Player stats, sales, and reception discussion

[Gorbles]

Interesting to see some of the commentary here.

I don't think people realise how niche even one of the most popular 4x games franchise are. 70-odd million compared to the next biggest franchise, Borderlands, at 90-something. This will probably be counting lifetime sales, and ownership of Firaxis goes back to them helping with IV. So that's IV through VII not even outperforming a newer looter-shooter franchise (which has less entries, and only really hit its stride with BL2).

 

[fantsu]

Interesting to see some of the commentary here.

I don't think people realise how niche even one of the most popular 4x games franchise are. 70-odd million compared to the next biggest franchise, Borderlands, at 90-something. This will probably be counting lifetime sales, and ownership of Firaxis goes back to them helping with IV. So that's IV through VII not even outperforming a newer looter-shooter franchise (which has less entries, and only really hit its stride with BL2).

Well, yes. Civ-series has sold less than Mario Kart 8.
But 70 million isn't too niche still? Its a lot of sold games in my head.
And Borderlands are on every single platform and quite cheap, when Civ is mostly on PC and really expensive. Would be nice to know the difference in dollars.

 

[Pistol90]

There is money in 4x games, releases of games like Humankind and Ara prove that ... We are having new games entering this "niche".

But teams just got it wrong with Civ7, simple as that ...

Ages (we had them in Civ6 and they were implemented correctly) , civ switching and leader-civ separation is too far from proven Civ formula.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

"We're confident that the development team's ongoing efforts to update key areas of the game will deliver outstanding results over the franchise's typically long sales cycle."
= "The dev team is working on fixing things which may improve sales. If they succeed, we'll be selling Civ DLCs for a long time."

I’d parse this one only slightly differently:

First, to my eye, there’s an adverse inference to draw that the game hasn’t delivered outstanding results *yet*.

Second, I think the phrase ‘update key areas of the game’ is a fig leaf for more than just the UI improvements and other things they’ve been patching. ‘Update’ can be more palatable than ‘improve’ (and definitely ‘fix’) but it also gives the opening for broader changes.

Either way, the call definitely damned with faint praise, especially in comparison with their other products.

 

[stealth_nsk]

What strikes me about all of this is the seemingly very minor role Civ VII plays in their revenue structure/planning.

Unlike in the last report, in which they announced three big releases in 2025, one of these being civ 7.

Planned income obviously focuses on planned releases, so nothing surprising in Civ7 place in previous and current report. Regarding revenue structure already done - as I understand, there's still no info on how it's split between games.

My guess:
Steam Civ 7: +1 million units
Steam Civ 4 & Steam Civ 5 & Steam Civ 6 (9 yrs old game) & Civ 6 for consoles & Civ7 for consoles: +2 million units

I don't think old games could have a significant share here, they have dramatic fall in the number of players after Civ7 release. I'd say that's one more indirect confirmation that non-steam Civ7 sales were actually good.

The previous indirect confirmation was that total number of Civ players (all versions) dropped significantly after Civ7 release, which means they either stopped playing Civ7 completely (which is hard to believe), or they migrated to other platforms. And since there were no triggers to migrate steam players of, say, Civ6 to consoles, it's most likely they migrated to Civ7.

But again, both hints are indirect.

 

[Stoic]

At this time current players for each civ

 

[Michael_Xavier]

At this time current players for each civ

I stopped playing almost immediately, because I was irked by many things, but most of all, I was peeved by the name of the game series versus what this game is. The name of the game is Civilization. Singular. Not plural. I'm almost 50. I have been playing since Civ 2. I play as a release. I play for nostalgia. I play as a semi-passive activity while I am also at the computer doing something like day trading futures. I enjoy the anachronism of playing as Australia or Brazil from antiquity to present-day. The leaders have always been an afterthought. I tolerate them, and could live without them. I don't care about the animations, or the Gandhi nuclear memes, or interactions. It never once has been anything I relish about the franchise. To make the leaders, not all of them political leaders, be the main focus and central thread of the game struck me as a bridge too far. If others are fine with it, cool, play it. But my guess is that from the numbers, there are many who have maybe a similar sentiment as me or others who can't quite put their finger on what made them buy a game and decide, "Yeah, I'm not playing this anymore."

If the devs want to make this right by me, count my voice. I have money. I buy games. I want the nostalgia. I want the ambience. I want the grandiosity and anachronism. I want to feel what I have always felt.

