Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[King of Prussia]

Civ 8, even if they started working on it Monday, wouldn't be out until around 2030. Full production wouldn't even kick in for a few years unless they are heavily reusing 6 or 7s engine. What are you going to do with all their staff? Fire them until full production starts? Do you keep them around working on 7, making it a better game? Do you start on some spin off game? That too will take several years to make. Downsizing after a release of a game is fairly normal, unless those employees are retasked. Dumping 7 and starting to work on 8 would be a big PR disaster.

Depending on the lessons and direction they want to go, their is no guarantee that the people who dislike 7(or 5 and 6) will like 8.

 

[Civinator]

I still think that Civ 7 can be rescued - and that this is the best solution for Firaxis. They must set the "switching of civs" properly (the territory of a civ defined by the present situation and than former historical situations on that territory, and here avoiding settings when another civ that is participating in the game is dominating that territory, so in the game it is one civ in its different stats).

And they should kill those immortal leaders, that in combination with the current free civ-switching provides a toxic feeling to many civers who are interested in history, may be by adding the needed historical leaders of a civ in each era as an interim solution with cheaper 2 D graphics, as it is done in some prominent Civ 3 and Civ 4 mods without any problems.

 

[Gorbles]

But I'm not minimizing those who enjoy the game. No where did I imply that no one likes the game

You literally said "almost no-one". Which brings us onto:

Reality is though, a few thousand is almost no one when we're talking about a series that sells multiple millions

You're confusing concurrent with total players. This makes the number of players look smaller than it is.

8k players at any given time is not 8k players overall. It's actually significantly more than that. Now, you can still argue it's still a low number or whatever. You can say that the number is declining. That's all fair.

But it's not "almost no-one". And I was taking 8k as a lower boundary for the current concurrent figure, too.

 

[user746383]

At least in the US and UK (maybe more places but those I know) almost no one can mean the same thing as very few. It was around 4k players last I looked, and the other games with the same number of players at the same time around then are games I would definitely say very few people play (or almost no one plays, either way). Its a kind of hyperbole, basically.

But it’s all relative, if you compare it to something or some other game 2000 people on Earth are doing at a given moment, it’s way more popular. I couldn’t even guess what only 2000 people on the planet might be doing at a given moment, but whatever it is, I’d very comfortably say almost nobody is doing it, or even just “nobody is doing it” (even though I know there’s some small amount of people doing it).

Hopefully that clears it up and we can focus on the intention (that it’s a low number) rather than the word choice and how it might be used differently/if they have hyperbole wherever you are.

 

[Gorbles]

At least in the US almost no one can mean the same thing as very few. It was around 4k players last I looked, and the other games with the same number of players at the same time around then are games I would definitely say very few people play (or almost no one plays, either way). Its a kind of hyperbole, basically.

6.5k on Steam, right now, Sunday morning across Europe, the US is still asleep. Or should be

Hard / impossible to estimate session length, but multiplying that by 5 or even 10 times isn't out of the question for the number of unique players in a 24 hour span.

But yes, it's a kind of hyperbole, which is exactly my point. Which is exactly why my original reply to the poster was "minimising criticism is bad". We have, as they say, come full-circle

 

[user746383]

I guess, 6.5k still “almost no one” numbers im my opinion. I don’t see the point in arguing over whether some tiny number is technically almost no one, when there’s no way to define almost no one as some specific number. If you can convince them to say that what they meant was “a little bit more than almost no one”, whatever that means, then still nothing substantive really changes.

Pointing out use of hyperbole isn’t a free pass to invalidate someone’s opinion, or at least I don’t think so. It just comes across as a bit obtuse. It seems you knew what they meant because you even said it would be fair to say it was a small number, you just objected to their phrasing.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Maybe we could get a separate sub forum for pedantry.

More on topic though, we might be looking at our first sub 10,000 player weekend. I'll be very interested in seeing the size of the uptick in player numbers for the next patch, and if it can be sustained for more than a week. That might be our first indicator that the game has a potential future.

 

[user746383]

That, or maybe reviews starting to trend back up instead of further down. In the last couple weeks, reviews from people who bought the game on Steam are now 47% positive all time (down from 48%) and 34% positive recently (down from 36%).

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I guess, 6.5k still “almost no one” numbers im my opinion.

"Just continue with a Civ almost no one likes"

6,500 concurrent players four months after launch would be a raging success for most games. And we know there are lots of people who love Civ 7, because some of them are right here on this forum posting about the game.

I think in the interest of civil discourse, we should try not dismissing the people who are enjoying the game as being "almost no one". We're throwing enough actual and speculative numbers we can discuss, instead.

 

[Krikkit1]

Maybe we could get a separate sub forum for pedantry.

That would be the entire forum…civfanatics without pedantry is like the joke of the internet without porn

 

[user746383]

Yeah, I think it goes back to what you’re thinking of as the denominator. If you’re thinking “of people playing AAA games right now” it’s a low number. If you’re thinking “of people on CFC” it’s probably pretty high. But makes sense regarding civil discourse, people can interpret it in different ways so I’ll try to remember to avoid using it.

