Congratulations Firaxis!

[Jimbo30]

People who are so in love with the previous versions should go back and play them again. See how easily you can buy the world with diplomats in #1, build Leonardo's Workshop in #2 and never bother building another unit again.

#3 and #4 were just plain horrific on release. Completely unplayable - I "won" my first game of Civ 4 by pressing "end turn" about 300 times in a row near the end.

Anybody who thinks Civ 5 is in worse shape on release than 3 or 4 was has a short memory.

 

[soltari666]

People who are so in love with the previous versions should go back and play them again. See how easily you can buy the world with diplomats in #1, build Leonardo's Workshop in #2 and never bother building another unit again.

#3 and #4 were just plain horrific on release. Completely unplayable - I "won" my first game of Civ 4 by pressing "end turn" about 300 times in a row near the end.

Anybody who thinks Civ 5 is in worse shape on release than 3 or 4 was has a short memory.

This!

Civ5 is the best vanilla incarnation of the series yet. I agree on criticizing the combat AI and the way too generous diplomatic AI when it comes to peace talk.

Other than that, amazing!

I am old, too, began playing Civ1 some time after its release when I was 16 and I have to give it to Jon Shafer: He cleaned up a lot of the chaff and half baked concepts like espionage ( running around half the globe to poison a well, sensational, NOT ), religion ( running around the world multiple time to put an icon above a city, sensational, NOT ) and many more I am too lazy to mention.

But the icing on the cake was one guy mentioning Empire :Total War as the better game. Now I have seen everything, really everything.

 

[turboraton]

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Civ5 is first and TF2 is second, what a good day for quality games! Let's see how the numbers go after the first big patch + mongols.

 

[hussar]

In your face, Call of Duty!

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Man, I'm really pleased that developers can get some money with quality games. Can't wait till you start patching the game and giving us some nice expansions (and add Incas), untill then I'll be cleaving, chopping and maiming with Montezuma.

barely scapring ahead of team fortress 2 which is what a 3 year old game, a few weeks after CIV 5 release is hardly decisive evidence that Civ 5 is a good game. give it a few more weeks till the honeymoon period is over then look it up again. A peek of 15,000 players seems fataly low to me.

 

[JLoZeppeli]

In your face, Call of Duty!

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Man, I'm really pleased that developers can get some money with quality games. Can't wait till you start patching the game and giving us some nice expansions (and add Incas), untill then I'll be cleaving, chopping and maiming with Montezuma.

WOw beating a game that was released an years ago, and in the first month of release, what an achievement for Civ V...

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=civilization

And do you think that all the players of civ IV bought another time the game only to have it on steam?

The 99% of players doesn't have the Steam version (and it's laughable thinking that for a game released five years ago...)...

 

[notger]

barely scapring ahead of team fortress 2 which is what a 3 year old game, a few weeks after CIV 5 release is hardly decisive evidence that Civ 5 is a good game. give it a few more weeks till the honeymoon period is over then look it up again. A peek of 15,000 players seems fataly low to me.

Being popular is no evidence of a good game at all, btw.

But being as popular as the best game ever made (Team Fortress 2) is not bad, either.

Apart from that, the time of day when you take the statistics seems to be important, interestingly. Kiddies, Russians and Scandinavians love shooters and they tend to play earlier? Oldies, Germans and French love Civilization and they tend to play later?

Whatever. Plants vs. Zombies is in the top twenty.

 

[DavidPBacon]

First, the best game ever made was Civ2. Period. Is dated now, but it was the best game of the period. Damn, civ V made me go back to Civ 2 and Call to Power and Civ 4, just to see what I was missing. Sorry, Civ V is a bad, unbalanced and flawed game. Is too easy and exploitable.
Civ is not a game to beat on Deity in the first week, except for some lucky few. Even if it was a completelly new game it would be a bad game, sorry, but that's the true. It may be fixable, but at current state, that's the true.
AI is broken, given actual game mechanics. It was bad in previous versions, you may say, but the game mechanics helped overcome this. 1UPT broke that.
When you consider the Civ legacy, Civ V is a slap in the face. If you like it, good for you, but you can't say it's the best Civ or a improvement, cause it's not Civ. It's a RTS in TBS form and apart from the name and some few mechanics( like collecting food to grow cities and having settlers to build them), but the essence of a Civ game ís not there.
When you read the posts of the ones that deslike Civ V, you see a trend. Almost everyone talks about the journey, the pleasure of playing the game and pretending to be Ceasar, or Washington. Not now. Now you get your goal, get your resources and rush to victory, cause there's nothing else to do.

Congrats Firaxis, you just broke the franchise that made a gamer out of me.

 

[Rince]

Anyone else impressed by the number of Civ5 players in general? I would never have guessed that several tens of thousands of people are playing Civ at any given time. I thought it was more a niche game and that I was special :-(

I guess we can say that we are not alone!

 

[Brawndo]

Stuff like this is why Firaxis and 2K have no qualms about releasing a partially finished game.

"As long we be making dat paper, we good"

 

[Ogrelord]

In your face, Call of Duty!

