Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[Leucarum]

I've just got another view. In the current situation with the game, discussing hot takes brings more viewers than actually streaming it. I hope by what we see the situation will change soon

I have to give you credit for always seeking out the happiest possible interpretations. It's unexpected given that your profile pic is a mushroom cloud

I guess no publicity is bad publicity... There's an audience which wants Civ to be good. But what will it take for the news cycle to become positive? A pound of flesh must be taken out of the dev's original vision as an offering to the youtube gods I suspect.

 

[itix]

We quite easily accepted that with the discount and settler edition Civ7 got an influx of new players, who left a lot of negative reviews and went further. But the real interesting question - why those reviews were mostly negative, but reviews before stabilized on mixed and maybe even slightly positive? What's the difference between audiences in those parts? I see some possible explanations:

I have been wondering that too. I assume that when it is on sale, there are more fast deciding buyers who expect Civ 6 sequel.
Likewise, when sold at full price, buyers do more research before decision.

 

[kotpeter]

You make it sound like it's the minority of people that are negative towards the game. How many are positive around here? I see 3 or 4 people defending the game and at times suspending reality to do so. At least the negative criticism isn't entirely delusional and they are somewhat constructive. If we "omit" those pesky 53% negative reviews on steam, we would have a 100% positive reviews. Man, I'm so stupid, why didn't I think of that. Civ7 is perfect now.

I just wanted to point out that some people who are negative about the game spend a lot of time criticizing it, but those who aren't negative just play the game and don't invent reasons to nitpick it.

I always get a bit sad when someone mentions Ed Beach or someone else from the development team being personally responsible that "the game is a failure". Regardless of what the game is, finding someone to blame for it is both disrespectful and useless. Giving constructive feedback and sending bug reports is what's good for the game's future.

 

[Xur]

I just wanted to point out that some people who are negative about the game spend a lot of time criticizing it, but those who aren't negative just play the game and don't invent reasons to nitpick it.

I always get a bit sad when someone mentions Ed Beach or someone else from the development team being personally responsible that "the game is a failure". Regardless of what the game is, finding someone to blame for it is both disrespectful and useless. Giving constructive feedback and sending bug reports is what's good for the game's future.

When you are in a car crash, you usually ask the driver what went wrong.

 

[Kev1916]

Speaking of civ 7 reception, it seems like the Reddit community is much less negative towards Civ 7 these days. And civfanatics too if we omit those 10+ people who constantly express negativity towards almost everything civ7-related, be it UI or game slogan.

Your missing out the retire from Civ Vii thread , and the 86 people on Civ Fantics that will never buy this version !

 

[AD1730]

It could easily be that, the trouble is that if that's where the views are... That's that people are watching... If that's the opinion which is being spread to potential customers it still matters.

Reviews are predominantly negative, Twitch streams are a ghost town, player counts lag behind those of its predecessors, YouTube videos are mostly negative, and sales are sluggish (according to corporate executives). Virtually every piece of data we have for this game paints a negative picture.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I have to give you credit for always seeking out the happiest possible interpretations. It's unexpected given that your profile pic is a mushroom cloud

I wouldn't say it's a happy interpretation. The situation when people are more interested in debates around the game than the game itself looks quite sad to me.

I guess no publicity is bad publicity... There's an audience which wants Civ to be good. But what will it take for the news cycle to become positive? A pound of flesh must be taken out of the dev's original vision as an offering to the youtube gods I suspect.

I don't expect youtubers to praise the game, I expect them to post game streams and "tips and tricks" videos. I want to focus on the game, not battle about it.

Your missing out the retire from Civ Vii thread , and the 86 people on Civ Fantics that will never buy this version !

That's one of the places where absolute numbers and percentage paint totally different pictures. We could say that among old-time hardcore fans Civ7 changes aren't popular and we see it in our polls. But when we see how many those old-time hard core fans are there, the perspective is changed. 86 people compared to millions of game owners is almost unnoticeable.

Sure, there are a lot of people who strongly dislike the game and never buy it outside this poll and outside this forum, but how many of them total actually?

And yes, I know about negative reviews, but very few of them actually refunded the game. Most of them bought it and play it, some spent hundreds of hours, some purchase DLCs. For Firaxis they are customers with concerns, but still customers.

 

[Acken]

And yes, I know about negative reviews, but very few of them actually refunded the game. Most of them bought it and play it, some spent hundreds of hours, some purchase DLCs. For Firaxis they are customers with concerns, but still customers.

