Player stats, sales, and reception discussion

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Maybe your study is about a different target group? E.g., people who don't have any hobbies besides gaming (and no children or offline friends)?

Vampires who don't need to sleep? Retired or unemployed people who don't need to work? People on extreme diets who don't need to eat? Astronauts stranded on the ISS waiting for a rescue vehicle?

Seems to me there's a limited number of people who could carve out an average of 4.5 hours per day for video games, let alone the average gamer doing that.

 

[aelf]

There's probably a strong statistical correlation between people who rage about a video game and people who need to touch grass, though.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Maybe it's just me, our I dont pick you up correctly but a lot of the time I just think you make things up.

Who says people rarely play more than 60 mins ! , the last survey I checked stated that gamers play 28+ hours a week

I mean average time in particular game from total number of owners, sorry for incorrect wording. If we have to guess number of owners from number of simultaneous players, we need to use this metric.

It could be roughly calculated from GameSpy by multiplying number of average hours per last 2 weeks with percentage of active players and dividing by 14 (since the data is for 2 weeks). You'll see that clearly some games have more than 2 hours among active players, but among all players even the most trending games struggle way below 1 hour.

(Well, except for Fish Idle, but I believe for some reason it encourages people to leave this game running, because its numbers are totally ridiculous).

Once again, sorry, I sometimes wrote from my phone, so not enough details

People who take the time to respond to opinion polls also aren't random selection, they're self-selecting for people who care enough to answer. Much like the game reviews on Steam.

Both of this are not something new. People who run opinion polls know how to handle those differences. And people who analyze product reviews know how to handle them (and it's not by ignoring the sample being not representative).

First of all, wish for participating in opinion review itself doesn't show any bias yet. So, the fluctuation from random sample is really small and is mostly covered by increasing the audience, as long as the question are right (that's another big area of expertise). Wish for leaving review, on the other hand does include strong bias.

In the end it all falls to the point of how to use metric. If those reviews are meant to claim that Civ7 initial reception is worse than Civ6, they provide more than enough proof, even considering biased sample and other platforms. If we try to use those metrics for some very indirect things, like predicting number of DLC buyers, it falls apart. And bias is not the strongest reason why.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

Depends how many gaps you want to fill. Aztecs are an obvious one to fill in the Central America region. You need 2 civs to fill in South America (probably an indigenous civ in ancient era, and maybe Brazil for modern). You need 2 civs to fill around Indonesia. etc...

I think to really feel like there aren't too many gaps, you need enough civs so that at least in any region of the map, you're not jumping crazy distances to fit the next "regional" civ, other than some niche cases like Mississippi-Hawaii-America (although you can go Shawnee to keep the closer regional ties). To me we're not even close to "complete" until we fill in those big gaps, and that adds up when you think of all the regions.

I’d like to see something to represent Great Zimbabwe or at least the Swahili coast given its great importance trade wise. Connecting Europe, East Africa, and SE Asia/India in antiquity is no small feat.

 

[Gorbles]

Shoulda just ******* let players create a civ.

Nothing's stopping you!

Either a civ. in the game, or a game itself. People have already done the former in VII. Plenty of resources out there for anyone with the design chops for the latter. Said designer would probably need a team though, or it'd (imo) be a very (very) long indie affair.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

I think pumping out new Civs, probably with some free ones, would be a very good course of action. They'd fill more gaps and make the game look more robust very quickly.

Because on the other hand if they add very little Civs and charge a lot, people will be upset because the game isn't really robust by itself

Yes I’ve heard from people who do enjoy the game that even they aren’t playing due to lack of replayability from limited civ choices

 

[Askia Muhammad]

Vampires who don't need to sleep? Retired or unemployed people who don't need to work? People on extreme diets who don't need to eat? Astronauts stranded on the ISS waiting for a rescue vehicle?

Seems to me there's a limited number of people who could carve out an average of 4.5 hours per day for video games, let alone the average gamer doing that.

I have a child, girlfriend, full time job, and a part time job as a personal trainer (my other hobby is 5 weekly workouts) and I can easily play 4.5 hours a day.. not that hard to do especially if you are in good health (I’m 32)

 

[Shirotora Kenshin]

I can easily play 4.5 hours a day.. not that hard to do especially if you are in good health (I’m 32)

When clicking on your profile name, it seems that you are 34… you sure you don’t pretend you’re younger than you really are?

But 4.5 hours a day for playing video games… seems you are a genius in managing your spare time!