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

6,500 concurrent players four months after launch would be a raging success for most games. And we know there are lots of people who love Civ 7, because some of them are right here on this forum posting about the game.

I think in the interest of civil discourse, we should try not dismissing the people who are enjoying the game as being "almost no one". We're throwing enough actual and speculative numbers we can discuss, instead.

Civilization is not most games though. Again VII had expectations as a sequel to such a renowned AAA series, 6500 is pitiful in that context especially with majority negative reviews...

Also no where did I state that no one liked the game. Obviously there are people here who enjoy the game, they are just an absolute minority when it comes to the fanbase. Sure you can object to my saying "almost no one" but it seems quite pedantic when we're talking about game with overwhelmingly negative reviews and ten thousand less average players than a title in the same series released in 2010

 

[Xur]

The civ7/humankind formula is basicly marmite. There’s a small market for marmite and some people like it. I just want someone to make marmalade again. No one is selling though. Only got the old and stale civ4/5/6. I wanted something new - not marmite/civ7.

 

[queenpea]

Revenue wise, if we assume a $35 cost for an expansion (half base game for convenience)…

I hope you’re sitting down for this, but I am betting on an EP cost of around US $60.

 

[MutilationWave]

I hope you’re sitting down for this, but I am betting on an EP cost of around US $60.

Absurdly greedy. I hope you're wrong.

 

[Kev1916]

6,500 concurrent players four months after launch would be a raging success for most games. And we know there are lots of people who love Civ 7, because some of them are right here on this forum posting about the game.

I think in the interest of civil discourse, we should try not dismissing the people who are enjoying the game as being "almost no one". We're throwing enough actual and speculative numbers we can discuss, instead.

If were using the number#s game as of now

Civ V - 18,000 Players
Civ V1 - 43,000 Players

civ V11 - 8,500 Players.

I dont see much of any continuing success . The pile on to buy the game worked , 2K got the initial cash up front and pulled an insidious with held con, that may yet back fire

From now on in this version is either facing a slow death or at best a slow drip life support.

Good will is at an all time low with an astronomical price and below par Dlc's . They aint going to fix the age's it aint gong to get better .

And judging by the reception/playerbase/lack of detailed info in takeTwo report, it's highly doubtful they would pull 2 expansions and waste so much money , playing will get one expension and you better hope it good as it's likely to be the last

 

[Gorbles]

I guess, 6.5k still “almost no one” numbers im my opinion. I don’t see the point in arguing over whether some tiny number is technically almost no one, when there’s no way to define almost no one as some specific number. If you can convince them to say that what they meant was “a little bit more than almost no one”, whatever that means, then still nothing substantive really changes.

There are games that would kill for several thousand concurrent players. The fact that this is poor compared to older Civ titles, while important, is not a free pass to invalidate those concurrent players.

Considering the claims you make about critical posters being attacked and marginalised, this feels very inconsistent to me. Are minority positions only important if they overlap with your own? Shouldn't the principle be what's important?

You see 6.5k (up to 9.5k right now, which also magnifies the overall daily unique players) as "almost no-one". By the same standard we should completely ignore the entirety of this subforum. Of CFC as a whole! We are a statistical blip. You were a prominent poster in the "complaints subforum" thread. I hope you can see the irony

This isn't pedantry. This is an important point about how we keep ourselves consistent and honest.

But feel free to undervalue dissenting opinion (as this is what it increasingly feels like to enjoy this game), if that's what works for you.

 

[user746383]

You and anyone else can enjoy the game if you like, I do too, it doesn’t mean it has a lot of players though depending on what you’re comparing to. I personally compare against other games with similar budgets. Being aware it’s not doing well compared to similar games in terms of investment doesn’t invalidate anyone liking it. Or it shouldn’t anyway. If only one person in the entire world liked it I would support them sharing their opinion and would be interested in hearing it. If I was that one person and someone said “almost no one likes it” I wouldn’t be offended. I just don’t see it as an attack I guess.

Almost none of the people where I live come from where I’m from. This statement doesn’t invalidate my existence and I can’t even come up with any way to find it offensive. Almost nobody here likes the same food as I do, or likes the same movies as I do. But again, not sure how to force myself to be offended by that. I love playing civ4, almost no one is playing that game, and that’s not a “self own”. Not sure how else to explain it so all I have is examples.

I think you’ve misunderstood my complaint about being obtuse if you think it was intended to have people who like the game stop posting. If there was a “let’s isolate the people who like the game to some subforum until/if reviews are positive” thread I’d disagree with that too. The intention was about recommending trying to understand what people meant and not pedantically misread them for easy points against something they weren’t even trying to say.

 

[Leucarum]

The player numbers matter when it comes to how much revenue those players bring in versus how much continued support for Civ7 costs. There's presumably a world where the scale and scope of future expansions gets dialled back but the game continues to get support and is profitable from a lower base than Firaxis had hoped. I mean, Everquest still seems be profitable and alive if you want an extreme example of a game subsisting after a fall.

I.e. the folks arguing that the context of this being an AA game matters are right... but also the folks arguing that the player numbers could be sufficient to sustain the game in some form may also likely be right.

 

[sixty4half]

"Astronomical price" is a bit of hyperbole