Civ 6 drops below Civ 5 on Steam

[Gorbles]

I gave some pretty high-profile examples (RTS being at least somewhat comparable in terms of genre, with Unreal Tournament being a dissimilar but massively-successful FPS franchise). I don't have the time to sit here listing negative community reactions to game sequels. They're everywhere. People will often stick with what's familiar to them, it's Psychology 101.

Nevermind the fact that people having played Civilisation 6 before going back to Civilisation 5 has very little to do with Civilisation 6 being a bad game. It just means they prefer a game with six years of support and modding projects behind it (or consider Civilisation 6 a bad game; it's not all of one or the other).

Simply put, you're wrong. You're making an assumptive leap where you shouldn't be.

 

[Dale]

What of all the players like me who stopped playing Civ6 and moved onto a completely different game altogether?

Civ6 is horrible but Civ5 is worse IMO.

 

[Gorbles]

At the very least, you're -1 to both counts then

 

[Zuizgond]

Nevermind the fact that people having played Civilisation 6 before going back to Civilisation 5 has very little to do with Civilisation 6 being a bad game. It just means they prefer a game with six years of support and modding projects behind it (or consider Civilisation 6 a bad game; it's not all of one or the other).

Simply put, you're wrong. You're making an assumptive leap where you shouldn't be.

Simply put, my assumptions are wrong and yours are correct.

 

[sp00n]

But there is no mod I've seen that fixes the awful AI.

AI+ does a decent job of increasing the AI capabilities. It's by no means perfect, but with v9 for the first time I'm having real struggles with the AI on Immortal (yeah, not having switched to Deity yet, but it doesn't make the AI any smarter anyway, they just have more advantages).

 

[Gorbles]

Simply put, my assumptions are wrong and yours are correct.

If you want to list the ones you think I've made and argue against them, you're welcome to!

You're positing the sole reason why people are going back to CiV is because Civ 6 is a bad game. That's an absolute. I'm doing nothing of the sort, you see. If you agree that that's not the only reason (without calling people who like Civ 6 blind, fanboys, deluded, or some other derogatory), then well maybe that's something you should've said from the start instead of indulging in this tangent to defend your initial flawed criticism of the game based solely on active player count.

 

[Kelmort83]

Yeah, I was really excited about CIV 6 release. I played for a good month, but now, I just can't bring myself to launch the game anymore.

A combo of bad Earth Map released and uncompetitive A.I. + the lack of communication or/of an explanation about why the game was rushed; made short work of my hope.

I do not feel it's fair that I have to pay for DLC when the game is still undone.

Right now, there is only the Game of the Month that keep me coming once a week. That feature too should have been made baseline into the game, like previous Civ game with a ladder for competitive value.

There is a lot of potential with what was provided, and I'm willing to give it more time. Will probably buy the expansion once it hit the market, but for now, I won't be buying DLC, simply because I won't be playing the game.

 

[Klinn]

On a maybe-somewhat-related note, I'm wondering if the DLC sales have been below normal.

If you look at the global achievement stats, even the really easy ones for the DLCs are only at 1% or so. Does that imply that very few people are interested enough in the game to pick up the DLCs? I can't recall if there was a similar situation for CivV, maybe one of you regulars remembers what happened back then.

 

[Futumch]

I bought Civ V not long after it came out, then shelved it due to sub-par AI (deja vu?). In the middle of last year there was some sale on Steam and I picked up all the expansions / DLC for about twelve bucks. With Steam's recent end of year sale thing, you might be seing something similar.

 

[leandrombraz]

A huge drop in players is normal with any game, people just move on. Even though Civ is highly replayable, not everyone will sink thousands of hours into it. With that said, Civ V is a Juggernaut, +30.000 consecutive players is a huge achievement that isn't easy to match. Being below that isn't an automatic failure and +27.000 still a pretty respectable number, far from a failure or a game in trouble, so if the developers will take any note on number of players is that Civ VI is doing great, it doesn't need to be above Civ V to be a success and the players drop is expected.

Keep in mind that not everyone is willing to pay full price, nor are as anxious to play Civ VI to go buy it ASAP, so there's a lot of people that is happy playing V and won't care about VI into it's dirt cheap or into they feel its time to do it. The entire players base didn't rush to VI, Civ V kept a considerable players base even when Civ VI was at peak.


Personally I see it as a sign of the strength of the franchise. Civ V still huge even with VI keeping a equally huge players base. What I see is that there's more people playing Civ as a whole now than before Civ VI came out.

 

[leandrombraz]

On a maybe-somewhat-related note, I'm wondering if the DLC sales have been below normal.

If you look at the global achievement stats, even the really easy ones for the DLCs are only at 1% or so. Does that imply that very few people are interested enough in the game to pick up the DLCs? I can't recall if there was a similar situation for CivV, maybe one of you regulars remembers what happened back then.