 

[GeneralZift]

I have a child, girlfriend, full time job, and a part time job as a personal trainer (my other hobby is 5 weekly workouts) and I can easily play 4.5 hours a day.. not that hard to do especially if you are in good health (I’m 32)

Respect but I have no idea how you fit 4.5 hours in every day, that sounds pretty crazy. With that schedule I'd be lucky to get like 5 hours a week

 

[Solver]

If I was a developer/publisher I would want a number scale, as I believe it would generally raise the baseline score games get on Steam. But, as a consumer I much prefer the system as is. It is much closer to objectivity, because whoever gave the score was basing it off of a defined anchor: whether to recommend the game or not. That determination flows from many different subjective evaluations, but the end result is anchored to a definition.

When we get into review scales, it's very hard to determine what someone means by a "7/10". Heck, IGN doesn't even agree with itself on what a "7" means. Sometimes it means the game is average. Other times it means the game was good, but had values/viewpoints IGN disagrees with. Other times the game is bad, but the publisher's check cleared.

As a developer, the binary scale is better. Then the overall score of the game is the proportion of positive reviews.

With the "good/bad" choice that Steam offers, not every player review is individually a useful source of feedback but overall they are, and almost everyone gets to contribute something meaningful to the score. With a number scale, that's asking players to spend more time on their rating and not everyone is willing to. Then among those who are willing to spend more time, the personal scales are still very different, as you point out. Just statistically, a 5/10 should mean the game is average but people tend to view that as a bad score. Some players will rate any game they enjoy a 9/10, others reserve such scores for all-time favorites. Then there's the issue of 1-star reviews being common, with people very easily rating things they dislike a 1.

Even twenty years ago, research showed the same pattern in online reviews as is visible now, namely, online review ratings are often J-shaped in their distribution. Most scores are at the extreme ends of the scale with not so much in the middle.

 

[UWHabs]

I mean average time in particular game from total number of owners, sorry for incorrect wording. If we have to guess number of owners from number of simultaneous players, we need to use this metric.

It could be roughly calculated from GameSpy by multiplying number of average hours per last 2 weeks with percentage of active players and dividing by 14 (since the data is for 2 weeks). You'll see that clearly some games have more than 2 hours among active players, but among all players even the most trending games struggle way below 1 hour.

(Well, except for Fish Idle, but I believe for some reason it encourages people to leave this game running, because its numbers are totally ridiculous).

Once again, sorry, I sometimes wrote from my phone, so not enough details


Both of this are not something new. People who run opinion polls know how to handle those differences. And people who analyze product reviews know how to handle them (and it's not by ignoring the sample being not representative).

First of all, wish for participating in opinion review itself doesn't show any bias yet. So, the fluctuation from random sample is really small and is mostly covered by increasing the audience, as long as the question are right (that's another big area of expertise). Wish for leaving review, on the other hand does include strong bias.

In the end it all falls to the point of how to use metric. If those reviews are meant to claim that Civ7 initial reception is worse than Civ6, they provide more than enough proof, even considering biased sample and other platforms. If we try to use those metrics for some very indirect things, like predicting number of DLC buyers, it falls apart. And bias is not the strongest reason why.

The difference is that most opinion polls are trying to sample the overall population to reach their conclusions. So they can easily correct for some known biases - if their sample is 75% male and 25% female, you can re-weight those replies to more or less figure out what an actual "average" person believes.
Even if you did a full survey of civ reviews, in the end you're not actually really trying to discover what the average person thinks. You're generally more trying to understand what the average Civ user/civ fan/potential customer thinks, which is a much more unknown variable.
But yeah, anything with a purely opt-in metric is also going to be way more skewed, because people with more extreme views are more likely to spend the effort to rate something than someone in the middle.

As a developer, the binary scale is better. Then the overall score of the game is the proportion of positive reviews.

With the "good/bad" choice that Steam offers, not every player review is individually a useful source of feedback but overall they are, and almost everyone gets to contribute something meaningful to the score. With a number scale, that's asking players to spend more time on their rating and not everyone is willing to. Then among those who are willing to spend more time, the personal scales are still very different, as you point out. Just statistically, a 5/10 should mean the game is average but people tend to view that as a bad score. Some players will rate any game they enjoy a 9/10, others reserve such scores for all-time favorites. Then there's the issue of 1-star reviews being common, with people very easily rating things they dislike a 1.

Even twenty years ago, research showed the same pattern in online reviews as is visible now, namely, online review ratings are often J-shaped in their distribution. Most scores are at the extreme ends of the scale with not so much in the middle.

