stealth_nsk
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Civ7 disn't publish any sales numbers yet. The only official info we had so far is the record sales on preorders.
Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread
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user343744
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True. I went to SteamDB and overlaid the Civ VII graph with Civilization: Beyond Earth, aligned for release. I had to put my glasses on, I thought they were the same graph, looked eerily similar and we know how Beyond Earth turned out...
Crashdummy
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inZOI is irrelevant and most people dont consider it a success
We have better comparison metrics. Civ 7 is following Beyond Earth numbers. Do we consider BE a success or a failure? Same genre, same company.
Firaxis wouldnt be desperately changing stuff every month if Civ 7 was a success. They were never this aggresive with changes before. They also had to publish several "dev updates" where they admit age transitions and civ switching were not well received
I dont know what more do we need here
We have better comparison metrics. Civ 7 is following Beyond Earth numbers. Do we consider BE a success or a failure? Same genre, same company.
Firaxis wouldnt be desperately changing stuff every month if Civ 7 was a success. They were never this aggresive with changes before. They also had to publish several "dev updates" where they admit age transitions and civ switching were not well received
I dont know what more do we need here
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The Civ 7 reviews at steam now are balanced (ausgeglichen) and the slogan is somewhat modified:
I would translate it: Build something you believe in and create a legend to stand the eras of Civilization VII.
The new addition in the slogan in my eyes is not convincing, too (and may be my translation is not the best, too).
I would translate it: Build something you believe in and create a legend to stand the eras of Civilization VII.
The new addition in the slogan in my eyes is not convincing, too (and may be my translation is not the best, too).
Crashdummy
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I think that part is this one, the fact that they try to change it at all shows how desperate they are. I still see more negative reviews than positive ones, it might have to do with languages
King Flevance
Deity
Civilization is the market leader for turn based strategy empire builders. They are in no danger of going bankrupt and it is very unlikely 2k will panic and scrap the project either. Civ 7 will do damage control for the next few years and most likely pull the product into profitability. The good news is, civ switching will likely go away in future installments.
However, I do think we will always have this particularly unique iteration in the game's catalogue with civ switching in tact in the franchise's history. Some will hate it as such (like I still dislike Civ 5) and some will fondly look back on it.
Even if you dislike 7, as someone who didnt like 5's direction you should hope it does well. Because that will lead to more Civ games, most of which, you'll like. Then you will meet people a decade or two from now who will say that they started playing with Civ 7 and LOVED it and have been a fan ever since. Similar to how anyone reading this who started with 5 and LOVED it appears to me. (I am happy the civ community grew but I was unhappy with the franchise for a few years. But I had Civ 4 to keep me entertained.) If Civilization as a franchise were to die because of 7, it would not be a good thing for this fanbase. I get that some of us are upset over the direction the franchise has moved into, but the good news is that the criticisms have been heard and now a scramble is happening to try to appeal to a wide enough market to cut losses. Civilization as a franchise will survive this and you may love or hate Civ 8.
The monetization of the franchise has me worried more than anything. These $30 DLCs are a joke. I will not be supporting a model that makes Nintendo look generous. I have the base game and will buy expansions for 7 most likely but to spend $15 per civ is insane. I can buy some pretty awesome games for $30 on Steam and games I love have DLCs priced under $10. I think the new model is so that they can still sell the DLCs for $7.49 with a big [-75%] next to it or $11.99 with a big [-60%] next to it. (That is basically full price for Civ 6's DLCs that add 2 civs) They marked the price up to "mark it down" and still get full price. I will not be supporting that model.
However, I do think we will always have this particularly unique iteration in the game's catalogue with civ switching in tact in the franchise's history. Some will hate it as such (like I still dislike Civ 5) and some will fondly look back on it.
Even if you dislike 7, as someone who didnt like 5's direction you should hope it does well. Because that will lead to more Civ games, most of which, you'll like. Then you will meet people a decade or two from now who will say that they started playing with Civ 7 and LOVED it and have been a fan ever since. Similar to how anyone reading this who started with 5 and LOVED it appears to me. (I am happy the civ community grew but I was unhappy with the franchise for a few years. But I had Civ 4 to keep me entertained.) If Civilization as a franchise were to die because of 7, it would not be a good thing for this fanbase. I get that some of us are upset over the direction the franchise has moved into, but the good news is that the criticisms have been heard and now a scramble is happening to try to appeal to a wide enough market to cut losses. Civilization as a franchise will survive this and you may love or hate Civ 8.
The monetization of the franchise has me worried more than anything. These $30 DLCs are a joke. I will not be supporting a model that makes Nintendo look generous. I have the base game and will buy expansions for 7 most likely but to spend $15 per civ is insane. I can buy some pretty awesome games for $30 on Steam and games I love have DLCs priced under $10. I think the new model is so that they can still sell the DLCs for $7.49 with a big [-75%] next to it or $11.99 with a big [-60%] next to it. (That is basically full price for Civ 6's DLCs that add 2 civs) They marked the price up to "mark it down" and still get full price. I will not be supporting that model.
