Civ 7 captures the Zeitgeist and that is why I hate it

[StargazingDog]

A few losers on Neogaf aren't submitting thousands upon thousands of negative reviews for Civ VII

No, but people who have nothing to lose, thanks to Steam refund policy, may be. Betraying my age, some people "get their jollies" from this behaviour. Some people even make money from it (aka grifters).

 

[queenpea]

So subtle that it can, and often is, imagined to exist where it doesn't. As with many other releases, the 1% of whackos are being blamed for 90% of the negativity. It doesn't work like that.

Not everyone who didn’t want Tubman to be included is a racist. However, all the racists didn’t want her to be included.

There’s a pretty simple venn diagram for you.

 

[Leyrann]

No, but people who have nothing to lose, thanks to Steam refund policy, may be. Betraying my age, some people "get their jollies" from this behaviour. Some people even make money from it (aka grifters).

Yes. Some people. But not a statistically significant number of them.

Not everyone who didn’t want Tubman to be included is a racist. However, all the racists didn’t want her to be included.

There’s a pretty simple venn diagram for you.

Actually it rather matters whether that inner venn diagram consists of 1% or 50% of the outer venn diagram.

 

[queenpea]

Actually it rather matters whether that inner venn diagram consists of 1% or 50% of the outer venn diagram.

Yes it does!

 

[Krajzen]

So subtle that it can, and often is, imagined to exist where it doesn't. As with many other releases, the 1% of whackos are being blamed for 90% of the negativity. It doesn't work like that.

This is not 1%. The reveal trailer for Nubia in civ6 had 25% dislike ratio despite the civ itself being high quality design and the same as all other civs in the game, which have received like 1-3% dislikes, and the comments were infested with a ton of racist and sexist comments laughing at notion of african civilization, female black leader being viewed some fake political insert, just plain insulting her looks and body, well known racist slang terms (we wuz kangz), et cetera et cetera. This has also happened to a smaller but visible degree to Kongo civ reveal, laughing at the notion of african civilization.

As for nowadays, if I remember correctly somebody checked that app which shows likes and dislikes on youtube and Tubman reveal trailer has like 25% dislikes? for absolutely no gameplay reason, with all other reveals having universal acclaim (except, of course, Amina and Buganda, which met with some racism and sexism). And it is very visible in the comments suffering major onslaught, where the greatest gems I have seen went as far as comedians with confederacy profile pictures joking about slavery.

And yes I refuse to treat "Tubman shouldn't be in the game because she's not a viable leader" as totally innocent legit rational criticism when such explosion of hostility was almost completely nonexistent with Ibn Battuta, Machiavelli, Ben Franklin etc - with Ibn Battuta in particular being even less of a political leader than Tubman - who coincidentally all happened to be fair skinned men. Anti-woke psychos always wear a thin veneer of legitimacy, as they suddenly all become historians obsessed with perfect realism only when LGBT, black people and women enter the scene. It could be seen wonderfully with Assasins Creed: Shadows mess where suddenly tons of people hated the idea of black guy becoming a samurai... Even though he's an actual historical character, whereas nobody has ever had problems with white guys becoming samurais and ninjas in various video games and movies, most notably Shogun tv series or Last Samurai movie.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I said it's vastly exaggerated, and in no way comes close to explaining Civ VII's mediocre reviews. A few losers on Neogaf aren't submitting thousands upon thousands of negative reviews for Civ VII, nor are they responsible for the at-best lukewarm reception from professional gaming outlets.

With that I actually agree, I don't think anti woke psychos are major contribution to civ7 scores, negative steam reviews are mostly very sensible criticisms.

 

[Kyriakos]

YouTube is like "oh hey you watched this video, so you probably enjoy that kind of content, here's three more". Remember, YouTube's goal is to get you to watch more videos so they make more money from ads (if the product is free, you are the product). It's only logical that they'll recommend content that has previously kept you watching.

You are arguing that the algorithm wouldn't suggest general reviews of civ7, but specifically negative ones (obviously not from the same creator) if one watches a negative one. That part I find hard to believe.
Then again, maybe it does suggest stuff that 'enough' previous watchers of one video had then gone on to watch - I cannot say. Those videos, however, are only up for a few days.

 

[Clubber Lang]

 

[ThichN]

Any thoughts?