Yeah, I mean there's good and bad to whatever method you use. But even if you tell people exactly what each rating/scale means, people won't follow it. There's always some cases which are hard - like on a purely thumbs up/thumbs down scale, would I necessarily recommend civ 7 to people? In its current state, probably not, but I know it's like a patch or two away, and I expect that it will get better in time.
But yeah, in the grand scheme, when you have enough users giving reviews, simple approval makes a lot more sense, mostly as you said, the way everyone's rating scale is vastly different. Some people would give 7/10 as long as the game doesn't brick their laptop, whereas someone else probably would give their favorite game all-time an 8.

 

[GeneralZift]

Number scales are bad, because people inherently misunderstand them. They think 5/10 means garbage when it should mean average. Therefore, the real average is more like 7/10, which doesn't look that bad.

Humans are prone to exaggeration too, so the game could be good but not amazing and ranked a 9 or 10. It could be bad but not irredeemable and ranked 3 or 4.

Generally speaking, people skip most of the numbers anyway or don't give it too much thought, and it leads to inaccurate results.

The Recommend / Do Not Recommend allows for more nuance in the actual description. You might think the game is great but for 1 or 2 very important reasons you have to hit DNR.

 

[KayAU]

Yeah, I also much prefer the binary thumbs up/thumbs down system. It has the drawback of lacking nuance. A game which I consider a 6/10, and one I consider a 10/10 both just get a thumbs up. Hypothetically, this runs the risk of some exceptional games not rising above more mediocre ones, or even doing worse if the former is more divisive. I don't think it's an problem in practice though. Regardless of the quality of the game, it seems you will always get some people voting one way or the other, and you end up with a meaningful score average. Even an exceptional game like Baldur's Gate 3, which received universal acclaim, had 4% (almost 27k people) giving it a thumbs down. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a game like Godus, which was pretty darn bad, still getting 24% positive reviews.

I think that with a number scale, you are implying a degree of accuracy which is just not there. People apply it differently, and read it differently. It's hard to be consistent. I could give a game a 7 out of 10, and it would mean I really like it. But I know some will read a 7 as a mediocre score, so perhaps I need to give it a 9 instead? With the binary system, I would just simply it a thumbs up, and if I had more to say, I would put it in the review text.

 

[Kev1916]

Number scales are bad, because people inherently misunderstand them. They think 5/10 means garbage when it should mean average. Therefore, the real average is more like 7/10, which doesn't look that bad.

I would disagree , perhaps your understanding is different ? to most, or perhaps it's an age thing with me or perhaps were you live.?
5/10 would always be a bad score , review , rating

Back in the day for say exams 50% or less was a fail ! ie Bad ..
- there fore in a scoring system 5/10 is certainly not average

An average pass mark was 60% - 69 %

A decent score pass would be 70+ % .

For me , unless the score was 7/10 or above I would unless ofc done my own checking would be a tad wary to buy

 

[AD1730]

If you’ve ever been in a meeting with investors, you’d know that admitting to any failure and/or suggesting things are negative are big no nos.

Investor meetings are all about spinning numbers and narratives. The silence here suggests it must really not be doing great for there to be nothing to spin.

For example, even if a game doesn’t sell well, companies will typically highlight high retention or excessive spending from “whales”. In the case of Civ 7, where it appears retention is probably its largest single biggest weakness, I would have expected them to highlight initial sales and ignore the reception. The fact we’ve heard neither to me is not a good sign.

Came across this quote from the Take-Two CEO in a PC Gamer article:

"I'm not a gamer," Zelnick continues. "I don't play videogames at all, I'm not the Consumer-in-Chief. I share my opinions pretty openly, but I think being the Consumer-in-Chief in the entertainment business as a CEO is probably a mistake."

I don't understand why we tolerate this in the gaming industry. Imagine the CEO of Microsoft saying that he doesn't use computers, or the CEO of Ford saying he never drives cars. It's nonsensical for just about any other industry to have leadership that is unfamiliar with and doesn't use the product they make. Yet, in gaming it's seen almost as a sort of badge of honor.

How can you possibly understand your consumers at all if you do not use your product? This is particularly true of games, which are interactive and create far more emotional connection than most products.

When the inevitable anti-consumer DLC policy rolls out, I'll keep this quote at the front of my mind.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I would disagree , perhaps your understanding is different ? to most, or perhaps it's an age thing with me or perhaps were you live.?
5/10 would always be a bad score , review , rating

Back in the day for say exams 50% or less was a fail ! ie Bad ..
- there fore in a scoring system 5/10 is certainly not average

An average pass mark was 60% - 69 %

A decent score pass would be 70+ % .

For me , unless the score was 7/10 or above I would unless ofc done my own checking would be a tad wary to buy

Not all evaluation system applies the same grid. Think about movies which are reviewed by attributing stars, 3 stars out of 5 wouldn't make a bad movie.

