Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

While I don't dismiss this data, the insights are really interesting, I'd try to clean up it first:
- The data covers only one store along many of them

Only one store but there is little reason to think Amazon sells disproportionately more or less of Civ VII compared to other games than other similar retailers, outside of loss leading discounts that may be available elsewhere. That’s the magic of competition in markets - it homogenises market participant and consumer behaviours.

P.S. Comparison with Assassin’s Creed Shadows are incorrect, because this game is 1 month old, while Civ7 is more than 2 months.

I thought this might get raised. 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.

Of course, comparison against any other game is a bit fraught as they’ll all have different target customers etc. But I think there’s value in it for showing Civ VII is not flying out the door.

 

[Kyriakos]

First weekend day yesterday under 15k players means that the server load is going down and there is a smaller chance of multiplayer crashes

That's like celebrating easy parking at losing teams' stadia

 

[stealth_nsk]

Only one store but there is little reason to think Amazon sells disproportionately more or less of Civ VII compared to other games than other similar retailers, outside of loss leading discounts that may be available elsewhere. That’s the magic of competition in markets - it homogenises market participant and consumer behaviours.

I thought this might get raised. 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.

Of course, comparison against any other game is a bit fraught as they’ll all have different target customers etc. But I think there’s value in it for showing Civ VII is not flying out the door.

Yep. But there are 2 types of information. Some allows you to pull actual numerical data out of it and some is just about subjectively "looking bad" or "good". This piece about 100+ sold is fantastic, because it has absolute number to build further approximations on. The rest is, unfortunately just "vibe" info.

 

[Core Imposter]

Well. We have some more hard data. Easter came and Civ VII did not rise from the dead.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Moderator Action: *SNIP* quoted post has been removed
It's sad that many people can't do this without an arbiter. Like seriously people think that Civ7 having X place is some rating means it's bad? And what place is considered good? And why it's considered good?

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Well. We have some more hard data. Easter came and Civ VII did not rise from the dead.

What's surprising is that this weekend the player numbers dropped more than other recent weekends. It's like Easter has had the opposite effect of the Christmas holiday - people have more time and yet play the game less. Perhaps more people holding out for the 1.2 patch?

 

[stealth_nsk]

What's surprising is that this weekend the player numbers dropped more than other recent weekends. It's like Easter has had the opposite effect of the Christmas holiday - people have more time and yet play the game less. Perhaps more people holding out for the 1.2 patch?

The patch is most obvious explanation. But also:
1. Unlike Christmas/New Year which is celebrated one way or another even by non-Christians, Easter is a strictly Christian holiday (and this year is rare case of all confessions having it at the same time)
2. Depending on local traditions, many people have other things to do on Easter than playing video games.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

It's sad that many people can't do this without an arbiter. Like seriously people think that Civ7 having X place is some rating means it's bad? And what place is considered good? And why it's considered good?

Low sales don’t mean the product is bad, nor do they mean it’s unpopular amongst the people who’ve already bought it. They do however mean it’s not even remotely popular amongst would-be customers on Amazon right now and hasn’t been for a month (given only the PS5 standard edition could eke out more then 100 sales in that time). Given Amazon is hardly a backwater retailer that’s a frankly shocking stat.

2. Depending on local traditions, many people have other things to do on Easter than playing video games.

I would counsel against such broad brush assumptions when arguing for empirical rigour from others. I also don’t recall a similar argument being made during Ramadan and Eid recently, either.

While we don’t have perfect information by any stretch, there is enough directional data in the player retention numbers, qualitative and quantitative review data and the sales rankings data I posted for me to feel comfortable that the game is in a troubled place right now. Let’s hope the patch this week is a first step towards changing that.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play the game itself!

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

The patch is most obvious explanation. But also:
1. Unlike Christmas/New Year which is celebrated one way or another even by non-Christians, Easter is a strictly Christian holiday (and this year is rare case of all confessions having it at the same time)
2. Depending on local traditions, many people have other things to do on Easter than playing video games.

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.

 

[stealth_nsk]

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.

As I wrote, the main factor is patch, anyway

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

As I wrote, the main factor is patch, anyway

As I wrote, we shall see.