It has been astounding to me how confident people are in commenting on a game that they have not yet played. I am told that part of the reason that this happens is because of YouTube videos. People watch the videos and then feel as if they have played without playing. We live in a culture/world today where easily digestible and easy-to-understand info/content is the par for the course. These people want your views. Make no mistake about that. They'll make thumbnails with "BOMBS" or "BEST GAME EVER" on them. There is a baseline dishonesty in the discourse, and very little digital literacy these days. Sure, I think this is partially to blame for the review bombing -- a sort of bandwagoning of passions. But also some people just don't like the game, and that's fine. They might not even know they like it yet.

There was a funny Reddit post the other day showing that a high % of people who negatively reviewed the game on steam had played 40+ hours beyond their negative review. That's a big return on investment for gamers! We forget, too, that there are living and breathing humans behind the crafting of this game. For everything you think they left out or didn't do well, they nailed it in other ways, and are working hard to listen.

Is it possible the UI needs work, the game is expensive in today's economy, and the game totally rocks? Can all be possible? Why yes, they can. But gray areas are hard to come by today. One side will say "racism" and another side will say "shill." Funny we are playing a game about human civilization while engaging in that which has stood the test of time: the misplaced passions of humanity.

 

[Krajzen]

4.3 metacritic rating based on the enormous statistical sample of 43 reviews. Currently it's 3.8 by 106 reviews, which is still very little in comparision with civ6 having 2053 user ratings on metacritic as of today, with 7.2 grade (which frankly is far less than I'd expect given this game's massive success by all other meters, 7.2 on metacritic would suggest significant disappointment on the global scale).

I'd honestly say the title BOMBS is just plain clickbait. You know what is a box office bomb in the usual terminology? Low sales. Once we get some data of civ7 having sales below expectations we can say it has bombed.
I wouldn't associate this term with "the game has sold well but has mixed reception and is controversial", like Cyberpunk2077 phenomenon when it had disastrous premiere but incredible sales. Cyberpunk didn't "bomb", it had very controversial release regarding the technical aspects of a game and the critical reception in general. Similarly we don't say the movie "bombed" when half of people hate it but it earned its creators a sea of money.

I also don't like Harriet Tubman being in the thumbnail, of all leaders; it was the only controversial leader reveal on YT for certain predictable reasons, it seems like a clickbait tactic attracting a certain crowd of grifters.

It is worth noting how the comments don't seem to be super angry at the mechanical design of the game, however; just like Steam reviews, complaints seem to be mostly focused on the technical state of release (UI etc) versus price tag, saying "will buy after patches on a sale", which is entirely fair criticism tbh. I would love to get the internal Firaxis knowledge documenting how the hell did they release a strategy game with possibly the worst interface in history - I have never seen a video game where such a massive part of its reception were tarnished by a UI of all things

 

[TheGrayFox]

No, but people who have nothing to lose, thanks to Steam refund policy, may be. Betraying my age, some people "get their jollies" from this behaviour. Some people even make money from it (aka grifters).

Good thing people who refund's reviews are not counted in the total/percentage of reviews and are not contributing to why it has Mixed reviews or else this may have actually been a concern

also by this same logic, some people make money being shills for corporations online and good reviews can be paid for.....

 

[moondog385]

They explained over and over again why they made the changes they did during the marketing cycle. Saying it’s for “no other reason other than to be disruptive” is disingenuous at best.

 

[TheGrayFox]

4.3 metacritic rating based on the enormous statistical sample of 43 reviews. Currently it's 3.8 by 106 reviews, which is still very little in comparision with civ6 having 2053 user ratings on metacritic as of today, with 7.2 grade (which frankly is far less than I'd expect given this game's massive success by all other meters, 7.2 on metacritic would suggest significant disappointment on the global scale).

I'd honestly say the title BOMBS is just plain clickbait. You know what is a box office bomb in the usual terminology? Low sales. Once we get some data of civ7 having sales below expectations we can say it has bombed.

It really isn't though, VII IS bombing. Released to negative/mixed reviews, lowest critical score of the series, and it has half the peak playercount of its preddesecor. By all logical metrics, VII is flopping hard.

 

[Kyriakos]

UI isn't the only unpopular feature of the game - and of course the UI itself can change. Civ changes, crisis, depletion of units when era changes, random civs being linked, no civ being actually the Civilization the title of the series is about, the leader mechanic, are also criticized in the 50% of Steam reviews that are negative.
I think that by the time of the first couple of dlc we will be in a far better position to see what the trend is. But starting with 50% negative and so many reviews, is not a positive sign.