If someone unhappy with the game still buys every DLC that's indeed quite a great customer. That said it's likely such a cold reception will drive the figures down on average andespecially for DLCs which is a huge revenue stream for these games. It's basically the whole business model ofthis franchise nowadays: Release a base game that hooks people and offer overpriced DLC to scratch their impulsive spending hitch. If the hook underperforms it's obviously a huge concern.

 

[j51]

When you are in a car crash, you usually ask the driver what went wrong.

Yeah it’s not the same though is it? No person has died, or even been injured. Unless you’re an investor or a higher up at Take 2 who did what shouldn’t matter to you, just if and how they’ll fix it?

 

[Civinator]

It's likely because many people who dislike the game have left or lost hope in it.

I can only contribute here by my handling of that situation: What I wanted to say was posted in the past. Always repeating it again and again, for me is a waste of time. I only post here at present, if I find something new for me in the discussion like "streamlining" or to answer questions like additions in the slogan by the advertisment.

Of course this doesn´t mean that the situation of Civ 7 in my eyes now is becoming better. It is the turn on Firaxis to deliver a better solution if they want me to become more interested in that game.

On the other side from time to time I am still reading those posts here and watching the "trench warfare" between a handful of supporters of both sides, wondering how many thousands of likes they gave each other for their brainless repeating of always the same positions.

 

[stealth_nsk]

If someone unhappy with the game still buys every DLC that's indeed quite a great customer. That said it's likely such a cold reception will drive the figures down on average andespecially for DLCs which is a huge revenue stream for these games. It's basically the whole business model ofthis franchise nowadays: Release a base game that hooks people and offer overpriced DLC to scratch their impulsive spending hitch. If the hook underperforms it's obviously a huge concern.

Negative reviews clearly hurt sales - many people delay their purchase, buying both later and with big discounts, so the company loses money from both those factors. And some may forgot and not buy the game at all. I totally understand this and surely the company should and does things about it. The focus on patches and communications Firaxis has, including delaying first part of the RtR for more patches, are the things to fight negativity.

But I wouldn't use emotional words here, like "hook" or "overpriced". It's just a normal business model, where you use DLC and other tools for segmentation and pay for the base game, which without DLC in underpriced (compared to the development cost).

 

[aieeegrunt]

I have to give you credit for always seeking out the happiest possible interpretations. It's unexpected given that your profile pic is a mushroom cloud

I guess no publicity is bad publicity... There's an audience which wants Civ to be good. But what will it take for the news cycle to become positive? A pound of flesh must be taken out of the dev's original vision as an offering to the youtube gods I suspect.

It would take a Civ game being an actual Civ game for that, which 7 isn’t.

The simplest explanation for the recent sale causing a burst of negative reciews is more causal fans of the series going “hey another civ is out, it’s on sale”, playing it, going “the hell is this” and refunding and/or bad review.

I just wanted to point out that some people who are negative about the game spend a lot of time criticizing it, but those who aren't negative just play the game and don't invent reasons to nitpick it.

I always get a bit sad when someone mentions Ed Beach or someone else from the development team being personally responsible that "the game is a failure". Regardless of what the game is, finding someone to blame for it is both disrespectful and useless. Giving constructive feedback and sending bug reports is what's good for the game's future.

Yes, human beings definitly perform well with zero accountability or criticism.

 

[Acken]

But I wouldn't use emotional words here, like "hook" or "overpriced". It's just a normal business model, where you use DLC and other tools for segmentation and pay for the base game, which without DLC in underpriced (compared to the development cost).

To be clear I am not saying these word "emotionally". I was happy to be part of it for previous iterations. And I am agreeing to this model on other video games (Paradox games...) or even boardgames (like card games lol).
I don't think it's controversial to describe it with those words rather than euphemisms.

Also I have to strongly disagree that the base game is underpriced.

 

[Xur]

Yeah it’s not the same though is it? No person has died, or even been injured. Unless you’re an investor or a higher up at Take 2 who did what shouldn’t matter to you, just if and how they’ll fix it?

It’s just an analogy to point out how silly it is to claim that Ed Beach has no part in the failure of civ7. It’s not meant to be a one to one scenario. You also dont require injuries or deaths in a car crash by the way. If you want to misunderstand the analogy, it can get hard to discuss topics. You end up appearing dishonest.