Also, interesting that you are so quick to ascribe the low numbers to this so assuredly, when just last page you insisted you were as critical towards data and theories which could support the success of the game as the failure.

I don't think any more needs to be said about it than that, I think your posting is quite explanatory enough.

 

[stealth_nsk]

As I wrote, we shall see.

Also, interesting that you are so quick to ascribe the low numbers to this so assuredly, when just last page you insisted you were as critical towards data and theories which could support the success of the game as the failure.

I don't think any more needs to be said about it than that, I think your posting is quite explanatory enough.

We have 2 kinds of info:
1. Data which could actually allow estimating game success in number of sales.
2. Data, which could be used for funny speculations and theories, but can't be seriously attributed to game sales. We even had tradition to post useless stats in the previous iteration of the game.

Since there's no calculatable correlation between number of simultaneous players and number of sales (other than the initial wave and even this with big assumptions), those discussions on current sales are totally in the area of funny speculations. The effect of patch waiting is something we observed on many games before, including Civ, that's why I tell about it in more or less certainty, but surely I can be wrong and I clearly don't try to pull any game success/failure conclusions from it.

 

[GeneralZift]

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play the game itself!

What, really? After this, the numbers must have doubled

 

[Calcifer]

I don’t know about others, but I usually go on a trip during the Easter holidays, because the weather is nicer. In fact I’m only engaging here because I’m not on PC, otherwise I would be playing civ.

During Christmas holiday on the other hand I stay home and have nothing to do other than eating and play games.

At this point anyway the main thing that can make the player count go up in my opinion is a discount. I’m not familiar with steam discount patterns but I think Christmas is more likely to have discounts than Easter, especially if Easter is just 3 months after the launch.

 

[bitula]

I haven't seen any data on purchase decline yet. The post above is the second piece of information ever giving us absolute numbers and since first was about Steam and this one is about consoles, they can't be compared with.

I mean, the sharp decline in number of reviews itself is the indicator of decline in number of purchases. Don't you think so?

 

[stealth_nsk]

I mean, the sharp decline in number of reviews itself is the indicator of decline in number of purchases. Don't you think so?

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.

 

[Nikolai II]

1. Unlike Christmas/New Year which is celebrated one way or another even by non-Christians, Easter is a strictly Christian holiday (and this year is rare case of all confessions having it at the same time)

Heh, in Norway we have all of us vacation from Thursday to today, Monday. Most people are skiing, watching crime on tv or reading crime, and many gamers are on LAN. Easter is big, but for people like me who are Christians, the holiday has long lost its meaning for most. But it is a big holiday.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Let me throw a snippet of information in that may or may not mean anything but I find really interesting. Civ Fanatic's page on Facebook has had two recent posts explode in interest, usually we get about 1k of interactions but a post about the new patch has over 15k and one regarding the VR version has nearly 20k! It's not scientific, maybe some algorithm just got triggered, but it's certainly noteworthy.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Let me through a snippet of information in that may or may not mean anything but I find really interesting. Civ Fanatic's page on Facebook has had two recent posts explode in interest, usually we get about 1k of interactions but a post about the new patch has over 15k and one regarding the VR version has nearly 20k! It's not scientific, maybe some algorithm just got triggered, but it's certainly noteworthy.

Since that's the area of fun data and wild speculations, my guess is that VR post was wildly promoted by Facebook, since it's for MetaQuest.

 

[MutilationWave]

Heh, in Norway we have all of us vacation from Thursday to today, Monday. Most people are skiing, watching crime on tv or reading crime, and many gamers are on LAN. Easter is big, but for people like me who are Christians, the holiday has long lost its meaning for most. But it is a big holiday.

Many of us in the US are envious of your work culture, freedom, and high standard of living. Some people here cannot conceive that another country could be better than ours. Others think it was never that great here and getting worse rapidly. Unsurprisingly, the first group are generally people who have never left the country. The second group is thinking it may be time to leave permanently...

I tried to keep that less political because this isn't the place for it. I just wanted to say I think your county is doing great.

My family are not religious but I still went to my wife's mom's to have Easter dinner. Sometimes the tradition is important even without religion.