Once again, all that said, Civ4 had a horrible first year (years?). So we shall see.

 

[Krajzen]

It really isn't though, VII IS bombing. Released to negative/mixed reviews, lowest critical score of the series, and it has half the peak playercount of its preddesecor. By all logical metrics, VII is flopping hard.

Bombing as I understand relates to sales exclusively, like I have already explained: a controversial movie with an audience split in half which earns a lot of money isn't considered a bomb, but a critically acclaimed universally beloved movie which earns too little money - is. And like several people told, the problem with civ6-7 steam player count comparision is the fact civ7 got released on many more platforms than civ6 did, so until Firaxis reveals the actual multiplatform sales figures we can't say anything concrete.

I've just checked wiki. Civilization VI released only on Windows (Steam only) and macOS, with other ports coming slowly over the years or never at all. Civilization VII released simultaneously on Windows (Steam), macOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Steam Deck, and Xbox Series X/S AND last but not least on Windows but on Epic Games Store instead of Steam (EGS only came around in 2018).

It is hard for me to imagine that the total sales wouldn't have been massively increased by... you know... factoring in all those SEVEN MORE platforms mentioned above (ignoring Steam Deck for obvious reasons).

 

[TheGrayFox]

Bombing as I understand relates to sales exclusively, like I have already explained (controversial movie with an audience split in half which earns a lot of money isn't considered a bomb, but a critically acclaimed beloved movie which earns too little money - is). And like several people told, the problem with civ6-7 steam player count comparision is the fact civ7 got released on many more platforms than civ6 did, so until Firaxis reveals the actual multiplatform sales figures we can't say anything concrete.

and as has already been explained in other topics when people try to bring up multiplatform release. VI's intial sales (1 million+ in first two weeks) were all PC only and it was eventually ported to make even more money on console market. PC is the main platform for which strategy games are played and Xbox and Playstation currently only has a very tiny fraction of total number of reviews on Steam (they're also mixed). Consoles and the unpopular Epic Store are not making up the difference in sales and lack of players here. VII is a flop, if you want to wait a little longer for that to be confirmed by sales figures, sure but the writing is already on the wall.

 

[Sephi]

Bombing as I understand relates to sales exclusively, like I have already explained: a controversial movie with an audience split in half which earns a lot of money isn't considered a bomb, but a critically acclaimed universally beloved movie which earns too little money - is. And like several people told, the problem with civ6-7 steam player count comparision is the fact civ7 got released on many more platforms than civ6 did, so until Firaxis reveals the actual multiplatform sales figures we can't say anything concrete.

I've just checked wiki. Civilization VI released only on Windows (Steam only) and macOS, with other ports coming slowly over the years or never at all. Civilization VII released simultaneously on Windows (Steam), macOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Steam Deck, and Xbox Series X/S AND last but not least on Windows but on Epic Games Store instead of Steam (EGS only came around in 2018).

It is hard for me to imagine that the total sales wouldn't have been massively increased by... you know... factoring in all those SEVEN MORE platforms mentioned above (ignoring Steam Deck for obvious reasons).

I also think concurrent players is a useless metric, but even if you use it.
Civ7: 80k players peak
Humankind: 54k players peak
AOW4: 48k players peak
Millennia: 8k players peak

All this talk about the game bombing is just drama. It's a decent game with a strong brand.

 

[TheGrayFox]

I also think concurrent players is a useless metric, but even if you use it.
Civ7: 80k players peak
Humankind: 54k players peak
AOW4: 48k players peak
Millennia: 8k players peak

All this talk about the game bombing is just drama. It's a decent game with a strong brand.

None of those other games or studios have the production budget of Firaxis and shareholders are looking for return of investment. They’re looking for growth, selling less than your predecessors and more than a AA game like AOW or humankind (which had decent initial sales and lost all its player and potential dlc purchasers almost immediately) isn’t what anyone at 2K is looking for

 

[Clubber Lang]

 

[queenpea]

VII is a flop, if you want to wait a little longer for that to be confirmed by sales figures, sure but the writing is already on the wall.

When do you think we will get sales figures?

 

[Clubber Lang]