DLC achievements have a tendency to be the least achieved, this is normal. Civ V have DLC achievements that only 0.3% achieved. Also, achievements are a really bad metric for sales, mostly in Civ. Just because someone own the DLCs doesn't mean they will rush to play the scenarios, nor that they will actually win and get the achievement, nor that they will play as Poland and win. I own both DLCs, since they came out I played one normal match as Gandhi. I'm in no rush to play as Poland, there still a lot of Civs for me to try, so for now I'm happy with it showing up in my games as AI. Scenarios I'm in no rush, eventually I will play it.

 

[Acken]

For it to mean something you'd have to show Civ5 to lose player at Civ6 release and then gain them back as Civ6 drops them.
Civ5 is right now in its long term player count while civ6 isn't and won't for a long time. If civ6 drops below it without opposite moves in civ5 then even without other factors there is no conclusion to be drawn regarding civ6 quality.

And that is while thinking civ5 is the better game.

 

[HF22]

For it to mean something you'd have to show Civ5 to lose player at Civ6 release and then gain them back as Civ6 drops them.

Not really. A failure to attract Civ 5 players is an objective & meaningful statistic. If I was doing Civ 6 sales & marketing, I think it would be a key stat to keep an eye on.

 

[DocRock]

According to steam spy, Civ 6 made 80m so far and is the top seller on Steam in 2016.

Guess what - Firaxis does not really care if we quit or not.

 

[Pythakoreas]

Civ VI base game is vastly, vastly, VASTLY superior to Civ V base game.

Indeed, it's deja vu.
Civ 5 has sold millions more than Civ 6 at the moment, so there's a bigger base. Also some Civ 6 players are returning to Civ 5 as it's more complete, having had 14 DLC and more important 2 expansion packs. Plus 6 years of balancing and bugfixing.

For what it's worth the reception of Civ 6 is a lot better than it was with Civ 5. But truth be told, Civ 5 was the No Man's Sky of it's day

No Man's Sky of its day? Space exploration games, so maybe you're thinking of Beyond Earth?

That was a bold statement. I recall countless hours I spent playing the vanilla version of Civ5 (+ DLCs, but pre G&K) getting a taste of Civilization for the first time (as V was my first step into the franchise) At least Civ5 had some diplomacy to give me the impression of negotiating through world affairs, in the most recent one it is at best nonexistent.

I may not be in a position to talk about the Civ5 launch as I bought the game with multiple DLCs already included (therefore after a number of patches/improvements were made) but if I was to compare Civ6 (the way it is in January 2017) and Civ5 (pre-G&K) "base games" I see a clear winner. In one game you can gather food to grow your cities. In the other you have to micromanage Food, Housing and Amenities to grow your cities. In one game higher production means to be able to afford more. In the other you just catch up with the inflation. In one game a Great Engineer is a free wonder. In the other it is an extra Amenities point or two extra production points. In one game a Great General is either a boost for your troops or a superfortress(Citadel). In the other it eventually goes obsolete and gives a small bonus. And so forth...

Sure, there are things the successor clearly does better. However, I won't be playing Civ6 for quite some time.

 

[Chiyo]

According to steam spy, Civ 6 made 80m so far and is the top seller on Steam in 2016.

Guess what - Firaxis does not really care if we quit or not.

That is a very naive view. If Firaxis want to continue their company beyond 2017 they will very much care for people playing their games because everyone who shelves Civ 6 quickly is less likely to buy DLC's, expansions or Civ 7.

 

[bladex]

oh god don't even mention Beyond Earth the whole thing was just a big civ V MOD. what a disaster!

 

[gettingfat]

As a casual civ player started playing this series since civ 1, I am quite disappointed and even somewhat shocked to see this unpolished product, and don't feel surprised by the quick decline of the sale figure.

1. I can accept a mediocre AI, but this is not even mediocre. The AI simply can't fight and tech properly. In the third game I already won at the emperor level easily and lost more units to the barbarians than my AI rivals. I still remember struggling for a while at monarch level playing civ 3 and 4.
2. The diplomacy is just silly. The leaders have so many reasons to hate like they are paranoid. The warmonger penalty is ridiculously high.
   
3. The religious unit spam is so annoying
4. The unit movement is sooooooo slow. Quite often it takes more than ten turns just for my units to reach the enemy's city. A lot of micromanagement involved as well.
5. The UI is so bad. Oh, where is the reroll button? Why can't the game remember my previous choice so I have to enter everything again? The stats are missing or hard to find. Did the dev fire all the people from the previous games.

I wait till after seeing the Dec patch but most of the above issues have not been addressed. I wonder if the game dev is being run by those lawyer type CEO who know nothing about PC games and care more about squeezing more profit from DLC sale. To cut it short, the game experience is not good, and words spread quickly nowadays.

 

[Ferocitus]

According to steam spy, Civ 6 made 80m so far and is the top seller on Steam in 2016.

Guess what - Firaxis does not really care if we quit or not.

Not even wrong.

 

[Raider]

According to steam spy, Civ 6 made 80m so far and is the top seller on Steam in 2016.

Guess what - Firaxis does not really care if we quit or not.

And this is why buying games in unfinished state is a terrible practice for gamers. This is why I am especially happy that I requested a refund.