Player stats, sales, and reception discussion

[itix]

Speaking of the VR version, I think the trailer looks amazing but when I read reviews, the execution does not get there. Civilization VII VR is now #40 in meta shop with 235 reviews. The main issue with the launch appears to be poor performance. It was fixed, but now they are experiencing crashes. No doubt they fix it but it seems the momentum is lost.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Speaking of the VR version, I think the trailer looks amazing but when I read reviews, the execution does not get there. Civilization VII VR is now #40 in meta shop with 235 reviews. The main issue with the launch appears to be poor performance. It was fixed, but now they are experiencing crashes. No doubt they fix it but it seems the momentum is lost.

Graphics in trailer was pretty awful. Models are extremely low-poly and legless leaders clearly don't help. On top of this, player was able to see only small part of the map at the same time. So, it clearly didn't look great to me.

 

[bitula]

There us some correlation between number of reviews and number of purchases, but there's no indication it's really strong. In data analytics it's called proxy metric and before using it, the correlation need to be proven strong.

Also, the drop in number of reviews also doesn't show anything extraordinary. For any game the majority of reviews come shortly after release and afterwards they drop. Actually, I believe the current 2K reviews per month is about the same rate from the end of February.

The number of customers writing game reviews is more or lest constant, so the only thing that matters: the number of purchased games. Not sure what else should correlate here. Then, the number of new reviews is extremly low. Compare it to BG3. It has minimum 10 times more reviews eg.: today (apr. 21) than Civ 7. Really, I am not exaggerating, check it yourself. And it is a comperatively old game with no patches or DLC since long. It feels like Civ 7 is doomed... Doesn't it? I undertand there will be a bigger patch soon, so lets see, but reading into the patchnotes I see nothing significant which could make a big difference. Nothing there to repair disjunct mini-games and pseudo civ mix.

 

[Kyriakos]

Imo the company should now examine if there is a possibility to do what is regarded as unthinkable, and actually (gradually or not) cancel the very unpopular changes. Starting, of course, with changing civilizations.
I don't think that they will. But it's what might save the game.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

How about Minecraft on Switch then? Release date 21 June 2018. #14 in PC and Video Games and #1 in Switch. 3k+ sold in the past month.

There's a Minecraft movie in theatres right now that may be giving a boost to Minecraft sales.

Took the family to it on the holiday yesterday, mostly for my 12-year old and his friend who are huge Minecraft fans. The movie was ... an experience, let's say. Anyway we all had fun, of one sort or another, and my son and his friend immediately fired up Minecraft on their computers when we got home.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

There's a Minecraft movie in theatres right now that may be giving a boost to Minecraft sales.

Took the family to it on the holiday yesterday, mostly for my 12-year old and his friend who are huge Minecraft fans. The movie was ... an experience, let's say. Anyway we all had fun, of one sort or another, and my son and his friend immediately fired up Minecraft on their computers when we got home.

We know what Firaxis need to do next then!

 

[Kyriakos]

The problem with a Civ movie is that the first turn lasts for decades.

 

[Leucarum]

Imo the company should now examine if there is a possibility to do what is regarded as unthinkable, and actually (gradually or not) cancel the very unpopular changes. Starting, of course, with changing civilizations.
I don't think that they will. But it's what might save the game.

I suspect they know they need to do something drastic. But given other civ games changed heftily after launch I think that's possible for Firaxis to stomach.

 

[Dreadnought]

Extremely troubling that the game still hasn't seemed to find a floor in player counts. Does not bode well for future DLC sales.

 

[AD1730]

I suspect they know they need to do something drastic. But given other civ games changed heftily after launch I think that's possible for Firaxis to stomach.

I think it would be fair to say that such a change would be the most drastic post-release change they've ever done. I'm trying to recall a change industry-wide that would match it and I can't come up with one.

 

[VGT]

Extremely troubling that the game still hasn't seemed to find a floor in player counts. Does not bode well for future DLC sales.

DLC releases are usually spikes on any game playercount, because while they are most likely mostly bought by active players, one of other things they do is bring back players that are no longer playing, so someone not playing might still buy DLC to add a breath of fresh air to it. This would be optimist in me.
Pessimist side of me will be interested in how it will work for civ7, because in my case being its "hater" one of the reasons I'm in that bucket is over the top DLC pricing for minimum effort content.