As it stands now, I have two sons, who if Civ 7 was a solid game, which mimicked what I liked from the past, I'd play it with them and encourage them to play. Right now, that sentiment is dead in the water. The game sucks. It doesn't give me the feels. I do not want to play a random leader, who was alive somewhere between 30-90 years in a game which spans 6,000 years. I want to play what the game is called -- Civilization. One civilization across all of recorded time. That's it. Get back to that and I will come back and I will bring my kids.

 

[Civinator]

My guess:
Steam Civ 7: +1 million units
Steam Civ 4 & Steam Civ 5 & Steam Civ 6 (9 yrs old game) & Civ 6 for consoles & Civ7 for consoles: +2 million units

And what is about Civ 4 Complete at GOG and Civ 3 Complete at GOG ?

At least Civ 3 Complete at GOG is much more popular than the steam version, as the steam version has a bug in its labels text, that plays havoc with nearly all Civ 3 mods and scenarios.

 

[UWHabs]

I’d parse this one only slightly differently:

First, to my eye, there’s an adverse inference to draw that the game hasn’t delivered outstanding results *yet*.

Second, I think the phrase ‘update key areas of the game’ is a fig leaf for more than just the UI improvements and other things they’ve been patching. ‘Update’ can be more palatable than ‘improve’ (and definitely ‘fix’) but it also gives the opening for broader changes.

Either way, the call definitely damned with faint praise, especially in comparison with their other products.

It's not surprising. As mentioned, we can all see the Steam numbers and whatnot. As mentioned, Civ is a long term investment - I'm sure the T2 aren't going to punt the game off 3 bad months. The game has still sold 1m+ copies, so it's not like it's a complete flop. How it develops over the next 5-10 years, and how it does over that timeframe, probably matters more overall to the publishers.

Now, obviously, if they keep pumping development money into it, and the first expansion for the game comes out as rough or worse as the launch does, that probably changes their picture. And I'm sure the publishers would have loved to 2x or 5x the sales, and have the game launch with 90% reviews, sure. But it's not so bad that it can't be saved.

 

[stealth_nsk]

And what is about Civ 4 Complete at GOG and Civ 3 Complete at GOG ?

At least Civ 3 Complete at GOG is much more popular than the steam version, as the steam version has a bug in its labels text, that plays havoc with nearly all Civ 3 mods and scenarios.

I don't think they had any noticeable sales in the last year to contribute. They didn't in previous years.

 

[Civinator]

I don't think they had any noticeable sales in the last year to contribute. They didn't in previous years.

Can you please give a link to the source, that Civ 3 and Civ 4 Complete at GOG had no noticeable sales in the past and especially have no noticeable sale in the year of the release of Civ 7.

 

[Xur]

It's not surprising. As mentioned, we can all see the Steam numbers and whatnot. As mentioned, Civ is a long term investment - I'm sure the T2 aren't going to punt the game off 3 bad months. The game has still sold 1m+ copies, so it's not like it's a complete flop. How it develops over the next 5-10 years, and how it does over that timeframe, probably matters more overall to the publishers.

Now, obviously, if they keep pumping development money into it, and the first expansion for the game comes out as rough or worse as the launch does, that probably changes their picture. And I'm sure the publishers would have loved to 2x or 5x the sales, and have the game launch with 90% reviews, sure. But it's not so bad that it can't be saved.

But if they can't identify the problem, then what hope is there? I have zero confidence in Ed Beach. I'm sick and tired of his board game mindset.

 

[Siptah]

According to gamalytic, sales in the past seven days fell below 5k today. This is the first time this happens.

Not at all surprising, as it is still full price and there haven't been any new patches or similar in the past weeks.
In the past weeks, civ VI and V always sold fewer copies. But now, as there is a sale (-90%), civ VI sold a whooping 60k.

And CHF 7*60k is also more revenue than CHF 70*5k, which iirc is the first time an older civ game brings more revenue than civ VII. Recent sales for civ VI weren't as effective, while civ 7 still sold better then.

After the disappointing report by TT that pretty much told nothing we didn't know, besides hinting that a long, continued development cycle is still planned, the thing I'm most curious for is how much civ 7 will sell on its first real sale.

Can you please give a link to the source, that Civ 3 and Civ 4 Complete at GOG had no noticeable sales in the past and especially have no noticeable sale in the year of the release of Civ 7.

Sales estimates are often based on number of reviews (among other factors): 40 sales per review. If this is any indication, the 36 reviews for civ III in the past 6 months would equal ~ 1500 sales. Civ IV has a similar number of reviews: 37 in the past 6 months. You can argument that established rules of thumb for newer steam games can't just be transferred to GOG or older titles in general. But it seems unlikely that civ III or civ IV on GOG would account for more than 20k sales out of the millions in the last year.