Crashdummy
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I think Firaxis will understand in time that they need to provide a Classic Mode as an option to the current mode. I dont want the current mode removed for those that like it, but i do think if they want to save Civ 7, they need to make a Classic Mode. The situation currently is not even close to that of Civ 5, its more like Beyond Earth
About the monetization, yeah, launching this after we had games like Expedition 33 or KCD 2 one for less than 40 bucks and one for less than 50 is not acceptable and it makes my suspicion that these changes are so they can sell cheaper Civs for more money sound like they make more and more sense
King Flevance
Deity
My civ 5 reference was based on personal taste, not profitability. Civilization as a franchise is in no danger of being abandoned the way Beyond Earth was. Even Beyond Earth got an expansion before it was abandoned and it wasn't a flagship title. I think Civ 7 will get an expansion and many updates before it gets a 'Classic mode' to try and sell this design before throwing in the towel. But there is a lot of damage control going on so I think there is a small chance we see a half assed version of a classic mode implemented in the next year if things get bad enough. But I don't think it is likely.
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Legacy is something different compared to the German translation "Legende" by Firaxis.
"echoes through the Ages": For me this sounds even worse to my translation, as in the first era there is no "echo".
Pfeffersack
Deity
For steam reviews, it's 43% positive for the recent and 47% overall for me. I remember that both values already have been slightly worse in the recent past, but it is also not really a true upward trend in my book.
The changing of the description wording is though really interesting, nice catch @Civinator !
Attributing this just to the changes which have already happened is rather unconvincing - it is uncommon to change a description because of this...and just keeping now nearly all units around on their previous positionis is nice, but rather an overdue change and hardly "following a rooted part in history" (for me, the only explanation in this scenario would be seeing the intended restrict civ switching as "historic" and the new option to switch without limitations as "reimagining possibilities"...but that feels rather far-fetched).As @Crashdummy wrote it really can come over as desperate...and/ or...and that is of course the variant: Already hinting on the next things to common. Crashdummy also mention the aggressivenessin changes which wasn't there before in the series and the willingness to change stuff. I mentioned it a while ago, that I don't think the separate eras will go. Far to entrenched in vision and game code, but civ switching is different. I recently though that the chance that we will see a classic mode is there, but still very small and rather theoretic, but the combination of having played/discovered to mods already covering this (just rest a moment: it is even possible to mod it...), the recent patch changes (plus the insisting that more is coming and ground was just paved for bigger changes) and now the slogan change...my feeling is now that we might be in for a not so surprising suprise
(=optional classic mode) here.EDIT: Another argument for a classic mode is BTW the option already added option to freely change to any civ. If that concession is optionally made despite not meeting the initial design philosophy, why not the opposite of "stick with a civ"? However, it might be a classic mode in style of the Steam mod "Enduring Empires" (you can only start with a civ in its intended era, so e.g. no France as ancient start) and not like @Gedemon designed in "Classic Civ" at least for Exploration civs.
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At the starting page of the steam shop for Civ 7 both positions are listed as "Ausgeglichen" (Balanced).
I have qualifications in psychology and I'm interested in the psychological dimension of the response to Civ7. I don't think this has got that much attention. I noticed this phrase in a recent post by the developers:
The part that struck me was "the player's sense of empire identity". I found myself wondering if this could have come out of a focus group, though that is pure speculation. However, it seems striking to me that they perceive the question of identity as being a factor in the poor reception of the game, and I'm not surprised. Identification seems to be a key psychological factor in all sorts of scenarios -- political affiliation, support for sporting teams or players, and other sorts of "belonging".
I'm speculating again, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a lot of Chinese people like playing as China, a lot of Americans would like to play as the USA, and so forth. If that is the case, then it might be that a large part of the poor reception of Civ7 is down to the odd juxtapositions of leader and Civ and switching from one era to another. I could well see how it would seem weird to a lot of people, rather than creative and interesting.
It will be interesting to see what solutions they come up with for "improving the player's sense of empire identity". They indicated that this and other problems are tricky to solve and will take time. That suggests to me that they may be looking at some quite profound changes, but -- that is speculation again.
On another subject -- when I look at SteamDB it shows that Civ7 has just over half the number of players that Civ5 has. If I were the developer I would not be thinking this launch was a success.
The part that struck me was "the player's sense of empire identity". I found myself wondering if this could have come out of a focus group, though that is pure speculation. However, it seems striking to me that they perceive the question of identity as being a factor in the poor reception of the game, and I'm not surprised. Identification seems to be a key psychological factor in all sorts of scenarios -- political affiliation, support for sporting teams or players, and other sorts of "belonging".
I'm speculating again, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a lot of Chinese people like playing as China, a lot of Americans would like to play as the USA, and so forth. If that is the case, then it might be that a large part of the poor reception of Civ7 is down to the odd juxtapositions of leader and Civ and switching from one era to another. I could well see how it would seem weird to a lot of people, rather than creative and interesting.
