And it helps market the game. Players don't like investing in dead games. Showing that a game is popular and has a vibrant community is a goal of basically every game marketing team.
Player stats, sales, and reception discussion
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stealth_nsk
Deity
It depends on the context. Civ6 with expansions sold 11+M copies, maybe 1M sales don't look as a great number so far.
protocol7
Prince
Anyway, this is an unofficial thread and none of us work at Firaxis so probably safe to assume anyone participating is speculating based on whatever signals we're extrapolating from. Certainly nobody who dislikes speculation should feel required to participate, but it can be fun even if ultimately silly.
Which I don't think is to say signals are entirely meaningless, or that humans can't truly know anything, or even whether our senses or reasoning are reliable, and maybe we're all just brains in a vat and who knows if anyone on the other side of the computer is real. That's certainly a fun way of thinking philosophically about the world, at least for a while, but not really the intention of looking at the signals in this particular thread (at least IMHO).
Which I don't think is to say signals are entirely meaningless, or that humans can't truly know anything, or even whether our senses or reasoning are reliable, and maybe we're all just brains in a vat and who knows if anyone on the other side of the computer is real. That's certainly a fun way of thinking philosophically about the world, at least for a while, but not really the intention of looking at the signals in this particular thread (at least IMHO).
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queenpea
Emperor
Yeah, definitely. I really don't know what to think about it. Right now, Civ VII social media is spending a lot of its energy promoting the Meta VR version.
On Feb 19, game stats were posted on instagram following the public launch, so it's clear to me that they aren't averse to sharing public stats about the player base.
These numbers sadly aren't that clear. 1.1 billion turns sounds very impressive for a single week. But what is meant with campaigns? If you compare the numbers, each campaign only had 66 turns on average. Hence, each age played counts as a campaign? Then, 16.7 campaigns would equal 5.5 million full age games. If we assume 1 million players, that would mean everybody played more than 5 full games in the first week on average. That seems a bit much, doesn't it? I would assume that anything larger than 2 games per week (20+ hours) is too high for the average player. So, maybe its just "campaigns started" and there were millions of restarts... In any case, sadly, these numbers do not really tell us that much.
In other news, sold copies for civ VII per week on gamalytic fell under 6k for the first time today: only 5.9k player bought it in the past week, apparently. Gamalytic currently puts the owners on steam at 937k (based on reviews, playtime-based guess is 965k, rank-based guess in 911k). But the error margin is huge: 681k-1.1m.
It's a bit unbelievable to me that Civ7 would've still not hit 1 million sales by today when Civ6 hit that metric within the first two weeks. Still, I would guess Civ7 hit that number much later than 6 and it was not worth celebrating or bringing attention to.
VGT
Warlord
I think the problem with Firaxis publicly celebrating 1 million sold games is the context. It sounds different when you do it 1-2 weeks after release compared to 3 months.
0urBall
Warlord
It's a strange one tbh. Either it has reached a significant milestone, and they haven't felt the need to shout about it, or it hasn't. If it has and they haven't decided to crow about it, is that possibly because they had a higher bar for what Firaxis would deem a significant milestone based on the total figure of CivVI sales?
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Important clarification here is they didn't claim a single week for those stats. They said "first week", then proceeded to use figures that showed the word "total".
Box office metrics often use the term "opening weekend" but if the film opened during the week prior to the first weekend, they include those numbers.
I suspect what is happening here is that these numbers are "up to the first week", and include pre-release early access figures. Nothing like a bit of padding to add some oomph to your social media boasts. It's like lip filler for executives.
Askia Muhammad
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I wonder if they don’t want to celebrate sales whilst the reception is so mixed. I think celebrating sales may encourage some to purchase but if they arrive at the steam page and see mixed, trending negative reviews they may have an unfavorable view of both the game and studio.
Noble Zarkon
Elite Quattromaster - Immortal (BTS)
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I think they are gun shy and waiting for 1.2 before pushing hard again, which is probably a good call!
queenpea
Emperor
Yeah I don't know! I work in public relations, and when a product launched by my brand does not have the hugely positive response we would hope for (from critics or consumers, etc.), then we often rely on its commercial success to bandaid over the other concerns and to move on to the next thing. In a way, this at least changes the conversation.
Lazy sweeper
Mooooo Cra Chirp Fssss Miaouw is a game of words
(I truly hoped it would get it 
Dreadnought
Deity
Sad that a lot of interesting discussion was lost from the previous thread.
Surprised and disturbed to see that the game still hasn't found a floor for player count.
Surprised and disturbed to see that the game still hasn't found a floor for player count.
Taefin
King
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As much as I loved my first 300 hrs in civ7, it makes so much sense why its reception would be negative.
The game does not feel good on the first 1-2 playthroughs. All bonuses demand understanding terminology and mechanics that the game provides no way of learning except by trial and error. And if you misplay, the consequence is just feeling your empire slowly spin down. If a stronger AI invades, it will falter after maybe capturing 1-2 of your settlements, and leave you with a depressing game you can quit or continue.
Other 4x games have a truer sense of peril as you learn them, where a bad turn will lead the AI to run over you, give you a quick end, and get you excited for what to try differently next game.
My main problem with the game right now is how unfulfilling the victory conditions are. I am starting to feel repelled by the thought of a new game knowing that at some point my actions will stop mattering as I get close to modern’s victory mini games. But I doubt that is where very many negative reviews are coming from.
The game does not feel good on the first 1-2 playthroughs. All bonuses demand understanding terminology and mechanics that the game provides no way of learning except by trial and error. And if you misplay, the consequence is just feeling your empire slowly spin down. If a stronger AI invades, it will falter after maybe capturing 1-2 of your settlements, and leave you with a depressing game you can quit or continue.
Other 4x games have a truer sense of peril as you learn them, where a bad turn will lead the AI to run over you, give you a quick end, and get you excited for what to try differently next game.
My main problem with the game right now is how unfulfilling the victory conditions are. I am starting to feel repelled by the thought of a new game knowing that at some point my actions will stop mattering as I get close to modern’s victory mini games. But I doubt that is where very many negative reviews are coming from.
Disgustipated
Deity
As I said in the other thread that got mega-merged and is unavailable atm, I can't see sales doing anything significant until the price comes down. It helped Civ 6 quite a bit once they started doing sales, and it will help Civ 7. Although I don't expect that to really happen until this Christmas season. Most likely this game hasn't hit 1 million yet.
A lot of the bad reviews are coming from parts of that though. A bad UI means that even if there is really interesting gameplay the player doesn’t know what how to approach it and doesn’t see it unfolding.
Core Imposter
Felon
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If people are bumbling their way through to victory against the AI at the highest level that would meet the definition of design failure.
Yeah it's performing closer to Civ: Beyond Earth at this point. Dropped lower than I would have expected, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since I've stopped playing it more quickly than I expected.
I'm also pretty much done with the game by the time it hits modern era, which just feels like a chore.
If player count continues to drop as it is, I wouldn't be surprised if we get a free weekend in like October followed by a Christmas sale.
Askia Muhammad
Warlord
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With player counts down in the 6k range already, waiting until October for a free weekend might be a complete death sentence, I’d expect a free weekend sometime in the summer whenever they release right to rule
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