 

[Crashdummy]

Speaking of civ 7 reception, it seems like the Reddit community is much less negative towards Civ 7 these days. And civfanatics too if we omit those 10+ people who constantly express negativity towards almost everything civ7-related, be it UI or game slogan.

Its not. Reddit has fanatics that can bury threads with dislikes, which cant be done here. There were a lot of negative threads near the launch, but the people writing there moved away from it because of the terrible system

Discord is HEAVILY moderated

The most "true" place to get feedback is youtube and maybe X, where people get the notification of a new message from Firaxis or from a content crator and get reminder of the game

 

[Crashdummy]

I've just got another view. In the current situation with the game, discussing hot takes brings more viewers than actually streaming it. I hope by what we see the situation will change soon

People were getting more views streaming Expedition 33 and Kiingdom Come 2 than discussing hot takes, i wonder why?

Maybe because those were actually good games that the players liked, unlike Civ VII?

 

[boesthius]

Potato McWhiskey is completely off Civ, and Emotional Husky is flirting with Old World now. Being a Civ streamer is awkward, unless you are catering to grizzled vets with Civ 3 and 4 content.

it's kind of a blessing in disguise because i've wanted to branch off of civ content for a while, so this kind of helps segue that a bit more naturally. but also it sucks because i genuinely want civ 7 to do well, as on a purely selfish standpoint Civ 7 doing well is better overall for me than just me making a follow up video on the state of the game or any negative press in general

It's hard to tell... But I think the idea that people have moved on if they absolutely hate the game checks out.

A lot of the places where people engaged seem both quieter than normal and not as hostile as social media. That includes Civ fanatics, just look at the series discussing the civs/leaders. Those seem so quiet I'm surprised. Meanwhile the Civ7 discord paints such a rosy picture I presume there's a lot of moderation going on, as nowhere on the internet is that positive...

Meanwhile youtube appears to have fully become hostile territory to Civ7. There's almost no lets plays with reasonable numbers of views, and the most positive videos you find are the ones tracking changes to see if it's good yet. That could be down to the algorithm, but it still matters given how many people get their news/opinions from there!

tiktok comments are the worst now but there was a reason why youtube comments reigned supreme as the worst type of comment on social media for years lol. its a bit of the algorithm, but honestly i think outside of the game not being great at this time the next biggest thing firaxis has to combat is the perception of the game because the perception of the game is that it's just absolute garbage and dogshit when thats the furthest from the case - its realistically just a bad to mid civ game (i.e a 5 or 6 out of 10.) obviously i'm not the end all be all let alone an expert as im just some dumb little youtuber - but i'm just going off of my experience of being lambasted on a daily basis about it lol

 

[aelf]

And do you seriously think, this "someone" did a good job and found all the right angels there?

That's not what I'm saying, is it?

The whole purpose of making a product is to satisfy the customer's wants and needs. If they produce a product that doesnt do that it should justifiably fail. That's fundamental market economics. Part of this process is predicting or knowing what your customer wants. The Devs for Civ predicted that more people would play a game to build something you believe in, instead of playing a game to build a powerful empire that stands the test of time. They are wrong and it demonstrates they dont know their audience. And they are getting slapped around in the marketplace for being incorrect.

Again, speaking from hindsight. The process of creating a product that would be released several years down the line doesn't get that benefit.

 

[stealth_nsk]

To be clear I am not saying these word "emotionally". I was happy to be part of it for previous iterations. And I am agreeing to this model on other video games (Paradox games...) or even boardgames (like card games lol).
I don't think it's controversial to describe it with those words rather than euphemisms.

Also I have to strongly disagree that the base game is underpriced.

What I mean here is that the game with the development cost of Civilization and the audience of Civilization can't pay for itself by selling base game only. It need to segment users both up (by upselling with DLC and expansions) and down (with discounts).

 

[j51]

It’s just an analogy to point out how silly it is to claim that Ed Beach has no part in the failure of civ7. It’s not meant to be a one to one scenario. You also dont require injuries or deaths in a car crash by the way. If you want to misunderstand the analogy, it can get hard to discuss topics. You end up appearing dishonest.

No one is claiming he didn’t. It’s his ship so it ultimately is his responsibility, but to continuously call people out by name on a fan forum is gauche.

That’s said, yes I did read too much into the analogy. My bad there.