Player stats, sales, and reception discussion

[trev1972]

Maybe something like “as little as they think they can get away with” effort is more fair. Probably there was still a good amount of effort, but it seems clear they have a priority to keep it as little as they thought people would tolerate. Even then they did less than people tolerated.

In all fairness to the developers, i watched the initial videos too and i didnt detect a lack of passion.

I do think they under-estimated how many people want a huge, open world and under-estimated how many would be put off by a smaller world that feels more linear in terms of gameplay (a common comment in reviews is that the game feels linear/on rails). The impression i got is they went all out for quick and balanced multiplayer games, accessibility and features for min/max strategy players.

I think they under-estimated how many want to play a civ from start to finish, and how divisive ages and the accompanying reset would be. My guess is they felt people would come round quickly as with hexes.

I think the poor UI came from trying to release simultaneously on consoles and PC.

As for predatory DLC - it worked with civ 6, i would guess that they felt that going a bit further in that regard would not get too much backlash, and in all honesty if i loved everything about the game i wouldn't care about the DLC cost.

 

[MutilationWave]

Most of the top posts in the civ subreddit have single digit upvotes and replies at the moment, with a few in the double digits and a much smaller percentage with three. Compare other AAA games that released around the same time as civ7 (or even older like BG3) and they have mostly triple to quadruple digit upvotes and double digit replies. Civ7 doesn’t really seem to ever get mentioned on the main gaming subs either. If there’s a large thriving civ7 community somewhere, it doesn’t seem to be Reddit, even if you count the main civ sub as a dedicated civ7 one (which it isn’t, there’s posts about older iterations mixed in).

EDIT: out of curiosity I checked the Steam forum for civ7 to see if it was popular there, since I never use that. It looks to have about the same level of discussion as Reddit, but is overwhelmingly negative and as far as I can see it’s very nearly entirely posts complaining about the game on the home page at least right now.

Seems like maybe CFC is the most active civ community out there? Which is pretty cool. I’m not a huge fan of Reddit either.

Yeah Reddit sucks. They're all about $$$ and it's gotten worse every year. I'll shut up about it soon but Lemmy is a great alternative with 53k active users. Old school internet vibe, mature discussions, no algorithm or personal information gathering. Main negative is the lack of niche communities. Nobody is talking civ 7 on there for sure.

 

[civlateintothenights]

Indeed. But seeing Ed and some of the others talk about civ 7 early on didn't suggest a lack of passion to me.

I found their dev interviews always felt very top-down from Ed's perspective - didn't sense the joy and passion like with say a game like Clair Obscure where the passion just oozes out of the devs and the game itself.

Seemed like a lot of yes-men and younger devs that probably weren't even old enough to play pre-Civ 4 games in the Firaxis videos.

 

[queenpea]

Interesting to see how the pending EU5 announcement will affect attitudes towards Civ VII. Obviously it’s not a fair comparison (4x versus grand strategy), but there is sure to be considerable player crossover.

I personally love EU4.

 

[Dreadnought]

I am completely biased as a fan of EU4 and paradox games in general, but based on what they have already talked about, EU5 will blow Civ7 out of the water in terms of historical immersion and roleplaying.

Not that everyone is looking for that kind of thing, of course.

 

[sonicmyst]

In latest news, GTA6 has been delayed to May 2026. What does this mean for the future of Civ? I guess more development as well and more pressure to make money?

 

[GeneralZift]

In latest news, GTA6 has been delayed to May 2026. What does this mean for the future of Civ? I guess more development as well and more pressure to make money?

Their stocks dropped 6% today so it seems like the pressure is on for all their franchises

 

[queenpea]

Steam reviews have ticked negative again :/

 

[stealth_nsk]

Steam reviews have ticked negative again :/

They are within statistical error. For example, for the last day I see 12 positive and 10 negative. It doesn't actually shows the reviews become positive, just the amount of fluctuations.

 

[protocol7]

Steam reviews have ticked negative again :/

And trending worse nearly every day in the last few days for some reason, though it also looks like nearly every day gets more bad reviews than good:

 

[luca 83]

I advise firaxis to stop proposing leaders and focus on game mechanics and stopping civilizations. Random

 

[misesfan]

As for predatory DLC - it worked with civ 6, i would guess that they felt that going a bit further in that regard would not get too much backlash, and in all honesty if i loved everything about the game i wouldn't care about the DLC cost.

If a company puts out a quality, polished, finished product, the money will flow in like rain water. Look at Clair Obscur - that game is going to make revenue that will dwarf anything Firaxis makes on their unpolished, unfinished Civ game. The phrase, "If only..." applies - if only they had some sort of mechanism for actual fan feedback instead of relying bogus influencer approval. If only they had some sort of beta test/QA time to polish their game.

If only Firaxis had put out a polished, finished game then we wouldnt be discussing the death of this franchise.

 

[_hero_]

I am completely biased as a fan of EU4 and paradox games in general, but based on what they have already talked about, EU5 will blow Civ7 out of the water in terms of historical immersion and roleplaying.

Not that everyone is looking for that kind of thing, of course.

Paradox seems to already be ahead of Firaxis in the strategy market for PC gamers overall.

 

[protocol7]

Is there any recent positive data showing that the game is commercially or critically successful, on any platform? Would be interesting to see if anyone knows of any, to balance things out.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Is there any recent positive data showing that the game is commercially or critically successful, on any platform? Would be interesting to see if anyone knows of any, to balance things out.

There weren't any positive or negative news since the release.

 

[Siptah]

In a few weeks, we‘ll receive TTs financial report though. That may or may not be enlightening regarding sales.

 

[AD1730]

There weren't any positive or negative news since the release.

This is just simply false, sorry. We have player review data and player counts. We have the fact that Firaxis hasn't "spiked the football" by releasing any sales numbers. Firaxis has all but admitted that Civ 7's UI was in need of major rework. We have streamers/influencers stopping coverage or lessening it.

You can disagree with the characterization of the news, but to state that there is a complete lack of it just is not credible.

 

[Gorbles]

This is just simply false, sorry. We have player review data and player counts. We have the fact that Firaxis hasn't "spiked the football" by releasing any sales numbers. Firaxis has all but admitted that Civ 7's UI was in need of major rework. We have streamers/influencers stopping coverage or lessening it.

You can disagree with the characterization of the news, but to state that there is a complete lack of it just is not credible.

Data is not news. People tracking that data isn't even news.

Something like a quarterly report would be news.

I don't think anyone is unaware of the data you're pointing out, either.

 

[protocol7]

I think all the negative news and data is pretty obvious and speaks for itself, the question is more about is there any positive data anyone has seen anywhere recently?

 

[stealth_nsk]

This is just simply false, sorry. We have player review data and player counts. We have the fact that Firaxis hasn't "spiked the football" by releasing any sales numbers. Firaxis has all but admitted that Civ 7's UI was in need of major rework. We have streamers/influencers stopping coverage or lessening it.

You can disagree with the characterization of the news, but to state that there is a complete lack of it just is not credible.

Player reviews are roughly the same as on release. Player count follows normal trend, the fall in number of players follows the same proportions as previous games (except they had spikes during early sales, while Civ7 didn't have any sales yet). Nothing here is any news at all.

Firaxis admitting UI problems (which were clear on release) are hardly bad news. Look more like positive ones to me.