,812 57,952 Counter-Strike - Steam exlcusive
33,502 41,949 Dota 2 - Steam exclusive
29,695 52,140 Team Fortress 2 - Steam exlcusive
29,614 61,926 Football Manager 2012 - Steam exclusive
27,585 49,620 Counter-Strike: Source - Steam Exclusive
21,520 40,856 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 - Multiplayer - Steam exclusive
15,317 32,872 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Steam exclusive (not considering consoles)
14,733 37,473 Sid Meier's Civilization V - Steam exclusive
6,836 12,630 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer - Steam exclusive
5,077 10,033 Left 4 Dead 2 - Steam exclusive

So Civ5 is in the top of the Steam exclusive titles, and not sure if there any other titles at the moment who are a) not on Steam and b) would potentially reach more players.

 

[kpi]

42,000 people in a room, thats a lot of empires

 

[gps]

(not considering consoles)

And that's the big mistake here. According to civilized.de (a German Civ site) a company like T2 makes 80% of it's revenues with consoles. There's only 10% on PC and Smartphones!!! PC is a niche market and Steam (allthough maybe not the smallest niche there is) is a niche market in an niche market. Oh yes, and Skyrim, CoD or L4D2 are available for the consoles, not Steam exclusive and you can bet that a lot of people (especially the Steam haters, the guys that leave the hundreds of one star reviews for DRM copy protection stuff at Amazon) will buy and play it on the consoles. So 10.000s of people playing a game on Steam that sold millions over all platforms with the strongest platforms not even counted is hardly a fair and significant comparision to a game that HAS to be played using Steam with no alternative.

 

[The_J]

So a comparison for a game which is exlcusively available for PC makes more sense if you compare it with sales for other games which are available for PC, Xbox, PS3 and Wii together ^^?
That would give also a distorted result in my opinion.

 

[gps]

It would not be totally fair, because the publisher chose to limit his product to one platform - but then he's free to make that choice with all consequences this might have...
All I say is don't get yourself into believeing Civ V does better than for example Skyrim - because Steam does not really give you the big picture. If 40.000 play game X on Steam while 500.00 play game Y on Steam plus the consoles - then which is the better game? (I did not say that, I just aske the question!!!) Which is more succesfull? Which does make more money? Which one is more important to the publisher? ...
42.000 is a number, but what does it really tell us...?

 

[Camikaze]

That's Skyrim only. What about all the other games on the list The_J posted? Trying to overplay the free weekend would seem about the same to me as trying to underplay it.

 

[gps]

That's Skyrim only. What about all the other games on the list The_J posted? Trying to overplay the free weekend would seem about the same to me as trying to underplay it.

Which one? MW2? MW3? L4D2? I am not aware any of them is exclusive.
And "Counter Strike" is top of the list? That's "Counter Strike" like in the 2003 Pc/XBOX ego shooter dinosaur Counter Strike? Wow it outdid Civ V. That's impressive..!
Seriosly, this alone should tell you how off this list is in terms of financial success and sales figures. Or did I miss that CS is still in the sales top 10...

 

[Camikaze]

Well if you're purely looking for a list of current commercial success, then yeah, it's going to be different. But I don't think that's what most people are seeing 42k users, or Civ5's place on the list The_J posted, as meaning. You are right that that it cannot necessarily be inferred from that that Civ5 continues to sell well on a regular day-to-day basis, without the assistance of sales. But that says nothing of Civ5's success in terms of continued popularity. A tentative conclusion on that question can be drawn from a high number of people still playing Civ5.