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Man, I'm really pleased that developers can get some money with quality games. Can't wait till you start patching the game and giving us some nice expansions (and add Incas), untill then I'll be cleaving, chopping and maiming with Montezuma.

EEErrr right....

why don't we included the number of people playing CoD:MWII on Xbox Live and PSN...

 

[turboraton]

Because those are the STEAM users, not the XBOX users or PSN numbers.

One would thing that you are bitter with Civilization 5 success o.o

 

[JLoZeppeli]

Anyone else impressed by the number of Civ5 players in general? I would never have guessed that several tens of thousands of people are playing Civ at any given time. I thought it was more a niche game and that I was special :-(

I guess we can say that we are not alone!

I don't think it was so niche... You can call Europa Universalis niche game....

Moreover 2k put a lot of effort in advertisement for Civ V. As you can see, a lot of new casual players bought the game, people eho never play the previous games of the franchise... I can say that's a good 50% of the new player base... And that explains why they are enjoyng the game so much, never palyed such a ame, so it's quite diffucult to grasp the mechanics in so few days from release...

As i say, the more pleased for Civ V are those players plus the players who didn't like to much Civ III or IV for the difficulties they had on high levels...

Considering that Civ V's sales are about 300k, and now are playing a 40k on avarage after only 30 days we can say that at least an half of the playerbase is lost or in stand by...

If we speaks of number of player playnig on avarage, we need always considering the sales... It's a bit harsh to say, but 40k only after 30 days is not so good, compared to games that are played nowadays after a year in number around the 100k...
The progressive number of playerbase lost is something to worry about...

 

[Ogrelord]

Because those are the STEAM users, not the XBOX users or PSN numbers.

One would thing that you are bitter with Civilization 5 success o.o

I'm not bitter, I am disappointed. If you really like ciV, then you won't care whether it's a financial success or not, nor how many people are playing, you would just play it. Seems to me, you posted this only to because of your insecurities and these fleeting numbers to justify and validate on your purchase on a flawed game design. You just capture one moment. I'm looking at the numbers now, and they are nowhere near the FPS games.

If MW2 was only only on PC and on Steam then you wouldn't never made this thread. A lot of players didn't get MW2 on PC 'cause the Infinity Ward don't have servers for them. (MW2 is a bad game too but it made TONS of money). Numbers don't make a great game.


EDIT:
current ----- Peak

49,594 ------ 69,156 ---- Counter-Strike
48,062 ------ 68,200 ---- Counter-Strike: Source
41,954 ----- 62,046 ---- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer
16,375 ----- 28,926 ---- Sid Meier's Civilization V

 

[turboraton]

Dude I'm happy that CiV even SHOWS on the chart. Ever since the days of Civ1, with those pesky Spies, here on Peru I think that only a handful of citizens played the game. With the new versions coming I have seen more and more players and that makes me HAPPY. It looks like is a sin over here but it is not for me. I'm happy that such a good series is having success in a world where people play MORE HALO, MORE WAR FPS, MORE WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

I'm not saying CiV is perfect, but so far for me is a good VAINILLA release. To me it's WAAAAAY better than Civ3 vainilla and it is a good run for civ4 vainilla.

 

[Zogar]

Civ 5 is the definition of a game rushed to make money faster. The comparison to CoD is completely irrelevant.

And yes, wait a few months and we'll see where Civ 5 stands.

 

[SuperJay]

Speaking of TF2, imagine if Firaxis spent the next 3 years doing for Civ5 what Valve did for TF2? Tons of post-release support and patch after patch of free content updates.

THAT would turn me around on this. Maybe it'll happen. I'm skeptical, but wouldn't that be nice if it did?

 

[WuphonsReach]

This morning: 13,624 25,000 Sid Meier's Civilization V

Over at XFire, Civ3 is #458, Civ4 is #121, and Civ5 is #87 in terms of hours played this week.

(Personally, I'm having more fun playing Baldur's Gate I and II and haven't fired up Civ5 in 2-3 weeks now.)

 

[Generals3]

People who are so in love with the previous versions should go back and play them again. See how easily you can buy the world with diplomats in #1, build Leonardo's Workshop in #2 and never bother building another unit again.

#3 and #4 were just plain horrific on release. Completely unplayable - I "won" my first game of Civ 4 by pressing "end turn" about 300 times in a row near the end.

Anybody who thinks Civ 5 is in worse shape on release than 3 or 4 was has a short memory.

Actually i can't remember noticing huge unbalances or bugs at Civ III & IV release . They may have been there but i didn't notice while in Civ V i can't walk next to them. Completely wrong info texts , infinite peace bug , ******ed aggressive and stupid AI and extremely bad production vs science balance. And darn i'm sure i even didn't notice many minor bugs . Oh and i forgot : worst performance at release ever encountered , never did it take so long to pass turns in Civ III & IV . And at release i used to play them on below average machines while i'm playing Civ V on a good machine. (and don't even have all settings on max like i usually do for every other single game i have)

 

[Merovinge]

Baldur's gate is a ridiculously high standard to compare CiV to, we can't all be bioware.

 

[Toady]

Baldur's gate is a ridiculously high standard to compare CiV to, we can't all be bioware.

Off Topic, but bioware is gearing up for a nice nosedive with SW: TOR.