 

[Leucarum]

I think it would be fair to say that such a change would be the most drastic post-release change they've ever done. I'm trying to recall a change industry-wide that would match it and I can't come up with one.

No Man's Sky?

But also I don't expect them to undo everything. Allowing civs from previous eras to stick around (albeit maybe without all their uniques) and adjusting how much gets carried over between ages (or more likely having a range of settings to let more stuff carry over) would be smaller steps that I suspect they could market as letting people play a "classic" civ game that wouldn't be hyper-drastic.

 

[sonicmyst]

Those things seem contradictory to me. If less people celebrate it, then less people have local traditions giving them other things to do. Feels like you are fitting the theory to match the data.

Fact is, most countries have additional time off for Easter, and evidence so far is that it's not being used to play Civ VII, but at a similar point in Civ VIs release cycle that additional time off at Christmas was used to play Civ VI.

We'll have to wait and see if numbers pick up after the patch instead.

If ever, I think we have to account also which country sold civ 7 the most. (Is it China? Then so, let us watch out for a major holiday there and see if there is an uptick in player count). We also have to account for weeks when civ7 is sold at no discount vs older civ games with heavy discount. I believe it will skew the comparative graph more. And it might tell us that the biggest contributor to the graphs are available time to play e.g. holidays and price point.

 

[AD1730]

No Man's Sky?

But also I don't expect them to undo everything. Allowing civs from previous eras to stick around (albeit maybe without all their uniques) and adjusting how much gets carried over between ages (or more likely having a range of settings to let more stuff carry over) would be smaller steps that I suspect they could market as letting people play a "classic" civ game that wouldn't be hyper-drastic.

I think there's a significant difference between adding to your release so it conforms to what you promised and removing the mechanical changes you highlighted the most in your reveal.

 

[VGT]

removing the mechanical changes you highlighted the most in your reveal

When it comes to admitting that something doesn't gel and needs to be removed, Stellaris comes to my mind. They removed 3 types of travel, changed how planet's population is managed and in two weeks will release another change to it. But still - it's probably nowhere near being comparable. For example - there wasn't considerable pushback for those features. Even opposite, players a bit complained about them being removed, but game designers decided it's needed for making game future-proof.

 

[AD1730]

When it comes to admitting that something doesn't gel and needs to be removed, Stellaris comes to my mind. They removed 3 types of travel, changed how planet's population is managed and in two weeks will release another change to it. But still - it's probably nowhere near being comparable. For example - there wasn't considerable pushback for those features. Even opposite, players a bit complained about them being removed, but game designers decided it's needed for making game future-proof.

Yeah, that's the other one I was thinking of, and I agree that it doesn't approach how drastic the proposed change here would be.

 

[Zaarin]

They removed 3 types of travel

I was disappointed by that. I'm not a big Stellaris or PDX player, but I thought the three modes of travel was an interesting and unique feature. My understanding is the AI struggled with it, though.

 

[Leucarum]

I think there's a significant difference between adding to your release so it conforms to what you promised and removing the mechanical changes you highlighted the most in your reveal.

Honestly, if you want to find a difference with any comparison, you'll be able to find one. It's a bit of a ship of theseus - no two cases could be exactly alike. But there's plenty of games which were able to turn the tide, I hope Civ7 becomes one of them used to nitpick at future comparisons.

 

[AD1730]

Honestly, if you want to find a difference with any comparison, you'll be able to find one. It's a bit of a ship of theseus - no two cases could be exactly alike. But there's plenty of games which were able to turn the tide, I hope Civ7 becomes one of them used to nitpick at future comparisons.

I don't think I'm nitpicking when I'm pointing out a significant difference between adding to a game to fulfill what it was advertised to be and removing features because they were poorly received. That's a pretty big difference.

 

[aelf]

Honestly, if you want to find a difference with any comparison, you'll be able to find one. It's a bit of a ship of theseus - no two cases could be exactly alike. But there's plenty of games which were able to turn the tide, I hope Civ7 becomes one of them used to nitpick at future comparisons.

And the funny thing is you were talking about letting civs from previous eras stick around. That's not removing features or mechanical changes, since that's adding an option without taking away civ switching.

But people will always find a negative spin if they're determined.