Obviously, your exam system grades based on the percentage of taught knowledge that has been retained. In France, it's done differently: exams often go beyond what's been taught to assess not just how much you got right, but how far beyond the basics you went. Therefore 10/20 is the average mark, 15/20 is a good mark and 20/20 is absolute perfection. To get a 20/20 for an essay in philosophy at the final exam in high school, you basically need to be Immanuel Kant. Well at least that's how it was when I was a kid but apparently they are less strict now.

As a side note, companies are now all asking their customers for a review, and apparently the grid is US made, considering 8/10 an average service. Obviously French people don't interpret it this way, basing themselves on how it was at school for them, so the dudes are all begging for a 9 or a 10 that we would simply never give unless the car dealer would afford us a car for free!

 

[queenpea]

It feels like we are hitting a bit of a floor for player counts on steam. This weekend's numbers did not drop off as much as previous weekends have, weekend over weekend. Peaks this weekend were: Saturday at 11,112 and Sunday at 11,829. Last weekend, for example, we had 12,306 on Saturday and 12,001 on Sunday.

 

[Gorbles]

I don't understand why we tolerate this in the gaming industry. Imagine the CEO of Microsoft saying that he doesn't use computers, or the CEO of Ford saying he never drives cars. It's nonsensical for just about any other industry to have leadership that is unfamiliar with and doesn't use the product they make. Yet, in gaming it's seen almost as a sort of badge of honor.

Cars and computers are pretty ubiquitous. Video games are not.

Imagine saying that the CEO of an educational software company needs to use educational software (despite not being in education).

His job is to manage the company. Sometimes this involves being familiar with the product, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes this is an advantage, sometimes it isn't. Disconnects can absolutely happen between the c-suite and the rest of the company. But to say that just because one guy doesn't play video games that this is a complete and absolute negative . . . it's kinda ridiculous, really.

His job is to enable the company to succeed. The products they offer could be terrible and it wouldn't matter so long as the company was doing well. The same goes for the product being good and the company not doing well.

What would playing video games help, in this specific scenario, do you think? Do you think Take-Two were unaware of the state of VII on release? Do you not think it was their decision to make the launch happen when it did?

 

[Core Imposter]

Came across this quote from the Take-Two CEO in a PC Gamer article:

"I'm not a gamer," Zelnick continues. "I don't play videogames at all, I'm not the Consumer-in-Chief. I share my opinions pretty openly, but I think being the Consumer-in-Chief in the entertainment business as a CEO is probably a mistake."

I don't understand why we tolerate this in the gaming industry. Imagine the CEO of Microsoft saying that he doesn't use computers, or the CEO of Ford saying he never drives cars. It's nonsensical for just about any other industry to have leadership that is unfamiliar with and doesn't use the product they make. Yet, in gaming it's seen almost as a sort of badge of honor.

How can you possibly understand your consumers at all if you do not use your product? This is particularly true of games, which are interactive and create far more emotional connection than most products.

When the inevitable anti-consumer DLC policy rolls out, I'll keep this quote at the front of my mind.

In his circles, we are seen as sheep to be shorn. I have been saying for years-they do not want to make great games. They want to make games we will buy and then get bored with so that they can sell more.

This is why they got off the Civ IV track. It was dangerously good. More than a few people got off the train rather than accept lesser product.

When a dope dealer gets ridiculously high-grade stuff what do they do? They cut it. They are the dealers, and we are the addicts. And we do what addicts do, we chase the dragon.

The CEO is simply saying that he doesn't use his own dope.

If we are ever to see a great 4X game again it will come from an indie studio. From someone who wants to make a great game so that he or she can play it. A fellow addict.

Smoke'em when you got'em.

 

[AD1730]

In his circles, we are seen as sheep to be shorn. I have been saying for years-they do not want to make great games. They want to make games we will buy and then get bored with so that they can sell more.

This is why they got off the Civ IV track. It was dangerously good. More than a few people got off the train rather than accept lesser product.

When a dope dealer gets ridiculously high-grade stuff what do they do? They cut it. They are the dealers, and we are the addicts. And we do what addicts do, we chase the dragon.

The CEO is simply saying that he doesn't use his own dope.

If we are ever to see a great 4X game again it will come from an indie studio. From someone who wants to make a great game so that he or she can play it. A fellow addict.

Smoke'em when you got'em.

Imagine the CEO of Warner Brothers saying that they don't watch movies or TV. Or how about a basketball team exec saying they've never been into basketball. That just wouldn't happen. The way gaming execs act is unique even for the entertainment industry. There is a level of contempt for the gaming consumer that is far beyond what we see in other areas in the entertainment industry.