It will be interesting to see what solutions they come up with for "improving the player's sense of empire identity". They indicated that this and other problems are tricky to solve and will take time. That suggests to me that they may be looking at some quite profound changes, but -- that is speculation again.
On another subject -- when I look at SteamDB it shows that Civ7 has just over half the number of players that Civ5 has. If I were the developer I would not be thinking this launch was a success.
Leucarum
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I wouldn't be surprised if you're right that players identifying with specific civs is an issue. It would be very interesting to know how many players played a specific civ repeatedly in previous civ games. In one of the publicity materials firaxis put out, Confucious and Han were among the most played civs/leaderd so there may be some evidence here if sales in China were quite strong?
I don't think it neccessarily needs to be nationalistic though. I like ancient history more than modern history, hence I get more excited by playing antiquity era civs than most of the later ones, including those I could identify with for nationalistic reasons. I'd like to not have to change from the antiquity civs I get excited by.
Beyond civ choice though I've said before that I think a lot of the problems with 7 stem from mechanics which feel bad. Civ switching, crises, narrow legacy paths, the era reset - all are mechsnics which can be frustrating rather than fun. There have been pushes back from forum posters who think feeling something is irrelavent... But I maintain that it might be a more intractable problem than the game mechanics. Maybe you can fix a poorly implemented mechanic, but can you make it feel fun?
Crashdummy
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Well, thats how it shows up in the english steam page. I didnt do the translation and i dont understand German
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I am sure your text of course is the original new slogan and I am wondering a little bit about the German official translation.
As much as people don't want to believe it, I think in the current landscape, just about any game has the possibility of going bankrupt and being shut down. Okay, sure, some games are just machines that print money, but for a game like civ, it's a long development cycle, the company would have put in an awful lot to get it out there, and if the counts are down and they're not selling what they expect, there's definitely a strong chance that the people at the top won't keep throwing money at it.
Now, granted, the "good" about a game like civ is that since it's out there, and it doesn't rely on some online server infrastructure or anything, they could "shut down" the game and people could still play it. And the marginal cost to put out DLC content probably means that even if the game is being trimmed down, they could probably keep enough people on to put together enough to release some DLC packs.
The problem though I would think is that if the game just doesn't perform up to par on the long term, they lose enough players that the DLC aren't profitable, etc... it's more likely that the studio just wouldn't have the runway to really run a long development cycle for like a civ 8, and would conceivably shut down. Sid himself obviously isn't doing the hands-on work as much, but it's not inconceivable that he goes off on a full retirement with this iteration of the game, and if the studio isn't confident that the next iteration would turn things around, they might rather just not have another iteration.
Now, granted, I don't actually know the internal structure of the studio. So there's certainly always a possibility that 2k looks at the books and doesn't want to pursue a Civ 8, but the Firaxis team still do, and they either reach a deal, or sell them off, or the employees all leave and start a new studio, or whatever. But in this day and age, with how expensive some stuff is, one bad year or one bad release could be the end of the line for anything.
Maiq
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I think the most likely scenario is that they of course do 8 but it is just with a budget way less than a Civ game deserves.
I think they'll most likely do a Civ 5 future era edition for 30$ which will include new graphics, network code and bugfixes, as well as a new dlc pack for Civ 5 for 30$. This is a win-win for them: in addition to earning some needed money for less effort, they'll also make players jump from old codebase with open-sourced ddl to the new closed-source codebase, and gameplay mods for Civ 5 won't be as competitive with firaxis installments anymore.
I'm not saying I'm expecting it or want it, of course not. But that's just how I'm reading this situation.
I'm not saying I'm expecting it or want it, of course not. But that's just how I'm reading this situation.
I would speculate that the age transition system is perceived as a successful addition to gameplay. I don't think there was any significant criticism by the community towards it. The civ switching, whilst not as cumbersome and confusing as in Humankind, is a bigger issue though. I think trying to provide fresh gameplay assets for different parts of the game during the ages is a great idea. But a lot of players are just not cool with strange runs starting as Persia, going into Inca and finishing with Japan for instance, which includes AI behaviour. It wouldn't have been an issue if they had a full age-spanning roster of assets for key 'civilisations' the most amount of the player base identifies with (as they have done for India and China to a degree). I can understand that within 2K they needed to look for additional monetisation cases which is really not a Firaxis issue, as it is an industry-wide problem right now. But in this instance it has simply backfired—people don't buy into the base game as long as their age-spanning 'civilisation' is not there. Future civ releases will likely retain the age system but ship with eight or so 'civilisation' clusters that clearly belong to the same respective geo-cultural archetype. Any additional civilisations will then be released in DLCs down the road. I think the game design wasn't so much of a problem here, but the commercial decisions on how to release and present the initial game vs. future content were. The other big game design issue is the legacy paths, which are too narrow and scenario-like. Being able to disable these indicates to me an admission that this has not worked as intended. During a time when more and more gamers have not grown up with board games, board game design goes out of fashion.
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