The copies sold on Steam corroborate this notion: 14 copies of civ IV and 8 copies of civ III complete were sold in the past 7 days.

Personally, I think that 1500 sales in half a year for a 24 year old game is awesome. But it's not that relevant anymore if we look at the sold copies of the franchise altogether, nor for the revenue: CHF 5 for civ III complete without a further discount currently - the price of a cup of coffee, so if you go into it now, you basically pay for it just with time spent.

 

[Civinator]

Siptah, thank you very much for the reply. So it seems, that there is no direct source for it, only estimations. In each case the GOG versions of Civ 4 Complete and Civ 3 Complete should not be forgotten when writing about sales of the current Civ series (Civ 2, Civ 2 ToT and the different versions of Civ 1 at least are not sold by GOG or steam). The great new C3X mod for C3C was created on the base of the GOG version of Civ 3 Complete.

Especially Civ 3 Complete in combination with the C3X mod offers possibilities of changed civs (in a way that in a Firaxis post was described as "clustered"), changed leaders during a game and even with different titles of the different leaders during the game, that many civers were posting that they would wish this for Civ 7 (all of these options are optional in the C3X mod).

 

[Solver]

Interesting to see some of the commentary here.

I don't think people realise how niche even one of the most popular 4x games franchise are. 70-odd million compared to the next biggest franchise, Borderlands, at 90-something. This will probably be counting lifetime sales, and ownership of Firaxis goes back to them helping with IV. So that's IV through VII not even outperforming a newer looter-shooter franchise (which has less entries, and only really hit its stride with BL2).

Civ is in a funny place of being a behemoth in a niche genre. The 70-something million sales doesn't compare to the sports games, RDR or Borderlands, but is well ahead of for instance Bioshock, an FPS franchise with some of the best reception in the genre's history.

Meanwhile other 4X games, or adjacent genres, are far smaller. Paradox is probably the next most successful strategy studio (even if they don't really do 4X) but Europa Universalis 4, one of their major successes, took around three years to sell a million copies, a milestone that Civ6 hit in the first two weeks after release. There's a huge gap between 4X and other more popular genres, but within the 4X genre the gap is at least as big between Civ and other games.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Siptah, thank you very much for the reply. So it seems, that there is no direct source for it, only estimations. In each case the GOG versions of Civ 4 Complete and Civ 3 Complete should not be forgotten when writing about sales of the current Civ series (Civ 2, Civ 2 ToT and the different versions of Civ 1 at least are not sold by GOG or steam). The great new C3X mod for C3C was created on the base of the GOG version of Civ 3 Complete.

Especially Civ 3 Complete in combination with the C3X mod offers possibilities of changed civs (in a way that in a Firaxis post was described as "clustered"), changed leaders during a game and even with different titles of the different leaders during the game, that many civers were posting that they would wish this for Civ 7 (all of these options are optional in the C3X mod).

We don't have no direct source on anything, the whole this thread is a wild speculation, based on indirect data.

 

[AD1730]

We don't have no direct source on anything, the whole this thread is a wild speculation, based on indirect data.

Ok, well then it's perfectly fair to point out that this is speculation too, based on your definition.

I don't think old games could have a significant share here, they have dramatic fall in the number of players after Civ7 release. I'd say that's one more indirect confirmation that non-steam Civ7 sales were actually good.

 

[queenpea]

Meanwhile the reviews have once again ticked towards the negative. Player counts for Tuesday and Wednesday were below 9k on Steam.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Ok, well then it's perfectly fair to point out that this is speculation too, based on your definition.

Yes, sure. That's why I've started sentences with "I don't think" and "I'd say".

 

[Siptah]

Civ is in a funny place of being a behemoth in a niche genre. The 70-something million sales doesn't compare to the sports games, RDR or Borderlands, but is well ahead of for instance Bioshock, an FPS franchise with some of the best reception in the genre's history.

Meanwhile other 4X games, or adjacent genres, are far smaller. Paradox is probably the next most successful strategy studio (even if they don't really do 4X) but Europa Universalis 4, one of their major successes, took around three years to sell a million copies, a milestone that Civ6 hit in the first two weeks after release. There's a huge gap between 4X and other more popular genres, but within the 4X genre the gap is at least as big between Civ and other games.

Only loosely related but:

civ in at least the past two entries leaned much more into widening its audience and got less „hardcore“ with a lot of success. Paradox did similar with CK3 and Victoria 3 - not dumbed down, but in a way much easier to play games compared their predecessor. EU5 seems to be the opposite: more hardcore, more details, more mechanics, slower gameplay. I‘m curious how this will go re: long term player numbers.